Saudi Arabia, sports, and human rights

CARTER

With the World Cup ending in December, its competitors have returned to playing club soccer. Lionel Messi is back to playing with Paris-Saint Germain, Christian Pulisic is back with Chelsea, and Harry Kane is back with Tottenham. Christiano Ronaldo, however, the face of soccer for the past decade, has chosen to not return to his club team, Manchester United. Instead, Ronaldo signed the biggest contract in soccer history with the Saudi Arabian club team, Al Nassr, which will pay Ronaldo $75 million annually.

Given Ronaldo’s current net worth (which is estimated to be around $300 million) and Saudi Arabia’s questionable human rights record, it was selfish of Ronaldo to take this contract. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for athletes getting paid for what they are worth. Professional athletes are some of the most talented human beings alive, and they should be paid as such. But wealthy individuals like Ronaldo have no need for such large sums of money and accepting such underhanded deals compromises their integrity. The reason Ronaldo will be paid so much is because the Saudi Arabian government is attempting to bring prominent players to their leagues, which they are able to do with the extreme wealth their corrupt government possesses.

While the Saudi government may be wealthy, what their government has done since Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman took power has been nothing short of immoral. It was just in 2018 when the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post who criticized the Saudi government, took place at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. It was later concluded by the CIA that Mohammad Bin Salman ordered Khashoggi to be killed. It speaks volumes about Ronaldo’s character when he chooses to align himself with such a government.

I am not surprised by Ronaldo’s choice, though, given that the World Cup just happened in Qatar. Qatar had no business hosting the World Cup, and there have long been allegations of bribery and corruption since the site was announced in 2010. Even worse, 6500 deaths occurred among migrant workers building stadiums in the 10 years since Qatar was announced as the host of the World Cup, all of which occurred under the watch of the Qatari government. Yet, the World Cup went on without Ronaldo or any other prominent soccer player mentioning these tragedies.

Is this how Ronaldo wants to finish his career? Ronaldo is 37 and has signed with Al Nassr until 2025. If I wanted to go down as one of the greats along with the likes of Messi and Pelé, I wouldn’t spend some of my last – if not the last – years playing in a corrupt country for money when I could still be competing for Champions League titles.

Of course, in Ronaldo’s defense, he’s not the only athlete who decided to play for a Saudi Arabian run league-- he is just the most famous one. Many PGA Tour golfers are also playing for Saudi Arabia’s new LIV golf tour. Some of the best players in golf ranging from Phil Mickelson to Bryson DeChambeau have joined LIV. Similar to Ronaldo, these golfers aren’t gaining better matches by playing for LIV, they are just receiving exorbitant amounts of money in exchange for their participation. They are clearly going to Saudi Arabia for the money, yet most LIV players say that they are supposedly going to grow the game of golf in the country. Now, I would respect the golfers if they admitted the truth-- that they were in Saudia Arabia for the money rather than the golfing experience-- but instead, they choose to blatantly lie to their fans and the public in favor of becoming wealthier. In fact, the LIV tournaments are worse competition than the PGA Tour with 54 holes, rather than 72 holes, which is in no way growing the game of golf, it is just playing less golf with worse competition for more money.

However, I understand that at the end of the day, athletes are going where the money is but is this really how they want to go down in the record books?