Amnesty International said, “Ronaldo, don’t be silent on Saudi human rights issues.”
Human rights group Amnesty International has asked Ronaldo (38, Alnasr) to speak out on human rights issues in Saudi Arabia.
Ronaldo should not allow his reputation and celebrity status to be a sports washing tool for Saudi authorities,” Dana Ahmed, a Middle East researcher at Amnesty International, said in a statement on the 5th (Korea Standard Time).
According to Amnesty International, the Saudi government executes the death penalty for crimes such as murder, sexual assault and drug trafficking, and 81 people were executed in a day alone last year. Amnesty International noted that many of them have faced very unfair trials.
Ahmed said, “Saudi authorities still do not recognize freedom of expression, freedom of association, human rights activists and women’s activists. “We sentenced political activists to heavy sentences,” he said. “Saudi authorities are likely to use Ronaldo presence in their country as a means to turn their attention away from the terrible human rights situation,” he said. Ronaldo should speak out about Saudi Arabia’s myriad human rights issues while playing for Alnasr.”
Ronaldo wore an Alnasr uniform with a grand joining ceremony the previous day. According to European and North American media, Ronaldo annual salary amounts to 200 million euros (about 270 billion won). Ronaldo said at a press conference, “I thought it was a great opportunity for me to change the minds of the younger generation as well as Saudi football.”
Ronaldo`s was virtually released after an interview criticizing his team Manchester United (England) in November last year. Ronaldo`s looked for his next destination with the European club playing in the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League (UCL) as a priority, but it was not possible and eventually wore an Alnasr uniform.
The biggest reason he is recognized is his performance in the Champions League. It is the best competition to prove that Ronaldo is a strong player in big games and big stages, calming criticism that he is a Yang Hak-yong player, and to show that he is a player who can win no matter what team he competes with. At the end of Real Madrid, he still played in the league, and the best performance in the 16-17 season was two goals in the group stage and the round of 16, but later scored 10 goals in five matches from the knockout stage of the quarterfinals to the final.[40]
If you look closely at Ronaldo’s performance in the Champions League, you can see that the clutch ability to save the team by concentrating when it is in crisis is excellent. In the 2015–2016 season, he reversed his 2-0 Champions League quarter-final defeat to Wolfsburg with a hat-trick and scored many important goals to win in numerous tournament matches. In the 2018-2019 Champions League, Ronaldo showed a hat-trick one-man show in the second leg of the round of 16 and beat Atletico to advance to the quarterfinals. In response, the BBC openly praised the expression, “UCL father Ronaldo has come to an end again.”
First of all, Ronaldo has the highest scoring record in a season in the Champions League. And they can be said to be their successors, surpassing the now-legendary Alfredo Di Stefano and Raul González, the original Champions League man. In fact, commentators Han Joon-hee and Jang Ji-hyun both chose Ronaldo as the No. 1 player in the Champions League history. The biggest reason Ronaldo and Real Madrid CF, which he belonged to, can be called the best players and teams even now, is because of their overwhelming performance at the Champions. In addition, he scored the most goals (140 goals), the most goals (17 goals), the most offensive points (22P) in a season, the most consecutive goals (11 games), the most assists (44 assists), the most goals scored (7 times), the most goals scored in the UCL finals (4 goals), and the most wins (5 goals) in the league. Even when he sometimes had a slump in the league, he was flying around at the Champions.
Also, he scored more than most clubs after reaching 100 goals! After the reorganization from the European Cup to the Champions League in the 92-93 season, one individual is in the top 10 in the club’s scoring rankings, and even before the reorganization, his career goal is almost the same as that of the prestigious Ajax of the Netherlands. It is even more surprising in terms of the number of wins, because Ronaldo’s UCL wins are more than Liverpool FC and Paris Saint-Germain FC combined in terms of the record until 2018.