I saw something to make me scoff with amused despair, a thing embodying many a madness and badness of our age. It was a child-sized replica football shirt, swinging gently on its hanger, at a seaside market stall on the Adriatic coast. It’s a noticeably well-appointed retail operation, this stall. Beach towels, Bluetooth speakers, snorkels, fridge magnets, swimwear, pouches of lavender, imitation handguns … you know the kind of thing.
The football strips included plenty of Croatian national team shirts, plus those of clubs with Croatian players: Modrić’s name printed on Real Madrid shirts, Perišić’s on Tottenham’s, Kovačić’s at Chelsea and so on. (I didn’t ask, but there is probably a deal to be done on that Chelsea shirt, as Kovačić is now at Man City). I doubt any of these garments were what you might call authentic™ official© merchandise®. But whatever.
There was a dull, greyish shirt I didn’t recognise. I lowered my sunglasses for a closer squint and read the name: Al Nassr. Surely not. This is one of the four clubs in the Saudi Arabian league now controlled by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The shirt swung around to reveal Ronaldo’s name on the back. Ah yes, the great Cristiano is there. Now in his desperately late 30s, he is being paid about £180m a year to play for them.
So, in summary, here we had a counterfeit Saudi Arabian football shirt, doubtless made at all but zero cost in China or thereabouts, now on sale on a market stall in central Europe. The shirt supposedly replicated the colours of Al Nassr – although, let’s be honest, who knows what colour they play in? Turns out it’s yellow at home and dark blue away. Perhaps the manufacturer was unsure, so played it safe and plumped for a neutral.
The shirt itself must have travelled 5,000 miles to be here, to a place where I can’t imagine anyone within 1,000 miles could be interested in buying it. We have to assume that a criminal mastermind somewhere heard the news that Ronaldo had signed for Al Nassr and that the vast amount of money paid would be recouped in shirt sales. I’ll have a bit of that, they thought, and a phone call was made to a factory somewhere to knock up some knock-off product for worldwide distribution.
There were reports in Saudi Arabia of the club’s official store shifting 400 Ronaldo shirts a day at almost $100 (£78) a pop. But that is in Saudi Arabia, where I doubt cheap imitations are so readily available.
As the Saudis try their damnedest to buy the world’s game, laughter is now our last refuge. Do they really think they can turn Al Nassr into a global – in other words, counterfeitable – brand and have us tune in to live the thrills and spills of the Saudi Arabian league? They must be joking.
Even if they do pull this off, they’re having a laugh if they think it will have the desired effect. There is this assumption that sportswashing works, especially with football fans. I suspect there is a bit of a class thing going on here – as in, we are all thought gullible enough to have our awareness of the Saudis’ human rights record washed clean out of our simple minds. That won’t happen.
I know plenty of fans of Newcastle United who have no choice but to hold their noses at being Saudi-owned. Each one of them will celebrate wildly if and when success comes their way. But not one of them will change their view on the Saudi Arabian regime’s human rights record. Thanks for the dosh, they’ll end up saying, but we know exactly what you are. Call it hypocrisy if you like, but it’s also how we will have the last laugh.
• Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
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