The female footballers against the FIFA-Saudi Arabia agreement:“Brutal Sponsor”

More than one hundred female footballers have sent a letter to FIFA asking to stop their sponsorship with Saudi Aramco

• More than one hundred professional footballers have signed a letter asking FIFA to cancel the agreement with the sponsor Saudi Aramco, a Saudi Arabian oil company
• They define the country as a place where "brutal human rights violations" occur
• Aramco is expected to sponsor the 2027 Women's World Cup

While Saudi Arabia continues to sign millionaire agreements with various international federations to sponsor and organize some of the most important sporting events on the planet, there are those who try to say "no" in the name of respect for human rights.More than one hundred professional female footballers have signed and sent it to FIFA a letter to ask for the cancellation of the commercial agreement with Saudi Aramco, the state oil company of Saudi Arabia, accusing the Riyadh authorities of being responsible for “brutal violation of human rights”and to carry out practices of “sportwashing”.In the document, the footballers define the Saudi regime as an "autocratic regime that systematically violates women's rights and criminalizes the LGBTQ+ community".

The letter and the controversial precedents with Saudi Arabia

The triggering reason was theagreement which FIFA signed last April with Saudi Aramco to sponsor the next ones world of women's football which will be held in 2027 in Brazil.A situation that adds to the precedent of the last World Cup, that of 2023, for which FIFA had initially obtained sponsorship from Visit Saudi. 

“The authorities of Saudi Arabia – we read in the letter from the players, as anticipated by El Pais – have spent millions on sports sponsorships to try to deflect attention from the regime's brutal human rights reputation, but the treatment of women speaks for itself."Among the signatories there is also the player of the Italian national team and Roma Elena Linari, together with some of the most important athletes in the world, such as the Spanish attacker Maitane Lopez, the Finnish striker Sanni Franssi, in addition to the captain of the Canadian national team, Jessie Fleming, And Becky Sauerbrunn, former captain of the US national team, winner of the 2015 and 2019 World Cups.

The letter specifies that female footballers deserve something more from the organization that controls world football (Fifa) than an alliance with a sponsor that is defined as “nightmarish.Precisely to support Saudi women whose rights are violated we have decided to speak out and we refuse to be complicit in these abuses.We believe it is appropriate for FIFA to reconsider its partnership with Saudi Aramco as soon as possible and replace it with sponsors more in line with values ​​such as the defense of gender equality, human rights and the security of the entire planet."

There FIFA at the moment he didn't answer on the merits of the letter, but argued that any revenue obtained from these types of commercial agreements is reinvested on multiple levels and that thanks also to these new resources, investments in women's football are continually growing.For the first time, however, professional female footballers are taking a stand and asking world football to do the same.It will need to be checked if values ​​and ethics prevail or capital promised by the oil company.