What’s wrong with Sportswashing?
And what is so suspicious about it?
One thing that came up around the table over the holiday season has been the Qatar World Cup. “It’s blatant sportswashing,” cried one of my friends to the table. His charge was met with some nods, but also some confusion. “What is sportswashing?” came the reply from some quarters. It’s a good question to tackle a challenging issue.
What is it?
Though ‘sportswashing’ as such lacks a precise definition, it seems that the consensus is that sportswashing involves using major sporting events to create positive publicity to clean up or improve the public perception of a state. Some academics have started to write on sportswashing, with one defining it as “a means by which a country can deflect audiences’ attention away from less favourable perceptions of a country via a programme of investment in sport”.
There are other key ingredients in sportswashing. First, the moral wrong of the perpetrator must be serious and widespread, such as the mass mistreatment of migrant labourers in Qatar. It cannot merely be a more minor and isolated instance of wrongdoing (like, say, bribery of a government official). Second, it must be a state or country that is doing the sportswashing, not a commercial organisation or an individual. Finally, there must be a clear desire to use the event to rehabilitate the public image — intent matters.
Some classic and agreed-upon examples include Russia hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the Saudi Arabian royal family buying Newcastle United, or the ownership of Manchester City by Sheikh Mansour, a member of the royal family in the UAE. Some older antecedents might be Mussolini’s Italy hosting the 1934 football World Cup, or Nazi Berlin hosting the 1936 Summer Olympics.
How does it work?
The exact mechanism by which sportswashing operates is not well-defined, but there are some candidate explanations.
The important thing to note is that sportswashing works more by consociation and re-direction, rather than blatant coverup. The term sportswashing has roots in the idea of whitewashing, which was a practice in which a crack or defect in a wall of a house would be covered up with white paint so as to appear good and new.
Sportswashing does not seek to directly cover up the wrongs, but it does manage to hide them in two ways.
First, by generating so much publicity and press around the event that the reports of the wrongs are swamped. This is presumably the aims of the Saudi acquisition of Newcastle United and the LIV golf competition. Imagine you googled “Saudi Arabia” or “Qatar” — you would get so many search results relating to the various sporting tournaments that the human rights violations of these regimes are relegated to the second or third of fifteenth page of results. This crowding out and redirecting helps to obscure the wrongs of the regimes, but they do not hide them entirely.
The second way in which sportswashing works is a kind of Halo Effect. By associating itself with something postive, Qatar hopes that people will have fonder memories or thoughts of it. Whenever someone thinks of Qatar now, they are likely to think of this World Cup and the incredible theatre it produced on the field. History may remember the Qatar World Cup final as the greatest ever (perhaps even the greatest game ever), and so Qatar benefits from the positive association. In this way, sportswashing is not so much an attempt at hiding the bad things as it is getting you to focus on the good things.
But why sporting events? How is it that hosting the football World Cup (or, less commonly, the Olympics) can achieve so much?
The answer lies in the unique cut-through that these events get. In a world with an increasingly fragmented media landscape it is difficult to capture bulk attention and control what an audience sees. A presidential campaign might garner a mass media attention, but it is difficult for the candidate to control the public narrative or perception of themselves. In the case of a World Cup there is a higher degree of control around the output. Granted, the Qatari government cannot totally control all reportage surrounding the cup, but they do control the broadcast feed and all of the FIFA messaging. In other words, they can control the parts of the tournament that have the most eyeballs on them.
And because the event is so massive, everyone gets involved. In the days leading up to and after the final, my twitter feed was awash with public figures who I never knew to be football fans. It was impossible to distinguish the fanatic from the casual fan from the bandwagoner who just wanted to go where the attention is. Heck, Elon and Salt Bae were at the final! It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that furthers the effectiveness of the sportswashing cycle: people attend the events, the events gain meaning and publicity, so more people are drawn to attend, the events gain further meaning and publicity…
What is uniquely wrong with it?
There are obvious and horrible wrongs that sportswashing seeks to distract us from. But it’s important to note that these things are wrong independently and occur with or without the sportswashing — Russia were committing human rights violations independently of their hosting the world cup in 2018, and hosting the world cup in 2022 didn’t change Qatar’s willingness to persecute same-sex couples. The worthwhile question is: what is uniquely wrong with sportswashing? Why is that in and of itself such a bad thing?
One academic offers a few reasons.
First, it corrupts some valuable aspect of the sporting event. For many fans, sport is a key part of their identity. Their engagement with a sport or event or club generates a community which provides them and other fans with meaning and purpose. The non-fans might sneer at such idealistic and romantic rhetoric, but there’s a reason that former Liverpool manager Bill Shankley said that football is not a matter of life and death, but something important than that.”
It seems adjacent to those who carry out acts of political violence in the name of some other cause, such as those who commit acts of violence in the name of nationalism or religion. There is nothing inherently wrong with being patriotic or a proud member of your religion (to my mind, at least), but to use these bases of identity as a reason to commit some other act seems wrong.
Sportswashing takes fans’ pure engagement with a sport and uses it for its own political ends.
It’s similar to the disgust we feel when politicians start taking photographs with babies and small children prior to elections to try and show that they’re “a family person”, or the annoyance we feel when a prime minister steps into the commentary box at the Boxing Day test match. For goodness sake Scotty (and Albo), just let us have our sport!
The second, related unique wrong is that sportswashing makes fans, journalists, and players complicit in the act. Clubs, sports, and events have meaning because they attract attention from others. The World Cup is a meaningful event because lots of people watch it and agree that it is a trophy that matters (unlike, say, winning the Carabao Cup). Fans who watched and attended the Qatar World Cup cannot help but recognise that by watching or talking about the Cup they give it meaning. Journalists and players who report on and play in the tournament all contribute to this.
Simply boycotting the event is easier said than done. Remember, these sports are often a core part of fans’ identity and provide significant communities for them to be part of. I have no doubt that many Argentinians decry the wrongs of the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar. But take a moment to watch the footage of those in the streets of Buenos Aires after Argentina won the cup and you will see how much this trophy means to them, how much football means to them. Even Tibetan monks couldn’t resist outbursts of emotion when Argentina won — you can’t just turn it off.
For players or journalists, a boycott means missing out on the biggest event of their careers where they will garner the most media attention. Livelihoods can be made and lost at the Cup. Players can have breakout tournaments that see them offered massive deals, and journalists have the unique opportunity to build a massive supporter base. Boycotting for a player likely alienates them to their own fans and neuters their future earning potential as clubs are hesitant to hire someone so willing to criticise their sponsors.
It’s telling that some fans were quietly hoping before the World Cup that their team would boycott the tournament, thus giving them a reason to not tune in and sparing them the dilemma of whether or not to watch. I had dreamed for the last four years of going to Qatar, but as the weight of evidence of migrant worker deaths grew larger I could not bring myself to attend. Yet when the tournament kicked off, despite my faltering love of the game and full knowledge of how much blood had been spilled, I could not help but tune in to the greatest show on earth.
Finally, sportswashing is wrong because it perpetuates and creates other wrongs in its furtherance. For example, while it remains true that Qatar treat same-sex couples poorly regardless of whether they host the world cup, it’s almost certainly the case that a parallel world where Qatar do not host the cup there are 6,500 migrant workers still alive today. Insofar as engaging in sportswashing brings about other moral wrongs, sportswashing too is wrong.
What is suspicious about the charge?
For all the wrongs of sportswashing, there is something lacking. As a charge or accusation it has some vaguery built into it. Perhaps this vaguery will melt away as our understanding of the phenomenon becomes clearer, but for now I have some issues.
First, the charge seems to go further than it should. Once a nation is accused of sportswashing it seems that the charge follows every action of theirs like a bad smell. Case in point, the Bisht. As he went to lift the World Cup trophy Leo Messi was adorned in a Bisht, a ceremonial black robe-like garment conferring respect and royalty on its wearer, by the Emir of Qatar. Many immediately jumped to criticise. I am sympathetic to their criticisms, but I’m not so sure this is obvious sportswashing.
Perhaps it lies in the fact that sportswashing has just enough ambiguity around it for it to be avoid being a defeasible or falsifiable charge. How can you prove that you’re not sportswashing? It might be that if you’re guilty in the macro, you’re guilty in the micro: one could plausibly argue that if Qatar is guilty in hosting the World Cup as a whole, then everything that goes into that is a part of the machinery that enables the sportswashing and is guilty by association.
I hear that argument, but it seems an overly cynical view of humanity. It should be possible that we can concede that the event as a whole is sportswashing but that there are actions (like presenting the Bisht) which, while they could be just another propaganda piece, could also be a genuine attempt at conciliation. It’s certainly the case that sections of the non-western media think so and think that the western press has revealed a racist streak in itself by assuming that the Bisht must be a malicious act instead of merely a respectful one.
My point is that sportswashing is a suspicious charge to throw around because it’s very difficult to prove your innocence. We can take another allegation, like murder or assault or theft, and it is possible to reach a conclusion about a suspect’s guilt or innocence. But the vagurey built into sportswashing makes it harder to disprove.
Because isn’t everyone guilty of sportswashing? Could we not allege that the United States is sportswashing when it produces the drama and excitement of the NFL or MLB, or in its hosting of the 2026 men’s World Cup? Are they not simply seeking to rehabilitate their public image after the bungled invasion of Iraq? When Australia hosts the women’s football world cup next year, are we not just sportswashing to make everyone forget about our attrocious human rights record when it comes to treatment of asylum seekers?
While ‘soft power’ is a reasonably well-accepted and legitmate stragey in international relaitons, ‘sportswashing’ is an altogher more perjorative term used to deride others. It’s certainly suspicious how often the charge is levelled against non-western countries. It’s always China or Russia or Saudi Arabia or Qatar, with very little attention going elsewhere.
For sure, the wrongs perpetuated by these regimes are egregious. But that does not mean we should be loose with our words or accusations. After all, it is our words and actions as fans which make these events what they are.
Perhaps the most pernicious thing about sportswashing is that it hijacks its own people for the ends of its elites. In 2018 I was fortunate enough to attend the World Cup in Russia. It was the experience of a lifetime and I have many happy memories. When I think of Russia today I think of their invasion of Ukraine and the myriad wrongs that go along with the conflict.
But I also cannot help but think of how much fun I had in Russia and, more importantly, how wonderful the Russian people were. I remember meeting so many who were delighted that there were foreigners (especially from the West) who were coming to see their country and see how it was so much more than Western propaganda had made it out to be for the past 70 years. This is perhaps the worst thing about sportswashing: even as those Russian friends disavowed the Putin regime, I grew to like them and in doing so grew to cherish Russia more and more. They faced an impossible dilemma: be warm and hospitable and in doing so further the sportswashing by giving me happy memories of Russia, or be cold and hostile, counter to their nature as human beings.
