Without the greed and hypocrisy of individuals, businesses, and governing structures in the West, sportswashing would simply not be possible.
Sportswashing is the process of using sport to polish a tarnished reputation. Its origins can be traced all the way back to the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany, but as sport’s global reach expands, it is becoming more prevalent. Essentially, sport is used by authoritarian governments (or, indeed, individuals who have acquired wealth through questionable means) to whitewash their human rights records in order to increase their appeal to the West.
There is an ethical defence for some sportswashing. Authoritarian governments often preside over developing countries. Their populations may therefore stand to gain from the investment in infrastructure associated with events like the Olympics, which often extends beyond the field of recreation and into the provision of transport and housing.
It could also be argued, with some success, that so-called ‘dirty money’ can be made ‘clean’ through the active encouragement of reforms. Thrown in the international spotlight, Saudi Arabia has made tangible improvements to women’s rights, such as the removal of its driving ban. There clearly do exist elements of such events where people are genuinely put first.
But as events of international significance, sports tournaments are innately political, and optics matter. The purported benefits of bringing sport to developing nations should not come at the price of Western hypocrisy and the airbrushing of human rights abuses. Unfortunately, this is the exact situation global sport finds itself in.
Take the LIV Golf tournament, a competition established just this year which aims to bring together the greatest golfers of the day in a ‘super league’ style format. Held in Hemel Hempstead in the United Kingdom, the competition is bankrolled by the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of the Saudi Arabian government. In tying itself to an elite sport, the government is able to recast itself in the Western mould as a nation of prosperity and aspiration. This may well be the case. After all, Tiger Woods, who rejected his invitation to the tournament, was reportedly offered a nine-figure salary to play there. However the PIF’s chairman is Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia who is thought to have ordered the killing of critical journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Whilst this use of sport to deflect criticism may reflect badly upon Saudi Arabia, who should arguably instead be putting its own house in order, it reflects even worse upon the West. Some of golf’s biggest stars, including the Spaniard Sergio Ramos and the American Dustin Johnson, took the money and played. Whilst the LIV’s chairman, in a public interview, dismissed the Khashoggi murder, saying ‘we all make mistakes’. This lack of responsibility is arguably a consequence of greed.
It is reductive to target Saudi Arabia as the sole perpetrator of sportswashing. Since 2009, a Formula One Grand Prix has been held annually in Abu Dhabi. The government of the United Arab Emirates has been a key actor in the war in Yemen. In 2021, sixteen NGOs wrote a letter to the chairman of the Formula One Group, which is owned by a major American media conglomerate. They demanded that the race was moved elsewhere. The chairman refused, instead accepting money from Abu Dhabi Motorsports Management. Just as in the LIV case, the sport’s biggest stars, including multimillionaires Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, attend the race every year. In the interests of profit, human rights have arguably been treated as a sacrificial lamb.
Another example is the decision to host the upcoming FIFA World Cup in Qatar. During this supposedly democratic selection process, vote buying was rife. The Qatar government funnelled money into developing nations sitting on FIFA committees via youth football programmes, and senior board members from around the world were paid upwards of $1.5 million, apparently in exchange for their votes.
The result is a tournament held in a nation which did not possess infrastructure capable of hosting a World Cup. This meant that eight new stadia had to be built, whilst additional facilities including an airport and new highways have also been constructed.
Whilst this will inevitably benefit the Qatari people and bring the beautiful game to the doorstep of a region in which it is growing in popularity, the building of the stadia has brought about major human rights concerns. A 2021 report by the NGO Human Rights Watch found that migrant workers, employed under the Qatar governments ‘Kafala’ system, were working long hours in intense heat, in some instances without proper pay, for months at a time. On the other hand, the spotlight that this has placed on Qatar has led to some improvement in that nation’s often questionable treatment of migrant workers.
The World Cup case also exposes Western actors as hypocrites. With one face, FIFA insists that ‘football is for everyone’. With the other, it decides to host its centrepiece tournament in Qatar, a country where male homosexuality is theoretically punishable by up to three years in prison. Whilst Qatar’s allowance of rainbow flags in its stadia gives some credibility to the ‘clean money’ argument, it may still be necessary, as one journalist put it, for LGBT fans to ‘modify [their] behaviour’ if they choose to travel there.
Sports competitions have recently become inseparable from authoritarian governance. Even at the domestic level, Saudi Arabia’s PIF is the largest shareholder in Newcastle United, one of the Premier League’s most iconic clubs. Whilst fan ownership would be preferable, this model has become an accepted part of contemporary sport.
Where significant money is involved, Western businesses, individuals, governments, and governing bodies are all demonstrably able to sacrifice their principles to make a profit.
To avoid this, effective, international regulation of corruption in sports is required. Sport must be for people, not profit.
Image shows the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan, Qatar, being rebuilt for the FIFA World Cup.
