“Even before the horrific killing of Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia had a truly appalling human rights record,” Allan Hogarth, Amnesty International UK’s head of policy, said.
“Big clubs like Juventus and AC Milan need to understand that their participation in sporting events in the country could be used as a form of ‘sportswashing’.
“We’d urge these Italian clubs to think twice about the signal this sends out to sports fans across the world .”
Amnesty International accused Saudi Arabia of wanting to “redo its image” through sporting events and also urged tennis players including Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal to not perform in the country.
Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist critical of his government, was killed after entering his country’s Istanbul consulate on October 2, 2018, to obtain paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancee.
Italy’s former minister of sport, Luca Lotti, took to social media to support Amnesty International’s plea.
“The terrifying news of the horrible death of the journalist Khashoggi leaves me astonished. The international civil community must make its voice heard, at all levels,” he wrote on Facebook.
“I believe that even the Italian sports world cannot and should not hold back. The decision to play the Italian Supercup in Saudi Arabia must be blocked immediately. What happened in the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul cannot be passed over in silence.
“As a member of parliament, as a former minister of sport and as an Italian citizen, I appeal to the Lega Calcio to reconsider the decision to play the Juventus-Milan match in Saudi Arabia and invite the government to make every effort to prevent Italian football from writing a page of rejection in the defense of values and human rights.”
