‘Sportswashing’ now led by Saudi Arabia
Published: 11 Jun. 2023, 20:10
The author is a sports news writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.
“Sportswashing” is a compound term of sports and whitewashing. It refers to the act of operating or sponsoring a sports team or hosting a sporting event to dilute the negative image of a country or a group.
The term first appeared in 2015 to explain the situation in Azerbaijan, a state under dictatorship that had separated and gained independence from the Soviet Union. The oil producer in the Caspian Sea accumulated tremendous oil money, but the country was condemned by the international community for various controversies of wealth distribution, power concentration and human rights violations.
At that time, Azerbaijan hosted the first European Games, which had just been launched, and held the games grandly in the capital of Baku. This event was considered a typical case of whitewashing using sports, hence becoming the origin of “sportswashing.”
Since then, Azerbaijan has consistently held international competitions in various sports such as soccer, volleyball and taekwondo. British media BBC said that if you enter ‘Azerbaijan’ in the search engine, most results are related to various sporting events — and words like corruption and suppression of human rights have been pushed far away.
Recently, Saudi Arabia stood at the center of the sportswashing controversy. Its drastic investments in sports while being condemned for the murder of journalists, imprisonment of dissidents, and suppression of women’s rights is quite similar to Azerbaijan.
Saudi Arabia spent an astronomical amount of money as it acquired prestigious English professional football club Newcastle, created a global golf tournament (LIV), and recruited a star player, Cristiano Ronaldo, to the Saudi league. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund plans to invest a total of $37.8 billion under the goal to become a global sports hub.
On Wednesday, two big sports issues erupted from Saudi Arabia at the same time. LIV golf has merged with the PGA Tour after being in rivalry in the past. Karim Benzema, a French footballer and the leading striker of Spanish football club Real Madrid, is joining the Al-Ittihad Club in Saudi Arabia for 200 million euros ($215 million) in annual salary.
Saudi Arabia continues to speed up with the financial power beyond our imagination despite the criticism that it is buying reputation with sports.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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