Let me tell you, then: Abu Dhabi, like Qatar, is ruled by a family based dictatorship which have built up wealth on the back of huge oil findings and a kafala system of exploiting and deceiving migrant workers devoid of citicen rights. Free speech and free press is banned by the City owners. Well aware of the short perspective of oil richness, they have started a diversification process aimed at transforming their money into other forms of wealth without having to relinquish power, give inhabitantsrights as citizens or stop persecuting and torturing their own people for political reasons. To succeed in that, they deemmit necessary to simultaneously invest in varius Western and international projects, and to make their oppressing dictatorship more palatable and attractive as business partners, they are investing in sports to make some people get used to them, others to defend them. This ploy has been used by most dictatorships since the early days of Rome, it’s not really very unusual as PR stunts for oppressors. Abu Dhabi has in fact been so succesfull with this project that now even people who hated them intensely for all sorts of reason, willuse them as a beacon for how Man United should be used similarily. Do you now see more of what political gain they get?
I’m sure you do not really believe they just do it for the fun and banter.