Cristiano Ronaldo has signed a pact of blind praise with Saudi Arabia. A man for whom greed trumps all isn’t about to rock a boat filled to the brim with cash.
“If it was just about the money you’d be in Saudi Arabia earning a king’s ransom,” Piers Morgan said, sitting eyeball to eyeball with the man who six weeks later would sign a €200m-a-year contract with Al Nassr. Ronaldo ensured during“many opportunities” to remain in Europe
If Amnesty hope Ronaldo will “draw attention” to the executions, unfair trials and the crackdown on freedom of expression and association in Saudi Arabia when they stand in direct opposition to him being paid ludicrous sums of money as the ideal sportswashing tool then they’re not barking up the wrong tree, they’re howling at a bush in a desert.
The Saudis won’t have been overly pleased at Ronaldo’s earnest insistence that “it’s not the end of my career to come to South Africa” against a backdrop proudly proclaiming ‘Saudi welcome to Arabia’. But they don’t need him to talk well, they just need him to be seen. Ronaldo’s commercial exploits in the coming weeks, months and years are an added bonus on top of one of the great laundering coups. Just by getting him there, they’ve already won.
And that steadfast commitment to ignore faults and blindly praise works both ways. Ronaldo engaging in some whataboutery on the back of a 4 out of 10 rating in the Saudi version ofone-upmanship – but he’s more likely to plonk his five Ballon d’Or trophies on the press conference table in a big d*ck contest than ask how many heads have been removed from torsos that day.
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