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Headlines say that Saudi Arabia will prioritize the creation of sports facilities and scale back the development of NEOM whose costs have ballooned recently without making significant achievements.

The full achievement of the city Neom, a planned cross-border city, is hugely questioned and probably will get some major modifications. As for now, Saudi Arabia has confirmed to scale back its lofty ambitions for the NEOM giga-project. Instead, it prioritizes the completion of elements essential to hosting global sporting events over the next decade as rising development costs weigh on the national budget. The change of direction was made public in connection with the departure of the project's longtime CEO, Nadhmi al-Nasr.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MbS, is said to have poured the equivalent of $ 500 billion into development projects through the kingdom's PIF sovereign wealth fund. Given that the Kingdom is pushing simultaneously 7 mega projects while at the same time, oil prices and lower production continue to hit its economy which is still heavily reliant on hydrocarbon revenues, it had to take some serious steps to avert a full-scale breakdown.

NEOM, a Red Sea urban and industrial development nearly the size of Belgium (+/- 26,500-square-km) that was planned to house about nine million people, several zones high-tech zones, including industrial and logistics areas, is central to the prince's Vision 2030 plan to create new engines of economic growth beyond oil. The key project of NEOM is "The Line" - which was envisioned as a 200-metre-wide series of "modules" for different urban uses sandwiched between two 500-metre-high, 170-km-long mirrored exterior facades that cut through a vast array of desert and mountains.

While the initial cost for “The Line” were estimated to be in the region of $500 billion, today, the estimated cost exceeds double, i.e. over one trillion which was why it's been scaled back. Given the present conditions, the project is now solely focused on finishing a stretch of 2.4 kilometers. In this section, a stadium is expected to be built. The latter is expected to host the final match of the 2034 soccer World Cup, after which plans will be evaluated. Another project priority is the completion of Trojena, a planned mountain resort that will host the Asian Winter Games in 2029.

Sources familiar with the matter indicate that all and everything is being questioned. While improvements in the project management style can be achieved (as for, now different projects are working in silos and there is a lot of overlap – this needs a little more coordination), it can be expected that the major problem of ongoing inducement and related actions can’t be eliminated. It is part of the local culture.