ALQST calls on the four football clubs competing now in Riyadh in the Supercopa de España, the Spanish Super Cup – Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid and Athletic Bilbao – to take a stand on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia, and to urge the Saudi authorities to respect people’s rights and freedoms.

The Supercopa was staged in the Saudi kingdom for the first time in January 2020, in Jeddah, under a multiyear deal with the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) worth between 240 and 320 million euros. This season’s tournament is under way now in the Saudi capital, with the final to be played on Sunday, 16 January 2022.

ALQST reminds the four clubs that football is a game with the potential to spread tolerance and love between nations. It always claims to respect rights and freedoms and to outlaw any assault on or transgression of those rights. Collaborating with an autocratic government like that of Saudi Arabia is simply a way of laundering the kingdom’s dreadful reputation in the area of human rights. Football must not be allowed to provide a means of glossing over the repressive Saudi authorities' crimes and “sportswashing” their reputation.

ALQST would also like to remind the four clubs and the RFEF of the Saudi authorities’ abysmal record on women’s rights, free speech, LGBT rights and freedom of religion and belief – not to mention the horrendous crime of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in October 2018, and the killing of activists and reformers in Saudi prisons, such as the iconic human rights activist Abdullah al-Hamid, and the political and social reformer Musa al-Qarni.

ALQST for Human Rights is an award-winning NGO based in London that documents rights violations in Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula and campaigns for the fundamental rights and freedoms of all without discrimination. 

We say: “Let football nurture the values of human rights and public freedoms and reflect the messages of equality and justice, not cover up the crimes of autocratic regimes.”