Tessel Middag: ‘We call on all players to support our letter!’

We spoke to Tessel Middag, player at Glasgow Rangers and member of the Scottish Players Council at PFA Scotland. She is currently world news with her letter to FIFA calling for the reconsideration of sponsor Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company from Saudi Arabia.

Hi Tessel, how are you?

Fine, busy though. Lots of media on the line, 10 interviews given today. BBC Scotland, BBC News, Sky News and in the Netherlands: RTL, EenVandaag, Nieuwsuur, ESPN. Australian radio is still to come. All newspapers worldwide are writing about it. Actually too much to mention, but we are very happy with all the attention to our letter to FIFA.

How did it come about?

Well, I saw that Saudi Aramco was supposed to be the new sponsor of FIFA. A state-owned company of a country that on the one hand tramples on human rights, women’s and LGBTQ rights, and on the other creates immense CO2 emissions in times of climate change. That is not the direction we want football to go. We cannot and will not leave it that way for future generations.

Through Inter’s Danish Sofie Pedersen and New Zealand’s Katie Rood, ex-Heart of Midlothian and Juventus, we got in touch with Melissa Wilson. The Team GB Olympic rower has already launched several campaigns in which athletes are committed to helping the planet. The organisation behind this campaign is called Athletes of the World.

So the ball got rolling and pretty soon we had more than 100 signatures under our letter. Partly because of our network, the statement originated from women and women’s football, but it is certainly not the case that men cannot join in. On the contrary, English player David Wheeler has backed the statement on Twitter X, and we urge other players to do the same!

And can other players still sign your letter?

Yes, please, you can do so here:
https://athletesoftheworld.org/fifa-x-saudi-aramco

Ok, well, thanks for this conversation, Tessel, good luck with your action and good luck at Rangers!