The deserts of Qatar have much more than enough - sand, sun, and camels but also money and the desire to spend it in search of international recognition.
It was Qatari money which more than doubled football's world record transfer fee on Thursday in bringing Brazilian star Neymar from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain and it was simply the latest sporting investment made by the Gulf Emirate.
At 222 million euros (263 million dollars) - before wages, bonuses and commissions - the transfer of the 25-year-old raised eyebrows across the globe.
The record deal is a coup for PSG as a team but also for club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi - a former Qatari tennis player who was once ranked 995th in the world. It is safe to say he would hardly get out of bed these days for the 16,201 dollars he won in ATP prize money.
After his active career, Al-Khelaifi rose to become a powerful player in the sports industry and thus boosted the agenda of his close friend Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani - the ruler of Qatar.
In 2011, Al-Khelaifi's state-owned investor group bought the majority of shares in PSG who were, at that point, a club of only modest means and equally modest success.
Since then, millions and millions of dollars of sponsorship from the Qatari tourist body have been invested to secure four French titles - double the number previously won from the team's foundation in 1970.
Now the Champions League, the pinnacle of club football, is the goal. Neymar will be expected to deliver.
In sport, Qatar has found a way of expressing itself. Not that it is crazy for physical exercise but there are few other areas in which influence can simply be bought so readily.
And in a time when Qatar is under pressure from neigbourhood rivals - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt have cut diplomatic relations over allegations of Doha funding radical Islamists - cutting supplies, Neymar is a big statement.
"Qatar has not capitulated, it is fighting back - and the Neymar signing is part of that," Simon Chadwick, professor of sports enterprise at the University of Salford in Britain told the Bloomberg financial news agency.
"It's a charm offensive, a soft power stance - there's something of international diplomacy in all of this."
The glory Qatar is buying is, for the moment at least, rarely gained on the field but in the supply.
The 2022 World Cup, to be held in Qatar during the European winter to avoid the worst of the desert heat, is the most high-profile event the gulf state has won the right to host. But it is following a steady line of other top-class championships.
Handball in 2015 and cycling in 2016 have hosted showpiece events in Qatar while gymnastics in 2018 and athletics in 2019 will follow. Two Olympic bids so far have failed but another for 2028 is considered certain.
And then there are various sponsorship deals of teams or competitions in motorsport, horse racing, golf and tennis.
The sports policy has not been without controversy - the bidding process for the World Cup has been examined for corruption and the treatment of construction workers in preparing sites has been criticized.
But the signing of Neymar seems proof the show, for now, will go on.
By Benno Schwinghammer
