Sportswashing is a term of growing frequency and weight across the global economy. It refers to the practice of hosting or sponsoring a sporting event, or becoming a majority shareholder in a sports team in order to improve public reputation. Elite-level sport can be an ideal canvas upon which to reimagine an organisation’s public image.
In 2021, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia controversially purchased Premier League football club Newcastle United, and in 2022 it created the LIV Golf tour to rival the PGA Tour. Traditionally, acquisitions and disruptive forces have been viewed as pro-competition. However, Amnesty International’s CEO called PIF’s takeover of Newcastle United a ‘clear attempt by the Saudi authorities to sportswash their appalling human rights record.’
A new Newcastle United
Saudi Arabia's PIF became the majority owner of Newcastle United in October 2021, when the club was joint bottom of the Premier League. Owing to a new manager and investment of £93 million into the playing squad, Newcastle avoided relegation and finished in 11th place.
The club has continued to invest over the summer transfer window, with the aim of following in Manchester City’s footsteps, a fellow oil-bankrolled club, which was transformed from placing mid-table to ranking among the world’s best.
In 2020-21, Manchester City generated the highest revenue of all sports clubs in the United Kingdom. Manchester City achieved this feat through owner financing, which is in effect owner loans plus share capital. The owner lends the club money and turns the debt into shares as a way of putting more money into their clubs.
According to football business blogger Swiss Ramble, Manchester City received the highest amount of owner financing in the Premier League over the decade through 2020, while Newcastle United received the least.
Manchester City is now largely self-sufficient, as prize money, commercial sponsorships and player trading primarily fund its operations, rather than the owner.
Newcastle United’s new owners are seeking to disrupt the oligopoly of elite football. A rise in competition forces clubs to improve their operations and equates to a more exciting spectacle for fans. However, the line where Newcastle United the football club ends and the Saudi government begins is murky; the head of PIF is none other than the Crown Prince.
The takeover attracted significant attention from Amnesty International and key figures in the football industry, such as Gary Neville. Both have called for the current ‘fit and proper person’ test – which assesses new owners and directors on whether they are fit to run a club – to consider the human rights records of the takeover company and the state it may be linked to.
The Premier League gave the takeover of Newcastle United the green light after receiving legally binding documents assuring a clear separation between the Saudi state and the ownership of Newcastle. However, the club has since unveiled a new away kit that looks suspiciously like the home kit of Saudi Arabia and signed new sponsorship deals with Saudi-owned companies. It is hard to see exactly where they are separated. Newcastle United is in danger of becoming a spearhead of sportswashing.
Qatar’s quest for the cup
Saudi Arabia is not the only state or state-backed entity to venture into sports. Qatar won the rights to host the FIFA World Cup in 2010. At the time, the national football team ranked 113th in the FIFA rankings and possessed no notable infrastructure fit for hosting one of the world’s highest viewed sporting events.
Fast forward to today and Qatar boasts seven new stadiums and is months away from becoming the first Arab host of the World Cup. By hosting the event, the state hopes to put the country on the map, access new opportunities with corporations and countries throughout the world and polish the country’s global image.
Qatar’s preparations for the event have not been without controversy.
In 2021, The Guardian revealed that over 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since 2010, with 70% of these deaths unexplained by state authorities and 37 deaths directly related to the construction of World Cup stadiums.
Considering this, the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) called a vote to ascertain whether the country should boycott the World Cup over Qatar’s human rights record, after pressure from its top clubs and a campaign from grassroot supporters. The NFF ultimately decided against a boycott. Instead, it recommended a host of measures to consolidate and build upon some of the positive changes made in Qatar.
The penny has finally dropped for the Qatari state. To achieve its soft power goals, it had to address issues surrounding migrant workers’ rights. Positive change has occurred; Qatar has introduced a minimum wage for migrant workers, extended the summer working hours ban and prohibited outdoor work when temperatures reach 32°C. Whether Qatar opts to keep the labour market changes after the World Cup remains to be seen.
How INEOS plays the field
These forays into sport by governments are well-documented, with the public generally recognising who is pulling the strings behind the scenes of these sporting events or teams. Arguably the most successful sportswashing campaign has not been performed by a nation state or a state-backed fund, but rather by petrochemical company INEOS.
INEOS has become a household name on the sporting scene due to its successful investments in OGC Nice football club, the INEOS Grenadiers cycling team, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One team and Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour marathon.
When people hear the name INEOS, they associate it with its sports investments, rather than the company’s core stream of revenue: manufacturing petrochemicals, chemicals and oil products. For instance, INEOS’ Grangemouth Refinery produces approximately one-third of the UK’s plastic.
According to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, INEOS-owned facilities produced 31.7% of Scotland’s CO2 emissions in 2018, making the company the number-one source of emissions in the country.
Most of these emissions are centred at its Grangemouth site; INEOS announced that it will invest £1 billion to achieve net-zero emissions at this site by 2045.
INEOS also set itself the ‘ambitious target’ of using 325,000 tonnes per year of recycled materials by 2025 in its 2020 annual report. This seems a substantial amount to the untrained eye, but it represents less than 1.5% of the 22.8 million tonnes of chemicals it produced in 2020.
The success of its sporting investments enabled the company to acquire British Petroleum’s petrochemical business in 2005 in a sector widely seen as a key driver of oil demand, with minimal backlash for its environmental impact. INEOS’ investments into sport demonstrate the power of sportswashing, for when the name INEOS comes to mind, many people first think of the cycling team.
Heated competition
In its inaugural season, LIV Golf will host eight events over 2022, seeking to ‘supercharge’ the game by restructuring how golf is played and consumed to create a spectacle to rival the PGA Tour. Unlike the PGA Tour, LIV Golf offers guaranteed payments to its golfers. As a result, many top golfers have made the switch to LIV Golf, including Phil Mickelson, who recently signed a contract worth US$200 million (£165.9 million).
However, the new series has created a divide between top golfers, with some unwilling to play under the PIF-backed LIV Golf for moral reasons. Others argue that the PGA Tour has enjoyed a monopoly on professional golf and a new entrant is a much-needed source of competition.
The future of sportswashing
Central to the sportswashing debate are questions of whether sport should be held to a higher moral standard than the government of the country in which it is played in, or if a new competition, though state-funded, is good when a sport is currently operating as a monopoly.
You may think it’s good that a petrochemical company is helping to raise the level of athletes through sponsorship. After all, Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour marathon was a remarkable feat. But don’t be mistaken, this is the purpose and power of sportswashing.
As long as people are talking about the leaders of Saudi Arabia as the owner of a football club or lead sponsor of a golf tournament, they are not talking about the oil-funded places where human rights abuses are pervasive. Through sports, a new narrative is formed. Companies and organisations are repositioning themselves in the global eye to appear as people, just like us, who enjoy sport. Sportswashing uses sports to sweep the day-to-day realities of a state or corporation under the rug.
Sportswashing would be simple to fix if it was not already entrenched in sport. Legislation could be brought in stipulating that no owner or financier can have ties to a state, particularly if a state has flagrant human rights abuses. However, how would that deal with the mass of clubs and competitions currently funded by state entities and apply to corporations, such as INEOS, whose environmental records are poor?
Nonetheless, legislation should be brought in stating that any entity interested in the sponsorship or acquisition of a sport or sporting event must adhere to a string of environmental, social and governance principles.
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