Instead it was Saudi Arabia where the world’s media were watching the staging of the Supercoppa Italiana on the pitch of King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah.

Juventus against AC Milan is always a big deal. It is Italy’s most successful club taking on the side that has won the league for the last seven seasons; a Uefa Champions League contender – Juve have reached the final twice in the last four seasons – against a team that has etched itself onto the history of the trophy by lifting it seven times.

There’s little doubt of the glamour of the game and why the Saudis agreed to pay almost US$8 million for each of the three finals they will host over the next five years.

They got what they paid for in Cristiano Ronaldo scoring the only goal of the game to lift his first trophy since moving to Italy last summer and make his club the record Supercoppa winners with eight.

That’s only if you count a game that is essentially a pre-season friendly as a trophy, of course. The traditional curtain raiser to the Italian season moving to midway through the campaign for its Saudi hosts.

Why though was it not played in December, as previous Middle Eastern finals have been, instead of midway through a tournament where Saudi Arabia are among the favourites?

Unlike some Asian Cup matches this game was a sell out in advance. There were more than 60,000 inside the home of Saudi Professional League rivals Al-Ahli and Al-Ittihad.

The Italian press had taken issue with the crowd arrangements, with women not allowed in some sections of the stadium.

Politicians and the journalists union of RAI, the Italian state TV broadcaster showing the game, had earlier called for it to be moved from Saudi Arabia.

They argued in December that it was “unacceptable” after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, seemingly sanctioned by Riyadh, provoked international outrage.

That was one of the issues that had stoked controversy since the league’s deal with the Saudis was inked last June.

The amnesty case of newly minted Canadian Rahaf Mohammed caused global outrage while an artwork with the Saudi flag has been removed from the site of Ground Zero just a month after being installed, with all of the G20-themed installation being removed and relocated.

The Italian league have made their position clear. Their showpiece is for sale and the game went ahead as planned despite outcry.

Overseas Supercoppa finals have become more regular in recent years. After nine years between the first in Washington in 1993 the second overseas game in Libya in 2002, there were two more in the next seven years. Since the 2009 edition in Beijing, six of the last ten have been in either China, Qatar or now Saudi Arabia.

Previous overseas finals have sold out, too, but that meant the ridiculous sight in Doha where 11,536

watched in a packed Jassim bin Hamad Stadium.

The players, sporting the traditional ghutra headdress, smiled for the cameras. The Saudis got what they paid for. The accusation is that it is little more than “sportwashing”. A similar criticism was levelled at the Saudi deal with the WWE when they held their Royal Rumble in the same stadium in 2018.

For many such events being staged in places such as Saudi Arabia has put the offensive into charm offensive.

It is often reiterated that sport is not meant to be political. Fifa lays out just that in the rules to their member nations, after all, and we are meant to see games like Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s meeting at the Asian Cup as played apart from the regional tensions resulting in a Saudi-led blockade of the next World Cup host.

But then what happens where it is clearly enmeshed with politics in, say, a government-run FA, China’s missing Uighur footballers or the amnesty case of footballer Hakeem Al-Araibi?

Such issues are only going to increase and hopefully they continue to get the attention they deserve no matter what money is being thrown around to distract from them.