ARCHIVED - Outrage over decision to host Spanish football Supercopa in Saudi Arabia

RTVE pulls out of broadcasting rights bidding in protest at human rights violations

Only in 2018 were women in Saudi Arabia allowed to attend a football match for the first time

For the second consecutive year controversy surrounds Spanish football’s Supercopa competition, which usually Real Federación Española de Futbol (RFEF) announced that next edition in January will feature four teams and will be held from 8^th to 12^th January in Saudi Arabia.

The move has come in for widespread criticism from many quarters and for many reasons, not least of them the fact that it will be highly impractical for supporters to follow their teams to the matches. Similar objections were raised last year when FC Barcelona defeated Sevilla FC in the Ibn Battouta stadium in Tangiers (Morocco), and this year the distance involved is far greater.

In addition, many object to Atlético de Madrid and Real Madrid being added to the 2019/20 Supercopa along with La Liga champions FC Barcelona and the cup winners Valencia, but again the RFEF shrugs off all complaints on the grounds that more matches attract more worldwide audiences (and, of course, generate more revenue).

But the main objection to the staging of the tournament in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah concerns the country’s human rights record, particularly in reference to women’s rights. In normal conditions women are not even allowed to attend football matches in Saudi Arabia, and numerous cases have been reported of women being jailed for attempting to defend their rights.

These circumstances have led to the public broadcasting company RTVE deciding not to bid for the rights to screen the tournament, a statement made to the press consisting of the question “If at RTVE we back women’s sport, what are we doing in a country where women are imprisoned for defending their rights?”

These objections have raised the whole debate to a different moral plane, and the RFEF president Luis Rubiales explains that special permission has been obtained for women to spectate at Supercopa matches in the same stands and in the same conditions as men. In addition, he claims that the staging of the competition in Saudi Arabia is a lever for social change, meeting the challenge of “helping boys and girls in Saudi Arabia to improve through sport”.

Other arguments being wheeled out include the fact that the Paris-Dakar rally, professional tennis tournaments and other major sporting events are held in Saudi Arabia, and although the German federation announced last week that none of its teams would play in a country where gender rights are not respected their counterparts in Italy have confirmed that their “supercopa” between Lazio and Juventus will take place on 22^nd December in Riyadh.

Sr Rubiales also expresses confidence that this year’s Supercopa will be the “most exciting in history”, although it will do well to exceed the two-leg final in 1994, when unsung Zaragoza almost overturned a 2-goal deficit when winning 5-4 against Barça in the Nou Camp. Either way, it is certainly becoming one of the most talked-about before a ball is kicked...

The King Abdullah stadium

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