The term “sports washing” came to the top of public discourse last week when it was announced that the Saudi-backed LIV golf tour was to merge with the PGA.
Rory McIlroy, who had been one of the fiercest critics of LIV, said that whether people liked it or not, the Saudi-funded PIF was going to keep spending money in golf and as much as he hated LIV, he believed the fact that the PGA would have some control over how that money was spent was better than not having control. His anger was only just barely contained.
In contrast, Padraig Harrington took to airwaves on the Joe Duffy programme to say that blaming Saudi Arabia for the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York was similar to how the British media conflated Ireland, Irish people and the Irish government in apportioning blame for the IRA campaign in Britain.
Harrington, a self-confessed devil’s advocate, also suggested that Ireland should look at its own human rights record in relation to the mother and baby homes before it commented on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. It really was one of the most bonkers episodes of whataboutery in the whole saga.
As far as I am aware, the Catholic Church never sponsored the League of Ireland in an effort to sports wash its appalling actions in the mother and baby homes.
In contrast, according to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), since the bombing of Yemen began in March 2015, the published value of UK arms licensed for export to the Saudi-led coalition is £9.4 billion (including £7.9 billion to Saudi Arabia alone).
However, CAAT estimates that the real value of arms to Saudi Arabia is over £23 billion, while the value of sales to the coalition alone (including UAE and others) is nearly £25 billion.
We have all seen the appalling human suffering, famine, starvation and genocide that is happening right now in Yemen.
We were all stunned by the Saudi-backed murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.
This is not the Saudis trying to wash the past, it is a regime that is actively trying to mask the present.
In its most basic form, sports washing is the practice of using sporting events, teams or individuals to improve an organization or country’s reputation, particularly where there have been human rights abuses or allegations of unethical behavior. Like any good magic, sports washing requires us to focus on the bright, shiny thing right in front of us and pay no attention to what is going on in the background.
Golf is only the latest sport to fall victim to sports washing. The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin presented a sanitized image of the Nazi regime to the international community. The peaceful and progressive Germany that was presented to the world concealed shocking human rights abuses.
During the apartheid era, the South African government used the national rugby team, the Springboks, to improve its international standing, despite widespread global condemnation of apartheid.
In Ireland, sports washing has, for the most part, taken the form of sponsorship of major sporting events and teams by alcohol and online gambling brands. Some would argue that these sponsorships contribute to the normalization and promotion of gambling and alcohol consumption, which can in turn lead to addiction problems as well as health and social issues.
World sports like soccer have always ‘washed'; today it’s middle eastern states getting a good rinse through. Back 60 or 100 years ago it was semi-tyrannical factory owners who bought the local football club in a bid to enhance their status and stature.
In his RTÉ interview, Harrington said that it was unfortunate that “sports washing does work” but added that people will move on. “The Saudis have bought Newcastle, nobody stopped watching the players... Everybody watched the World Cup, you know.”
But somehow this feels different. This isn’t just one team or a couple of players going off to play in Saudi leagues. This is a worldwide monopoly operating professional tournaments in a sport that is played regularly by 201,000 people in Ireland according to research by the R&A, and watched by many thousands more.
Public sentiment against sports washing is rooted in ethical concerns surrounding the association of sport with entities involved in human rights abuses, corruption or other unethical practices. People want transparency, fairness and integrity in sports. They do not want sport to be used as a tool to divert attention from or legitimize unethical, immoral or illegal acts.
There is an ongoing examination initiated by lawmakers in the United States to determine whether the merger is a breach of US anti-trust law, given that it would shrink an already concentrated space from two promoters to one and effectively end any hopes at competition. Ironic, really, given the PGA operated a de-facto monopoly for so long.
If the deal fails to get regulatory approval, it may assist in halting the march of sports washing in other sports. And of course, we are always free to vote with our feet.
Unlike Saudi women, or members of the LGBTQI+ community, or journalists, or human rights activists and many others.
