Amnesty International: Ronaldo move to Saudi Arabia is part of “sportswashing”

Cristiano Ronaldo was officially welcomed to his new club in Saudi Arabia, Al Nassr, earlier this week. He said he decided to take the opportunity to join Al Nassr because he wants to “give a different vision of this club and country”.

The vision many across the world have now is that of a country with many human rights abuses (mass executions of people without free trial, no freedom of expression, to name a few) and a club that is using “sportswashing” to try to distract from those human rights abuses.

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Amnesty International calls on Ronaldo to use his platform to take a stance

Recently, Saudi Arabia has started making some high-profile, expensive sporting purchases, including buying English soccer club Newcastle United and hosting golf competitions and the Grand Prix. This spending spree is widely viewed as an attempt to divert attention away from the human rights issues in the country and make Saudi Arabia look like a more modern and civilized nation. Their new signing of Cristiano Ronaldo is widely seen as just another attempt at that same thing.

Human rights organization Amnesty International warned that Saudi Arabia would likely use Ronaldo’s presence as a “means of distracting from the country’s appalling human rights record”.

Dana Ahmed a Middle East researcher for the organization, has called on Ronaldo to use his time there to speak out. As he has said he took the opportunity to give a different vision of the club, Ahmed says he should start by bringing awareness to the issues. Ronaldo has around 530 million followers on Instagram alone.

“Al-Nassr’s signing of Cristiano Ronaldo fits into a wider pattern of sportswashing in Saudi Arabia,” said Ahmed. “Rather than praising Saudi Arabia without criticism, Ronaldo should use his considerable public platform to draw attention to human rights issues in the country.”

“Saudi Arabia regularly executes people for crimes including murder, rape and drug smuggling. On a single day last year, 81 people were put to death, many of whom were tried in grossly unfair trials. The authorities are also continuing their crackdown on freedom of expression and association, with heavy prison sentences handed down to human rights defenders, women’s rights activists and other political activists.”

“Cristiano Ronaldo should not allow his fame and celebrity status to become a tool of Saudi’s sportswashing. He should use his time at Al-Nassr to speak out about the myriad human rights issues in the country.”

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Ronaldo arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on January 3 to begin his time with Al Nassr, who reportedly signed a deal that will earn him over $200 million a year. Ronaldo left Manchester United after a controversial interview with Piers Morgan in which he criticized the club and manager Erik Ten Hag.

In that same interview, Morgan said to Ronaldo, “if it was just about money, you’d be in Saudi Arabia earning the king’s ransom, but that’s not what motivates you. You want to keep at the top.”

To that, Ronaldo responded, “exactly”.