Just over a day later after the largest million-dollar exhibition in the history of tennis ended in Riyadh With the presence of the main figures of the racket, 106 professional footballers from 24 different countries sent a letter this Monday to the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, in which they demand that the organization break the sponsorship agreement with Aramco, the Saudi state oil company, as it is an autocratic regime that systematically violates women’s rights and criminalizes the LGTBIQ+ community. “The Saudi authorities have spent billions on sports sponsorships to try to divert attention from the regime’s brutal reputation in terms of human rights, but its treatment of women speaks for itself,” denounces the letter, which EL PAÍS and that comes after the organization will sign a “global agreement” in April with the company, the largest energy company in the world, to become a “main global partner” of FIFA until the end of 2027 along with firms such as Coca Cola, Adidas, Visa, Qatar Airways or Hyundai-Kia.
The players, among whom are the Finnish forward of Real Sociedad Sanni Franssi or the Spanish Maitante López —twice international with the national team and currently at NJ/NY Gotham of the American League—they also complain to Infantino that Aramco contributes to climate change that undermines the future of soccer. “A company that has an obvious responsibility in the climate crisis and that is owned by a State that criminalizes LGTBIQ+ people and that systematically oppresses women has no right to sponsor our beautiful sport. We want everyone in Saudi Arabia, including women and girls, to have access to and enjoy sport. We are demonstrating because we are with the citizens of Saudi Arabia whose human rights are violated,” adds the letter, signed, among others, by Jessie Fleming, captain of the Canadian team, or Becky Sauerbrunn, former captain of the American team, winner of two World Cups ( 2015 and 2019), from the Olympic Games (London 2012) and a player for the Portland Thorns.
The Arab country, which is going to organize the 2034 men’s World Cup, It is an absolute monarchy in which The king controls the legislative, executive and judicial powers, That is, there is no separation of powers or the rule of law as in Western democracies. It is also the leading crude oil exporter on a global scale and responsible for around 10% of world supply. With the contract with FIFA—the organization does not reveal the amount it receives from the oil company, but according to The Times exceeds 90 million euros annually—, Aramco ensures that it will be a sponsor of the men’s World Cup in 2026 and the women’s World Cup in 2027, “a punch in the stomach of women’s football,” says the text.
Sofie Junge Pedersen, a player for Inter Milan and the Danish national team, is one of the promoters of the letter: “Infantino said last summer at the Women’s World Cup: ‘You have the power to convince us men of what we have to do and what we don’t, so do it.’ And that’s what we’re doing. “I can’t believe that FIFA is going to close its eyes to the women who are being imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, and all for more money,” Pedersen complains in conversation with this newspaper.
The Danish footballer refers, for example, to the case of doctoral student Salma Al Shehab, 36 years old. She, a mother of two children, was arrested when she returned to Saudi Arabia in December 2020 to spend the holidays – she was studying in the United Kingdom – and later sentenced to 27 years in prison for her comments on Twitter, where she redisseminated messages from activists critical of the regime and in favor of women’s rights. Since 2017, when Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salmán was appointed – who de facto exercises the power that formally corresponds to his father, King Salmán, 88 years old—, The absolute monarchy of the Saud has intensified repression to muzzle dissent on social networks, according to the exiled Saudi human rights group ALQST. These alleged crimes are considered “cybercrimes” and are assimilated to acts of terrorism. “We, as players, want to support these women, using the voices we have that have been denied to them,” says Junge Pedersen.
Before Bin Salman was elevated to heir to the throne, death sentences or decades in prison had never been handed down in Saudi Arabia for social media posts, according to Human Rights Watch. The players urge FIFA to create a review committee with representation of the players that is responsible for “evaluating the ethical implications of future sponsorship agreements and ensuring that they are in line with the values and objectives” of football. “We deserve much more from our governing body than the alliance with this sponsor nightmarish. How can FIFA justify this sponsorship taking into account the human rights violations committed by the Saudi authorities?” Infantino is asked.
Consulted by this newspaper, the organization that regulates world football defends that the income generated by the contract with the oil company helps the development of football played by women around the world, also in Saudi Arabia. “We value our sponsorship with Aramco. “FIFA is an inclusive organization with many other commercial partners that also finance other sports,” says a spokesperson for the organization.
Both Pedersen and Maitane López hope that more professionals will support the initiative today now that it has been made public. “In women’s football we have been fighting since we started, and it is essential to do so so that other societies that do not have the same conditions can have them,” López tells this newspaper. “It just can’t be that they are giving us money and then we stop caring that there are people dying or that there are women without a voice or any type of autonomy,” she adds.
The response of the soccer players, a sport in which many professionals are part of the LGTBIQ+ community, goes against the current of what is happening in most disciplines—golf, motorcycling, tennis, men’s soccer, Formula 1…—, into which oil money from the Persian Gulf has poured in. Saudi Arabia spends billions of euros to whitewash its reputation through the influence of sport, what in English is known by the eloquent term of sportswashing. In recent years, Riyadh has promoted a vast image-washing operation in the service of the Vision 2030 project, its roadmap for the country’s future. This includes ending the almost absolute dependence on oil in its economy and attracting investments and tourists, objectives that are irreconcilable with its reputation as a reactionary dictatorship and repressor of human rights.
The request to FIFA also arrives the same month in which It has been six years since the death of Jamal Khashoggi, The journalist critical of the Riyadh regime murdered on October 2, 2018 in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul by direct order of Bin Salmán, according to the CIA. “It is important that all football – men, women, clubs and federations – defend values crucial to human rights and the planet we share. “We are very proud of what women’s football represents, such as gender equality, inclusion and LGTBIQ+ rights,” says Pedersen. And he adds: “I am not going to play quietly when I know that Aramco is one of the biggest causes of damage to the planet and that its owner, the Saudi State, violates human rights in such a brutal way. “I will not be part of those who distract attention from these violations.”
See below the English letter from the footballers and who the signatories are:
