The border between professional and amateur sports is clear. Professional sports show us people with superpowers and their atypical human achievements, while amateur sports remain entertainment for the soul. But in recent years, professional sports have come under fire from journalists for their blurred lines with money laundering through athletes and clean-up of reputations. Gone is the moment when professional sports had good intentions, instead, things like Sportswashing are increasingly in the headlines, and such articles carry a negative connotation.
What Is Sportswashing?
Sportswashing refers to all other types of washing and was invented in this century during the 2015 European Games in Baku. Sportswashing is the propaganda of sport to improve a damaged reputation or cover up unethical activities. Critical accounts of this image recovery and promotion strategy focus primarily on the actions of authoritarian regimes and their role in world politics. From an analytical point of view, this washing can also apply to democratic countries with questionable activities and even to completely different entities (for example, corporations, brands, organizations). Major examples of sportswashing include organizing an international sporting event in a country known for numerous human rights violations or allowing participants from aggressor countries to participate in the event.
When a brand, business, organization, or country’s reputation suffered for several good reasons, people deep down believed they were good and tried to improve the world, but they just weren’t understood. Their actions have been controversial and contradictory, sometimes even racist or related to any other form of discrimination. What does the corrupt party think? Of course, it is about how they can wash their reputation. The main condition is not to apologize publicly and not to correct your mistake, the main condition here is to do it innocently and inconspicuously with human compassion.
Sportswashing Examples
The first example of sports washing was the 2015 European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, where the dictator Ilham Aliyev seized power. In addition, the heads of many countries attended the opening ceremony of the Games, including Vladimir Putin from Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan from Turkey, Alexander Lukashenko from Belarus, Boyko Borisov from Bulgaria, and Viktor Ponta from Romania. The reason for the beginning of the boycotts was not the sports themselves, but politics, which played a significant role here. In 2015, Putin had already been waging war against Ukraine for a year, annexed Crimea, and established Russian rule in the occupied territories. The dictator of another country, Belarus, who has illegally held power for more than 20 years, also participated. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was famous for his controversial and ambiguous actions against human rights. This event was an obvious demonstration of tolerance of the aggressor countries, a demonstration of their respect among other countries, but by no means simple sports games.
The 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia became the second event that caused an even greater resonance around sportswashing. As of 2018, Russia still had time to invade Syria and continued its aggressive policy towards Ukraine, and this is without mentioning 2008 and the war against Georgia. Russia’s reputation has grown due to its foreign policy as an unfriendly country, and therefore, attempts to wash away this reputation. The World Cup, unfortunately, helped them in this, as it closed people’s eyes to Russia’s actions against other countries and even against its citizens.
As a rule, a lot of money is invested in these sporting events to create a strong impression. For this purpose, new houses are built, cities are cleaned, restoration is carried out and infrastructure is invested. The 2022 FIFA World Cup was held in Qatar, the smallest possible country to host the World Cup. Despite this, the country’s authorities have invested 220 billion dollars in the creation of extravagant hotels, the preparation of stadiums, the expansion of transport lines, and all for the sake of making an impression. For users of social networks, this was outrageous, because sports do not require such large investments, the amount for training could be smaller, and most of the money could go to charities, solve the problems of global warming, or help Ukraine during the Russian aggression in 2022.
This year’s 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris also did not escape the boycott of sportswashing for several reasons. At first, there was strong criticism of the Paris authorities due to statements of swimming competitions in the Seine River, which is forbidden to swim in and has a high risk of diseases. Social networks exploded with videos mocking the authorities of Paris and eagerly waited for a representative of Paris to come to swim in it. The authorities tried to distance themselves from the fighting, so only the opening ceremony was held on the river. The second factor was that Russian athletes were admitted to the Olympic Games. Although it was not under the Russian flag, they were “cleaned”, emphasizing the fact that sport is outside of politics and everyone has the right to participate, even citizens of the aggressor countries. The third scandalous problem was the admission of Israel to the Games. At a time when people were boycotting Israel for waging war in Palestine and asked not to allow them to play as part of the safety of Palestinian athletes, IOC President Thomas Bach confirmed that this was never a problem for the IOC and warned the athletes against boycotts and discrimination.
Why Is Sportswashing A Problem?
After seeing these examples, we can understand that the problem is not in the sport itself, but in the organization, participants, and political, economic, and social contexts. Sports events stopped being sports a long time ago because they are played by people who should be banned because of their views or at least not allowed to participate because of their background. Sports, like art, culture, cinema, theater, and music, should be free and independent things, but they carry the entire historical, cultural, and political context with their representative.
Often, the countries that host such sporting events are oil-rich. In 2018, the export of Russian oil only during the World Cup was about 63%. Qatar, in turn, took 81% of oil and gas exports after 2020. Here we can note the tendency to justify the purchase of fossil fuels from the aggressor countries by holding mass sports events. The amount of football club purchases and investments in football in Saudi Arabia alone reached 1.5 billion dollars, and the battle to buy Manchester United between the Qatari Prime Minister and INEOS was absurd. All of these countries and their representatives have been accused of human rights abuses, making their involvement in sports appear surreal under the guise of tolerance.
The corruption of sports is also a factor in the problem. Cultural and moral values are degrading, leaving only room for money laundering. In the eyes of the average fan, the Olympic Games are neither a business nor a political project. Everyone knows that sports clubs and competitions have their history, mythology, and symbolism. They are an essential part of the culture, the pride of the country, and show strength. When people say, for example, that they are Chelsea fans, that they like the Olympic Games, or that they support the football clubs of their countries, it means an emotional attachment and connection. Sportswashing turns this achievement of civilization into a dangerous tool of public opinion management and can manipulate the feelings of ordinary people.
The essence of propaganda through sports is not a problem, because it can affect the economy, increase tourism in this country and the level of recognition. The problem arises only when regimes that violate human rights are justified and allowed to build a global reputation. Spectacular sports events force the Western world to forget about its ideals, focus on competitions, and successfully replace concepts because sports are just innocent sports. The world ceases to see political repression, persecution of minorities, discrimination against women, and suppression of freedom of speech. Modern sportswashing began when likes under a photo from the Olympic Games became more important than Russian aggression in Ukraine, the Palestinian-Israeli war, the illegal abduction of children, crimes against human rights, discrimination of national minorities in China, gas relations of Europe with Russia and the Kremlin.
Highlighted points why sportswashing is a problem:
- relations with oil countries
- sport is not a means of washing one’s reputation
- tolerance of aggressor countries
- admission of participants from unfriendly countries to participate
- use of resources not according to the population’s needs
- rottenness hides behind a beautiful cover
- money laundering on athletes
- one of the most invisible forms of propaganda
Sport As An Element Of Political Game
Sports have surrounded us since childhood, we do it in kindergarten and school, and our parents offer us additional sports activities and encourage an active lifestyle. This may seem like an innocent area of life because it seems that sport is just sport and there can be no philosophy here. This point is used in propaganda, they manipulate our feelings and affections. We can have our favorite athletes and cheer for them, and we can think that holding these games in enemy countries is nothing else and even representatives of enemy countries are allowed to compete in sports is not a problem. These are the opinions of more people who do not know how to adequately assess the situation, or the love of sports competitions has clouded the mind so much that a person is unable to think.
Connections between politics and sports are not new. Whether we like it or not, international sports competitions always have a more or less clear political context, and therefore sports cannot be outside of politics. Modern sports, fueled by the global reach of social networks, have enormous marketing potential. So why are we surprised that politicians use it? It started in the 20th century when the sports world tolerated anti-democratic regimes. For example, the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin in Nazi Germany, immortalized by the famous propagandist director Leni Riefenstahl in the film “Olympia”, as well as the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, famous for the period of the military junta of General Jorge Rafael Videla. It all started with tolerance, and only the 21st century gave autocratic political elites almost unlimited opportunities for large-scale use of sportswashing.
But how exactly do politicians use the influence of sport on ordinary people? The answer is simple, it’s social networks. All fans use the Internet to find out the game’s results, to buy tickets for the game, and to be aware of all the actualities of sports. This goal is innocent, but the unlimited flow of information is often mixed with gossip about athletes’ families, scandals, rumors about their personal lives, and many PR moves. It is easy to hide human rights violations in such an information mess. Not surprisingly, regimes are trying to join this trend of global capitalism. First, Sportwashing is a method of building economic power, for example, international business partnerships, gas purchases, increasing tourism and cultural prestige, as creating a positive image of a country with a dubious reputation.
Of course, the problem of modern propaganda is not black and white from the point of view of ethics and should encourage us to think critically. The West has long been involved in the political games of various autocrats in the name of ordinary business. Since at least 2008 (the attack on Georgia), we knew full well what the Putin regime was capable of, but we were still fascinated by the Sochi Olympics in 2014 and the FIFA World Cup in 2018. Only in 2022, after the start of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there was a harsh collision with reality and the rejection of everything Russian by the world, although not completely.
How To Struggle With Sportswashing?
Calls to boycott sporting events do not bring satisfactory results, because money, media coverage, and geopolitical dependence win. It may seem that the average citizen is helpless in front of these “barriers”. However, remember that the purpose of sports washing is to distract public opinion from human rights violations. This means a general decrease in international pressure on criminal regimes, so the task of each of us is to at least inform our families, not remain silent on social networks, remind the world about this, and emphasize our rightness.
Here are some tips on how to struggle with sportswashing:
- Intensification of a boycott by fans, journalists, athletes, sponsors, and sports personnel
- Strong form of refusal to participate
- Protesting during competitions
- Pressure on decision-makers, changes from within
- Posts on social networks
- Active social engagement, tell as many people as possible about it
- Learn to think critically, not to take everything at face value
Sportswashing is a tough nut to crack. But in recent years, we have seen more and more involvement of people in changing these terrible “norms” established not by us, but by politicians. Cultivate awareness, and develop strength and critical thinking. Our future depends on us and all hope rests only on us. Therefore, let’s do everything to keep this trend on our minds as long as possible.
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