‘Sportswashing’ is defined as ”the practice of an organization, a government, a country, etc. supporting sport or organizing sports events as a way to improve its reputation”. It combines the words ‘sports’ and ‘whitewash’.
2014
When Russia hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics, the state was so invested in the Games that they launched a massive state sponsored doping programme to rake in the medals.
2018
The label came into popular use about 2018, when Amnesty International began using it to draw attention to the correlation between the decline of human rights in Russia in the 2010s, and Russia’s hosting of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games and the 2018 World Cup.
Then in 2018 when Russia hosted the World Cup they used forced labour, and cracked down on journalists and LGBTQ people in the process.
Minky Worden, Director of Global Initiatives at Human Rights Watch reported:
“The Russia World Cup was a human rights catastrophe. The research showed that North Korean slave laborers were building the St. Petersburg stadium. The Human Rights Watch researcher on labor abuses was arrested trying to report on migrant labor abuses. A lot of countries took a look at this and said, ‘Hey, let’s, let’s pull a card out of the playbook of China and Russia, if they can rehabilitate their human rights reputation without having to actually do reforms, maybe we can do the same.’”
2022 Qatar
Ngofeen Mputubwele, Radio Producer, in a discussion with Worden asked:
“In the last couple of decades, we see a lot of Gulf states have taken a particular interest in, in soccer, in tennis, in golf. I want to talk about soccer for a minute. Why and when did, uh, soccer become an interest to countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and the UAE? Like why soccer and when?”
Worden replied:
“I really think that dates back to the extremely corrupt awarding of the World Cups for 2018 to Russia, and the awarding in the same crooked vote to Qatar. The world cup in Qatar in 2022 was under preparation for more than a decade. It was awarded in December, 2010, and the infrastructure was simply not there. The World Cup in Qatar cost $220 billion.
“It was building eight new stadiums in the desert where they previously didn’t exist. The human cost was also high.”
The discussion continued, ‘between 2010 and 2022, thousands of migrant workers lost their lives building stadiums and other buildings for the World Cup. Neither the Qatari government or FIFA ever investigated or explained these deaths… nor did they compensate the workers’ families.’
Saudi Arabia
FIFA has awarded the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia, but it has been argued that even before that award took place, Saudi Arabia was investing billions in sport, through what is known as its Public Investment Fund or PIF. Indeed Saudi Arabia has invested in the following sports and events among numerous others:
Golf – to compete with the PGA Saudi Arabia has created Liv Golf
Horse racing – Saudi Arabia now hosts the world’s richest horse race
Motor racing – Saudi Arabia is now hosting Formula One events
Boxing – Saudi Arabia has hosted world heavyweight boxing title fights
As for the World Cup in 2034, Human Rights Watch have had sight of the documents used by Saudi Arabia in their bid. As part of that bid Saudi Arabia are said to be planning to build 11 huge stadiums seating each seating between 60 000 and 100,000 people. One of the stadiums is to be in NEOM, which is a futuristic city which doesn’t really exist yet. However, people who lived in the area where it is to be built have been forcibly displaced
Stadiums will be built in conditions of deadly heat and under the Kafala system, which is a migrant workers system, where workers come from the Indian subcontinent, have their passports taken from them and are not free to leave their jobs. At least one worker has already died in the building of the stadium and we’re still nine years away from opening of the 2034 World Cup.
It is further argued by Human Rights Watch that all this amounts to Saudi Arabia having a formal sports watching policy, tied to what is called Vision 2030. This is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s key programme, to both create jobs for Saudi citizens but perhaps more importantly to create a place for Saudi Arabia on the world stage, despite their appalling human rights record.
China 2022
Accusations of sportswashing have been levelled against a number of events hosted by authoritarian governments, such as the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, which were held against the backdrop of the Chinese Communist Party’s systemic abuses of the Muslim Uyghurs in the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang
In August 2008, Human Rights Watch also reported on sportswashing at the Olympics, held that month in Beijing in China.
HRW argued that during the run up that Olympics media freedom had been limited by the government while basic rights of free expression and association had also being denied two people in China. House in Saudi Arabia I mean abuse is of migrant construction workers working on the infrastructure for the Olympics increased, while some Beijing residents had their homes delicious demolished and they were forcibly removed. HRW went on to claim that these abuses reflected the Chinese government’s failure to respond to honour it’s Olympics related human rights promises and also the negligence of the international Olympics committee (IOC) in making sure that China fulfilled its commitments
Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch commented: “The Chinese government and the International Olympic Committee have had seven years to deliver on their pledges that these games would further human rights. Instead, the Beijing Games have prompted a rollback in some of the most basic rights enshrined in China’s constitution and international law.”
It was then argued in 2022, that China was also using sportswashing as, in Beijing, China, on 4 February, the Olympics began “against a dark backdrop of serious human rights concerns. International human rights associations have warned participants of human rights violations and security concerns linked to the games. They are calling the sports event an apparent attempt to “sportswash” away its abusive rights reputation”.
True sportswashing
It is now said not there is a whole new level of sports washing which can be called true sportswashing. We have seen that the Nazis used the 1936 Olympics to try and divert attention from the appalling abuse is they will already hunting out to Jews, Roma and Sinti people, Homosexuals, opponents of the regime a numerous other groups. We have also seen how both the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games will used by different sides in the Cold War to make political points.
However, the irregular warfare centre has argued that’s what they call true sports washing today is on a different level when regimes such as Saudi Arabia invest in national or international sports events and teams. This investment is often a means to exert influence or further the interests of whoever is investing.
This kind of sportswashing would include Saudi Arabia’s hosting of various major sports events, the takeover of Newcastle United by the Saudin PIF and the acquisition of Manchester City by the regime in Abu Dhabi.
Dr. Jules Boykoff, Politics and Government Department Chair, Pacific University, Oregon, has described the activity by Saudi Arabia thus: “Now you see Saudi Arabia much later, almost a full century later has also had some innovations. If you think about the way Saudi Arabia has done sportswashing, it’s not just by hosting mega events or events of sports in their country, it’s also buying up clubs in other clubs in other countries, a kind of settler colonialism, if you will. If you look at the English Premier League of football, where they have purchased the Newcastle United team…”
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