Sportswashing

A new trend in the highest level of sports has been emerging the last couple of decades. It didn’t have a name before. Now it does: sportswashing. Simply put, it is the use – or misuse – of large-scale and high-stakes sports to improve a country’s image. Unlike whitewashing, which refers to skewing events or entertainment vehicles to favor a Caucasian audience, sportswashing is used as a band-aid, a palliative to draw attention away from offenses and atrocities, like bread and circuses during the Roman Empire.

Moneyed countries have been accused of sportswashing in the last few decades. Most publicly, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are the biggest targets. They have been accused of throwing money into the world’s biggest sporting events to overshadow their horrible track records in human rights, unfair business practices, and international conflict. The allegation is that the good will generated by holding the Olympic Games or World Cup or similar multi-sport events on their soil is that people will think better of them. It’s akin to planting flowers on graves to prevent any unsavory smells from leaking out.

The new hotbed of limitless power in sports is the Middle East. From stakes in English football clubs to holding their own expensive golf tournaments and lure away the greatest golfers from the US and Europe, to hosting global multi-sport events, they have the resources to do it all, and they don’t mind the expense. They have a blank check and they’re not afraid to use it. Qatar, for example, was proud to acquire the rights to the 2022 FIFA World Cup, despite suspicions about how they won the bid. It was deemed great news, more so since at one point, it was announced that they would need 300,000 Filipino construction workers to complete all of the stadia in time. However, deaths of migrant workers and complaints of abuse against security personnel wound up reinforcing – instead of softening – their image of not caring for human rights.  Formula One, mixed martial arts and other European staples have also been migrating to those vast territories of northern Africa and southwest Asia, as well. With their land and funds, they can build anything to attract anybody.

The odds of it working, though, are unsure. Russia, for example, was almost banned entirely from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, despite having hosted the Winter Games in Sochi just two years prior. An entire documentary, “Icarus” delves into the systemic use of steroids allegedly instituted by the highest authorities in the communist state.

But paradoxically, those who are accused of sportswashing seem impervious to public opinion themselves. I doubt if Vladimir Putin has lost any sleep over his public image. Yet, he has done everything for his country to appear superior in sports performance, to the point of being accused of long-term, widespread doping, hence the close shave in the Olympics.

On a smaller scale, multination tournaments like the Southeast Asian Games are more like a show of force, like Hitler’s Olympics of 1936. Host countries blatantly stack the odds in their favor: they determine which sports and how many medals are to be staked, limit their opponents however they can, and control the officiating. You could say it is becoming sportswashing, for the simple reason that only four or five of the eleven ASEAN nations really want to host the SEA Games to impress the rest of the region. They are wiling to spend vast sums for a showcase event which is already tilted in their favor to begin with. And we all go along for the ride.

Those who have the gold, make the rules.