Brian Kerr was highly critical of players who have chosen to join teams in Saudi Arabia. The former Ireland manager said they "don't seem to have any conscience" regarding the human rights abuses committed by the Saudi government.
Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane, Jordan Henderson, Karim Benzema and Roberto Firmino are just some of the players who have moved to the Saudi Pro League.
"The Saudi Arabia intervention is extraordinary," Kerr told Virgin Media during their coverage of the European Super Cup on Wednesday.
"It's fairly obscene the amount of money that's being offered to players and some managers also to go there and work. It's an extreme form of sportswashing, without any shadow of a doubt.
"The players who are going, I would say they don't seem to have any conscience about it whatsoever and throw out the one, 'I need to look after my family for the future'.
"If they had a look in any depth at how the Saudi government run the country, and their treatment of people and the way they can be almost blasé about killing people, killing off people without trial, all sorts of stuff that are fairly scandalous in my view...
9 September 2003; Republic of Ireland manager Brian Kerr congratulates Richard Dunne on his late equalizer at the end of the game. Friendly International, Republic of Ireland v Turkey, Lansdowne Road, Dublin. Picture credit; David Maher / SPORTSFILE *EDI*
"It's not just Jordan Henderson. Any player that has a bit of a conscience about world affairs and about how people should be treated and how women should be treated...
"There's lots of reasons why players and coaches in general should stand up and say 'It's not somewhere I really want to go. It's not culture that I want to be part of'.
"We've seen it happen. They've taken over the golf and they will take over other sports. You see the boxing going there and other sports have aligned themselves very much and decided to take the money. It's going to be very hard to stop that.
"I think somebody has to have a bit of a conscience about it and make a statement, and say 'I'm not prepared to go there just because there's a lot of money involved'."
Brian Kerr slams players moving to Saudi Arabia
Kerr continued: "My problem with it is not just the players taking the money, it's the use of the money that they have because of the resources that they have.
"The use of the money to buy football players, to buy coaches, to build stadiums, to attract people to watch more football in Saudi Arabia.
"It's the use of the money they have instead of using the money for the welfare of other places in the world. Half of Africa is starving and are going to struggle for water with climate change.
"They don't seem to be interested in doing anything about that. They want to do something about attracting an audience, attracting tourism."
Ireland legend Richard Dunne said he understood Kerr's criticism but added: "For a player, it's very difficult because you look at it as a job, not as a political stance. You've got four or five years or whatever it may be, so you go an make obscene amounts of money, and you're comfortable for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, players will take it."
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