Don't go, Rafa

Shalma El-Shebab arrived in Saudi Arabia in December 2020 to spend the holidays from the United Kingdom, where this dental hygienist, mother of two children, was studying a doctorate in Leeds. As soon as she landed, she was detained: from her X account she had retweeted dissidents and activists critical of the Saudi regime. She spent a year in jail awaiting trial. She was sentenced in that trial to six years in prison. There was a second trial without a lawyer in the appeal court: there she was sentenced to 34 years in prison. When she leaves, she is prohibited from leaving the country for another 34 years. She was convicted of “destabilizing civil and national security” on the social network; There, she Shalma El-Shebab had 2,600 followers.

No, Rafa Nadal cannot be the first pure sentinel of Western freedoms and study case by case the deficiencies of each country to refuse to have ties with it. But Shalma El-Shebab is not an anecdote: she is the constant. These are data from Amnesty International: women in Saudi Arabia cannot have a partner or marry without the permission of a man (father or guardian), nor can they divorce without the consent of their husband (the husband can do so, and a recent measure allows requires you to communicate it by text message, since you could get divorced without warning); They cannot study according to what careers without permission from a man (generally a husband or father), nor receive according to what medical treatments, nor live alone without that permission. Since 2015 they can vote and even create a company without a man's authorization; since 2018 they can drive. And women over 21 years of age can now travel abroad without permission from their guardian. Of course, be careful with what you tweet from abroad. As for homosexuality, being homosexual can carry the death penalty, therefore whoever is homosexual must hide it at the risk of ending up tortured with whips in a public square, imprisoned or executed by the State. As of 2019, feminism, atheism and homosexuality are officially “extremist ideas.”

Rafa Nadal, an informed man, knows these things. In 2017, a report in the Icon supplement of EL PAÍS titled 'How is it possible that all Spaniards like Nadal? 30 phrases that could explain it'. The 30 sentences were not easy. Nadal was talking about the Catalan independence movement, about an investigation that the Treasury opened in 2012 into some of his companies, about the behavior of politicians in Congress, about the conflict that arose with Gala León, captain of the Davis women's team in 2015. But he ends up going down – generally – well. Seven years later, he is already a legend in life, considered one of the great athletes in history, and someone who extraordinarily protects what he cannot win with the racket or with money: the affection of millions of fans, his extraordinary reputation. as an exemplary tennis player, with impeccable behavior, supportive, generous, attentive; They are not gratuitous adjectives: ask any worker, tennis player or not, on the circuit.

What leads a figure like him to announce an agreement with Saudi Arabia? At what point do you not believe that he, or Rahm, or Cristiano, or Benzema, are not happy instruments with legitimizing aspirations of the third dictatorship in the world that most applies the death penalty, one of the countries that most suffocates freedom of expression? , sexual freedom, human rights? If it's not money (insert obvious emoji), why do you choose that country and not another, where there are so many children, probably fewer resources, and your face and name do not serve as propaganda for an ultra-religious dictatorship in which it is unbearable to live if you don't look like Rafa Nadal?

The Spanish tennis player, probably immersed in his last year on the circuit, an epic assault, did not need this; not him, precisely, already a symbol for whom this connection leaves him in the delicate position of someone who can only defend himself by telling the truth (it's money, it's business), and he can't even do that. Just the weekend in which Toni Kroos came out booed from a competition sold to the dictatorship, Rubiales and Piqué willingly, for not lending themselves to the farce that everyone knows is a farce and remains silent by wrapping banknotes: that Saudi Arabia has so much money that You can buy almost everything, including what we want most. A country (a regime) in which a tennis player who always flaunted his aversion to extremes has landed, and has ended up advertising the worst of all.

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