2024-01-21 06:45:00
Rafa Nadal has joined this week the list of athletes who have linked their name and image to Saudi Arabia. A country in which Amnesty International assures that “women are second-class citizens, LGTBI people suffer discrimination, migrant workers live in conditions of semi-slavery, activists and opponents are imprisoned and hundreds of people are executed every year.”
Specifically, the Mallorcan has become the ambassador of the Saudi Tennis Federation. “Wherever you look, in Saudi Arabia you can see growth and progress, and I am excited to be part of that,” said the tennis player in the organization’s statement in which the agreement was announced. In addition, the country will host a new headquarters for the Rafa Nadal tennis academy, within the expansion plan planned by the institution after becoming a shareholder in the GPF investment fund.
The tennis player’s social networks were soon filled with comments from fans who criticized his decision to represent tennis in a country where human rights are not respected. Criticism that also occurred when, for example, golfer Jon Rahm decided to leave the PGA circuit to join LIV Golf, a competition financed by the Saudi Government. Although the conditions have not been made public, it is estimated that the Basque will receive around $500 million in exchange, one of the juiciest contracts in the history of sports.
Months before, it was Cristiano Ronaldo who signed, it is estimated that at a rate of 200 million per season, to play in the Saudi Professional League, where he competes with Benzema, who earns 100 million a year. In addition, Saudi Arabia has also taken home the Spanish Super Cup, the Dakar Rally, which Carlos Sainz won on Friday, and has its own F1 prize, among other competitions.
Nadal’s entourage emphasizes, although without revealing figures, that in his case the agreement is not for a very high amount, and that the 14-time Roland Garros champion intends with this alliance to promote the growth of tennis in the country and Help children lead a healthy life through sports.
At a time when Nadal is the Spanish athlete with the best image, according to the 2022 Sports Sponsorship Barometer prepared by SPSG Consulting, the question is whether associating his name with a regime like Saudi Arabia could end up harming him. Opinions on this matter are diverse. Francisco Torreblanca, professor of Strategy and Innovation at ESIC University, assures that “in the very short term” the stir will arise, because “apparently the values associated with Nadal and Saudi Arabia are opposite.” But in the medium and long term it will not affect anything. “Just like what happened recently with the World Cup in Qatar. When it was said that people were going to boycott the sponsoring brands and in the end everything falls into oblivion. There are two or three peak days and it passes,” he says. And especially in the case of Nadal, “who is practically forgiven for everything” since he “likes him, he is the perfect guy.” Torreblanca defines the manacorí as “an antifragile brand that few things can harm.”
The opposite opinion, although with certain doubts, is held by María Isabel Menéndez, professor of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the University of Burgos. “It is always studied in advertising, when a brand chooses a famous person to be a prescriber, how if something happens to them it affects the reputation of the brand. I understand that on the contrary it has to work the same way. If an athlete with an impeccable image associates his image with a company, organization or country whose ethical proposal, behavior or policy is not in tune with the values that were envisaged for that figure, I believe that it can harm him. A reputational crisis can occur. Although it would have to be studied and I am not aware that there is any work on it,” she says.
Menéndez also believes that it would be necessary to analyze to what extent it could affect them in relation to other brands, “which could withdraw their support for associating with an entity with which they do not share values.”
In this regard, Torreblanca is more blunt when he says that “business goes to business and brands are not stupid”, they are not going to give up “athletes, like Cristiano Ronaldo or Benzema, with the peak of popularity they have”, since that if they stop sponsoring them “because of an agreement like this, the main competitor will at any moment throw their nets at them.” “In business, these types of brands are sharks and they care little about general opinion. Unless it is something already dramatic,” he emphasizes.
Among athletes, some voices critical of this type of agreement are also heard, such as that of Madrid player Tony Kroos. “I would never play there; The lack of human rights would prevent me from doing so. It has been said that ambitious football is played there, but everything revolves around money. Going to Arabia is a decision for money and against football,” said the German in an interview last September with Sports Illustrated. His words brought him whistles every time he touched the ball during last week’s Spanish Super Cup in Riyadh. The white half took the situation with humor, judging by a publication after the final on their social networks.
The same channel that he used a few days later to promote Dubai, in a paid advertisement that is part of the agreement that Real Madrid signed with Visit Dubai in October. Amnesty International, which has criticized Nadal’s agreement, has also criticized Kroos for contributing to the United Arab Emirates, where dissent is punishable by prison and women and the LGTBI community have fewer rights than men, to do what they consider to be sportwashing. , using sport to whiten the image of the country.
“These countries use sport in a strategic way as a platform to make visible the change and evolution that is developing in their territories and, on the other hand, they articulate active policies to promote sport among their population, in an increasingly inclusive, and that favors the well-being of society in those countries,” says Carlos Canto, CEO of SPSG Consulting.
Sport, to which Saudi Arabia allocates billions through agreements with players and competitions, is one of the fundamental pillars of the Vision 2030 strategic program, a roadmap to end dependence on oil by diversifying the economy, attracting investments and developing sectors such as tourism. It is promoted by the heir to the throne, Mohamed Bin Salmán, whom the international community considers, among other matters, responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
Menéndez, also author of the book Can advertising be feminist? (Editorial UOC), calls this false openness to which only certain characters have access a “cynical one.” And she names, as an example, the cases of “the partners of soccer players who are not required to meet the requirements that are required of women in that country. From having to be married to not having certain basic freedoms guaranteed.” The professor believes that “a bubble has been created, an apartheid for the rich.”
The consequences of attending a demonstration
M. G.
Itziar Ituño, protagonist of Money Heist, attended a demonstration called by the citizen platform Sare on Saturday the 13th to ask for an end to the policy of exception imposed on ETA prisoners. The images of the actress carrying a banner, which received criticism on social networks, resulted in two companies deciding to disassociate themselves from the image of the actress. The first of them was BMW Lurauto, the brand’s official dealer in Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Navarra, which reported that it was ending its collaboration with Ituño. The second was Iberia, which removed from its social networks and the content offered on its planes a video in which the interpreter talked about her favorite series.
Francisco Torreblanca believes that with athletes “you have more leeway” than with other public figures, such as actors or musicians. But in both cases “it is usually forgiven quickly.”
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