welcome back Cristiano Ronaldo's pittery for joining Saudi Arabia's al-nasa team and the biggest money dealer football history he'd sold out they said at worst he trashed his legacy by Sports washing the brutal Saudi regime Lionel Messi we were sure would never do that and that looks like Messi he closed his rival and the greatest of all time contest although I think Ronaldo edges him will be following him to the desert Kingdom reports suggests the World Cup winner is about to sign a 500 million pound deal with the rival team al-hillau so are these Legends Sports washing a brutal regime or are they just banking the bumper payday they deserve after stunning careers and doing
what many footballers done going and playing in a different country at the Twilight end of their of their football live of drumming as a boxing promoter Frank Warren and by the human rights lawyer and former managing director of these United David Hagel welcome to both of you Frank it's a very emotive issue this I remember when Ronaldo obviously I remember it because I'd done the interview which led to him going there but um I interviewed Cristiano that's why he Jeff United ends up going to Saudi Arabia a lot of Messi fans mocking this now probably having to eat their words because it's like Messi may be following Ronaldo because the money is simply stratospherically higher than these guys could get anywhere else in the world at this stage in their careers are they doing anything morally wrong no I don't think so I think if you first of all you've got to look at the situation that you know last year our elected government and the prime minister is elected at the time Boris Johnson if you remember when there was all the oil prices were shooting up very high he went over to Saudi to try and do a deal for oil for us you know we have companies over here in the UK who who trade on a daily basis providing arms uh uh airplanes cars everything to Saudi so a sportsman who has a very short lifespan or in his career you can't blame them at the end of day for going there I don't you know it's a question of their morals but and again you look back you go back to the 60s I can remember all the English players going to South Africa and when the apartheid was right on lots of them were going now yeah well David hey my issue with this whole Sports washing debate and we had all this over the World Cup in Qatar it's just this stinking hypocrisy whichever way you look everyone who puts on their moral Halo including by the way our country which last time I checked it legally invaded Rock in 2003 .
what right do we have frankly to cast moral aspersions on other countries and players taking their business there given that we let them play here when we did something like that well good evening Pez I mean I certainly agree with you there is there is an awful lot of Human Rights hypocrisy in in football as well when you look at how we deal with for instance Russians owning football clubs at the moment compared to to to to golf dictatorships and you know that's something that you see and you know I agree with with Frank when he says you can't blame people like Lionel Messi for going to these countries but as a human rights lawyer of course I mean I would want them to use the fact that they are going there to help improve the human rights records in those countries and cast a a spotlight on the human rights abuses of which there are many but do you not think that people like Ronaldo are Messi um because of their Global Fame and they're two of the most followed people on social media in the world Ronaldo's number one and I think Messi's number two on Instagram that just by going there and living there and playing sport there they cast an unbelievable light on these countries we saw that with Qatar and so in a way just by being there these guys with their profile they do go quite a long way to highlighting other issues don't they they do I mean that's that that's I think one of the benefits that you get from um players going to countries like this and from what we saw in ights as they think the UK has as well it depends where you are in the world as to how you view these things you know when I was in Canada really struck by how angry they were about all the hypocrisy about human rights not to defend their own issues they just say well who's who's actually pointing the finger at us who's so morally pure I think that's the issue that you've got and you know even you know how do you judge and the football league uh the sorry the Premier League in England have said that they're gonna they're gonna decide whether or not someone is a human rights abuse or on the basis of them