More than 100 professional female soccer players have signed an open letter calling for FIFA to drop a sponsorship deal with Saudi Arabian oil conglomerate Aramco saying the deal was an insult to women’s football.
“For most of our time as professional players, it has felt like things are improving for women in football. For many, our experience now is unrecognisable from that of the women who came before us,” read the letter.
“But FIFA’s announcement of Saudi Aramco as its ‘major’ partner has set us so far back that it’s hard to fully take in,” it continued.
“Saudi Aramco is the main money-pump for Saudi Arabia, and is 98.5 % state-owned. Saudi authorities have been spending billions in sports sponsorship to try to distract from the regime’s brutal human rights reputation, but its treatment of women speaks for itself.”
FIFA and ARAMCO announced the partnership in April 2024. The oil company also has sponsorship deals with Formula One motor-racing, and the Ladies European Tour golf championship among other sports.
Sports and entertainment are at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s drive to open up its economy and society under its 2030 Vision plan, aimed at reducing it reliance on oil. This drive has seen improvements in women rights over the last eight years, but the signatories of the letter suggested abuses against women were continuing.
The letter cited a list of women who are currently in prison or have had their right to leave their homes or travel restricted, for having spoken up publicly in favor of freedom of speech or women’s rights.
It highlighted the case of Salma al-Shehab, a former dental hygienist PhD student at the UK’s Leeds University and a mother of two, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence for retweeting in favour of free speech.
The letter also cited activist Loujain al-Hathloul who was abducted in the UAE and transferred back to Saudi Arabia in 2018, where she was sentenced to five years and eights months in prison in late 2020 for defending women’s right to drive and calling for an end to the patriarchal male guardianship system. She was released from jail in early 2021 but is still subject to a travel ban.
The letter also highlighted the recent case of fitness instructor Manahel al-Otaibi, saying she had been sentenced to 11 years in prison under ‘anti-terror’ laws in March for promoting female empowerment on social media.
“Other women who are currently incarcerated simply for peaceful expression of their views include 18-year-old secondary school student Manal al-Gafiri (imprisoned for 18 years), Fatima al-Shawarbi (30 years), Sukaynah al-Aithan (40 years), and Nourah al-Qahtani (45 years),” continued the letter.
Beyond the issue of women’s rights, the letter also criticised Saudi Arabia’s stance on LGBTQ+ rights as well as the fact the deal with an oil company did not make sense in the age of climate change.
“Imagine LGBTQ+ players, many of whom are heroes of our sport, being expected to promote Saudi Aramco during the 2027 World Cup, the national oil company of a regime that criminalises the relationships that they are in and the values they stand for?,” it read.
“Finally, as the largest state-owned oil and gas company in the world, Saudi Aramco is one of the corporations which is most responsible for burning football’s future Grassroots football across the world is being smashed by extreme heat, drought, fires and floods, but as we all pay the consequences Saudi Arabia rakes in its profits, with FIFA as its cheerleader.”
The FIFA-Aramco deal lasts until 2027 and includes rights across a number of major tournaments, including the World Cup 2026 and the Women’s World Cup 2027.
For now, the Zurich-based soccer body does not look set to dissolve the agreement.
“FIFA values its partnership with Aramco and its many other commercial and rights partners,” the body said in a statement in response to the letter.