The Golden Age of Sportswashing is Upon Us
(Image Source: Darko Bandic, Associated Press)
By Eric Pu
The upcoming 2022 World Cup is projected to become the single most viewed sporting event in human history, with FIFA President Gianni Infantino expecting over 5 billion fans to tune into the games from all around the world. And although the global supremacy of football is reason enough for those astronomically high projections, many individuals have been fixated on an entirely different aspect of the World Cup altogether: its host country of Qatar, a minuscule nation of 2.6 million people on the Arabian Peninsula. More importantly, Qatar is defined by its access to the world’s third-largest natural gas reserves, and through that resulting wealth has sought to expand its international influence throughout recent years.
To say Qatar has invested heavily into preparations for the World Cup would be the understatement of the century. The estimated total cost of the project is a mind-boggling $220 billion, absolutely eclipsing the previous record of $11.6 billion for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. However, only approximately $10 billion of the budget has been devoted to stadium expenses itself, with the remaining $210 billion in expenditure being directed towards a greater “Qatar 2030” plan, which includes assembling all of the necessary infrastructure that an occasion of such magnitude mandates. With an expected 1.2 million visitors flooding the streets in the coming weeks (close to half the nation’s current population), Qatar has allocated hundreds of billions of dollars into developing its public transportation, sewage, housing, and other vital infrastructure.
And although the financial expense is unfathomable—nearly eight times that of the $28 billion price tag for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, the previously most expensive sporting event in history—it is still safe to say that the biggest cost for the 2022 World Cup comes in the form of human life, something which unfortunately cannot be as easily calculated. The Guardian reports that ever since Qatar first won the World Cup bidding process in 2011, at least 6,750 migrant workers have lost their lives to the disastrously inhumane working conditions in ensuing construction projects. However, not only is that statistic more than a year old, but it also only includes workers from South Asia, failing to incorporate deaths from a number of other countries like the Philippines and Kenya—the real death toll as of today therefore must certainly be even greater than what The Guardian had reported last year.
But how exactly are migrant workers dying in Qatar? And how do they even get there in the first place? Amnesty International describes that workers are being recruited from impoverished communities in regions like South Asia, lured in by deceptively high wages that in actuality are substantially lower than what is advertised. The moment these workers arrive their passports are confiscated, leaving them stranded and thus left with no other choice than to work and live in appalling conditions, with the average monthly salary of construction workers adding up to a disturbingly low $220—generally a fraction of the number initially promised by recruiters. Over 90% of Qatar’s workforce is comprised of these migrant workers, adding up to over 1.7 million laborers who have been manipulated by this system which many have come to describe as “modern slavery.”
For these reasons, the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar has emerged as an exemplary case of sportswashing, a phenomenon defined by the practice of hosting large-scale and internationally recognized sporting events at atypical locations, in the interest of diverting attention away from human rights violations. And although Qatar’s case is far and away the most egregious and impactful incident in the history of sportswashing, the nation is only one of a handful—generally centered in the Middle East—that have been found guilty of this controversial practice. In the past decade, these efforts to cleanse the reputations of regimes notorious for their human rights atrocities have grown to an extraordinary magnitude, ushering in what will likely be remembered as a “golden age of sportswashing.”
That is not to imply that sportswashing is in any way a new phenomenon—many scholars agree that the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, hosted during the Nazi Era, was the first case of sportswashing occurring on the global frontier. Another particularly fascinating example of sportswashing, which happens to excellently articulate the kind of rationale behind such a practice, occurred in the form of Taiwan’s dominance in Little League (the world’s leading youth baseball league) beginning in the 1970s. These events coincided with a period in time during which the nation was facing an international identity crisis, as global powers no longer recognized Taiwan as the “one true China,” and hence the nation was left with scarce opportunities to participate in global sporting events like the Olympic Games. Little League was one of very few recognized athletic competitions where the tiny nation could compete in, and thus Taiwan began to invest heavily towards assembling some of the most powerful line-ups in the history of youth baseball.
The nation withheld no expenses in terms of maximizing its baseball potential—since the sport was relatively obscure in Taiwan, and the nation was also exceedingly poor at the time, it was left with no other choice than to cheat in virtually every capacity imaginable. This meant recruiting players from all across the country, with a population in the tens of millions to their disposal—Little League rosters permit only students originating from the same city, making this process highly illegal. Their teams were also ripe with players many years older than the maximum allowed age. And yet, despite such blatantly obvious forms of cheating, Taiwan was not only allowed to continue competing in Little League tournaments, but consistently eviscerated all of their competition—from 1969 through 1991, the nation won a total of 15 Little League World Series titles in just 23 years.
Original Description: “This championship flag is the first ever won by the Republic of China in an athletic competition involving all the world.” (Image Source: Taiwan Today, 1969).
Although youth baseball is a relatively insignificant pastime in America, this persistent athletic success meant a lot to the nation of Taiwan, as it was the sole international athletic venue that they had access to. Citizens all across the island rallied behind Taiwan’s stunning Little League success, with youth baseball soon becoming the most popular spectator sport in the country. The members of World Series-winning teams were showered with gifts and praise from locals and government officials alike, immediately becoming celebrities in their home country. More importantly, the government of Taiwan made use of virtually every liberty available to utilize this venue as a means of proliferating its rhetoric about being “the one true China.” Thus, this bizarre example of sportswashing illustrates its true potential, as a means of granting a political platform to a nation that otherwise would have no representation on the global stage.
This has also been reflected through changing dynamics in the scope of bidding for the Olympic Games, which has perpetually been under fire in recent years for its highly questionable cost-effectiveness. One of the most notorious examples was with the 2016 Games, which left Rio de Janeiro and Brazil as a whole in a swamp of debt and despair, with the majority of its venues being left abandoned to rot almost immediately following the conclusion of the event. With a monstrous $13.7 billion price tag, representing a 352% cost overrun, the 2016 Olympics most likely left the nation worse off, amounting to an immeasurable opportunity cost as that capital could have been allocated elsewhere to much greater effect.
For that reason, in many highly developed nations, it has recently become politically unfavorable for leaders to entertain the idea of even participating in the Olympic bidding process, as many are skeptical about whether the supposed economic benefits that come with hosting the Olympics can outweigh the high probability of significant cost overruns and resulting debt burdens. Unfortunately, this also has the unintended consequence of leveling out the playing field for nations led by more corrupt leadership, who are therefore more capable of withstanding political resistance when it comes to participating in the Olympic bidding process. Such nations also stand to gain much more from hosting the Olympics, as a means of cleansing and elevating their global reputation (as explained previously). Thus, the world should come to expect the Olympic Games to be abused as a form of sportswashing more and more in the coming decades, as already evident by the controversial host site of Beijing in the 2022 Winter Games.
Moving beyond the Olympics, sportswashing practices as a whole have gotten dramatically more creative in recent years. The term only became even more pertinent with the announcement of the LIV Golf Tour earlier this summer, a highly controversial golf tournament spearheaded by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, through Mohammed bin Salman’s Public Investment Fund. With a prize pool of $285 million for its inaugural series, LIV has come under intense scrutiny through accusations that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is attempting to buy out global golf superstars in order to cleanse the nation’s damaged public image. LIV’s attempts at poaching sporting celebrities extends well beyond just golf players too, as they recently came under fire for engaging in “contract flirtations” with a prospective member of the tour’s broadcasting team in Charles Barkley, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players to ever live. And although his accolades in the NBA are nothing to scoff at, Barkley is perhaps even more well-known for being one of the top personalities in sports media, serving as the centerpiece of TNT’s Inside the NBA television program, through which he has earned 4 Sports Emmy Awards. Barkley ultimately chose to continue his tenure as a basketball commentator, to the delight of his millions of fans, whilst simultaneously exposing just how desperate the Saudi-backed golf tour has been in terms of poaching top sporting talent from around the world.
Saudi Arabia’s attempts at sportswashing span even further beyond just golf, with the country having dipped its toes into a myriad of different sports over the past decade, including a $100 million winning purse bid to host the boxing rematch between Andy Ruiz Jr. and Anthony Joshua in 2019, as well as a similar $77 million expense to host the rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua earlier this year. Perhaps the most intriguing example was an exorbitant $500 million 10-year deal penned with the WWE in 2014, despite the fact that the country had banned female pro wrestling performances until 2019 (halfway through the duration of the agreement). With each of these cases came accusations of sportswashing, as critics cited them as attempts to cover up immensely controversial acts like the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 and the military campaign in Yemen (which has already killed 100,000 people, including 12,000 civilians).
One lesser known perpetrator of sportswashing in the Middle East is the United Arab Emirates, who have also invested heavily towards establishing a globally recognized sports culture as a means of providing resiliency for its predominantly oil-dependent economy. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Ultimate Fighting Championship—the world’s premiere mixed martial arts promotion—was tasked with finding a host site for its events. But with venues throughout America closed throughout much of 2020, the organization struggled to find a country willing to accommodate the UFC in holding fights. Out of this desperation blossomed a relationship with the United Arab Emirates, who offered to hold UFC events on Yas Island—dubbed “Fight Island”—in Abu Dhabi. Since then, the promotion has held 12 fight cards on the island, with the much-anticipated UFC 280: Oliveira vs. Makhachev most recently held in Abu Dhabi just last month.
This is despite the abundance of human rights scandals that the United Arab Emirates has become notorious for in recent years. Not only does the country continue to discriminate against women and political dissidents, but the UAE is perhaps equally guilty in regards to its rampant abuse of migrant labor, as construction workers are subjected to similarly slave-like conditions as in Qatar.
Although one might question what kind of association the Middle East even has with martial arts—the region is surprisingly underrepresented in fighting competitions—one possible answer may lie within the story of Sheik Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the son of then U.A.E. leader Sheik Zayed. After watching the first ever UFC event, Sheik Tanoon became enamored with the sport of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and sought to introduce it to the UAE, leading to the formation of Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC) Submission Fighting World Championship, which is recognized today as “the Olympics of grappling.”
This is an example of sportswashing taking place not only on a national scale, but also as a means of elevating the platforms of individual world leaders. The defining example of this practice is the case of Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov, who is perhaps as famous for his social media presence as for contributing towards countless human rights atrocities, which include perpetrating anti-gay purges throughout Chechnya, as well as being involved in the kidnapping, assassination, and torture of political dissidents and their relatives. As a dictator who is deeply concerned with maintaining a hypermasculine and powerful image, with the recent emergence of celebrity MMA fighters from the Caucasus Mountains like Khabib Nurmagomedov and Khamzat Chimaev came a new interest in leveraging these star athletes towards his political advantage. By forging close relationships with the aforementioned two athletes, who just so happen to also represent symbols of intense masculinity and strength, Kadyrov has consequently gained access to a new global audience, through which he can communicate his brutal rhetoric and bolster his international recognition. These sportswashing practices also allow him to obfuscate his human rights atrocities, which are far too numerous to list, with one particularly relevant example being the well-publicized and universally condemned act of orchestrating televised MMA cage fights featuring his sons, ranging between the ages of 8 and 10.
Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov posing with MMA superstar Khabib Nurmagomedov (Image Source: Khabib Nurmagomedov via Instagram).
With the sheer amount of sportswashing cases emerging in recent years, it is becoming abundantly clear that heinous regimes and dictators are perpetually on the lookout for new and creative methods of elevating their global platforms. At the same time, the financial magnitude of these endeavors continue to climb, and with each event comes billions of dollars wasted on momentary glimpses of prosperity, when such enormous sums of money could be devoted towards ensuring the long-term economic success of these fossil fuel-dependent nations instead.
Ultimately, sportswashing not only deals damage to the geopolitical climate as a whole, obfuscating the countless human rights atrocities committed by these nations, but also inflicts significant financial harm on the citizens of said nations, as they are forced to watch their governments waste away their financial futures in the interest of pursuing momentary glimpses at glamor instead. Time will only tell if the efficacy of sportswashing lives up to its promises, although with the examples of Olympic-sized sporting disasters in the past, it seems unlikely that events like the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar will have their desired return on investment.
Eric Pu is a junior from Toronto, Canada, studying economics and public policy at NYU. He can often be spotted repping the Toronto Raptors and the New York Mets, and is an avid fan of boxing and MMA. Beyond sports fandom, Eric is also deeply interested in the economics of the sporting world, as well as its political and societal ramifications.
