I warmly welcomed the news a few days ago that Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf Invitational Series is likely to be abandoned.
It was, prior to Saudi Arabia’s purchase of the 2034 World Cup Tournament, that tyranny’s most ambitious attempt at what we call sportswashing.
We all know what sportswashing is. Put simply, it is the attempt by companies, governments or individuals to divert attention from their more nefarious or otherwise dislikable activities by sponsoring sporting activities, be they sporting teams, or leagues, or global tournaments.
I have written about sportswashing on at least two occasions in this blog.
At least one of those posts involved discussing it in the context of the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso, where a fictional Gulf State airline is a sponsor of AFC Richmond, and the ownership of this airline by that Gulf State is used to sportswash its exploitative business practices in Nigeria. This of course results in a player revolt when they realise this, and the ending of this sponsorship.
Another of these posts talked about real sponsorships in the AFL. The Sydney Swans are sponsored by Qatar Airways, which is owned by the Qatari government. The Qatari government, of course, is responsible for the Doha Airport incident, where several Australian women were forcibly removed from an airliner and subjected to invasive gynaecological searches. I have argued continuously that Qatar needs to be held to account for this, and that its corporate proxy, Qatar Airways, should be penalised.
I probably have also written about Emirates Airways, which sponsors the Collingwood Football Club, and has done so for many years.
I have not gotten around to writing about Etihad Airways, which used to sponsor what has now been renamed as Marvel Stadium, and which owns the Manchester City group of soccer teams – including Melbourne City.
All three of these airlines are government owned – the former by Qatar, and the latter two by one or other of the emirates in the UAE.
All three are national flag airlines which use their sponsorships and ownerships to detract notice from the appalling human rights records in their their home countries.
Qatar of course has been better at sportswashing than the UAE, in that it was able to successfully buy the hosting of the 2022 World Cup tournament – a voting process which was rife with bribery.
But one of the aspects of sportswashing which so many of these instances have in common is the usage of airlines.
True, the use of oil wealth to create from out of the wilderness a large and luxurious national flag carrier, like Qatar and the UAE have done, has other purposes than deflecting attention from the reputation of the respective regimes in relation to human rights or business practices or environmental concerns. For instance, creating major global hub airports at Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Doha, has attracted a large tourist trade which did not exist three decades ago. It may even lead to a sustainable long term global business – although I believe the end of Etihad’s stadium sponsorship had something to do with issues with the bottom line.
However, let us not pretend that using the untold billions of oil revenue possessed by some of these nations to create national flag airlines is simply a matter of economic motives, such as creating trade and tourist routes.
It is a matter of directly increasing national prestige by normalising the business and consumer relationships of people in other parts of the world with these regimes, regardless of the human rights and other concerns about their political and business leaders.
Indirectly, through their sponsorship deals, these state owned airlines engage in sportswashing to a unprecedented degree.
So it is not a case simply of sportswashing. It is something bigger that these states engage in. It is what I term ‘air washing’. I am surprised that Saudi Arabia’s flag airline, Saudia, has not yet been utilised by that regime on the same scale as its neighbours.
But with the 2034 World Cup around the corner, I say: ‘Watch this space.’
Lost For Words! 