It was the clearest definition of ‘sportswashing’ you could hope for. Buried within Foreign Office exchanges unearthed in a recent investigation by The Athletic into the Saudi takeover of Newcastle United, one line stuck out: “The takeover of Newcastle presents an opportunity to promote a different image of Saudi Arabia in the UK.”
The increased presence of nation-state ownership in sport – from the Saudi golf takeover to the acquisition of clubs such as Newcastle and Manchester City by investment funds linked closely to governments in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi – is, inevitably, money-oriented. Gulf states are attempting to diversify their economies and decrease their reliance on fossil fuels, with Saudi Arabia aiming to boost sport’s percentage of the kingdom’s GDP to 10 per cent by 2030.
But it’s not just about cash; it’s also about shaping a country’s global image and distracting from atrocities such as the execution of juvenile criminals and dissenting journalists like Jamal Khashoggi, the persecution of LGBTQ+ citizens, and the British-armed, Saudi-Emirati-led bombing of Yemen. According to Nick McGeehan, co-author of the Fairsquare report Easy Cities To Buy, European soccer offers “great PR for the image-conscious autocrat. It also opens up commercial opportunities and it’s great for political networking.”
And yet, there’s a growing contingent of football fans convinced that sportswashing isn’t real, and that anyone criticising Gulf state investment in football is hypocritical or even racist. Effectively, fans in the UK have actively joined the image-laundering campaign.
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A brief scroll on social media highlights how fans have embraced this trope. Emboldened by ex-pros like former Manchester United and England international Rio Ferdinand, who decried the “hypocrisy” of questioning nation-state ownership in football, numerous fans online have begun slamming any criticism of sportswashing as “western chauvinism and low-key racism”. Social media is never a good place for intelligent debate, but it’s now impossible to comment on the toxic relationship between money, power, and football without being attacked.
Various Newcastle United and Manchester City fans have consistently defended their clubs’ ownership groups on X. What is it that motivates people to become apologists for sportswashing? How can the prospect of sporting success cause supporters to sideline ethical concerns and react with vitriol to experts such as Amnesty International’s Middle East Researcher Dana Ahmed, who described sportswashing as “a means of distracting from [a] country’s appalling human rights record”?
When we hear from commentators like Ahmed that “on a single day last year [in Saudi Arabia], 81 people were put to death, [often after] grossly unfair trials,” it underlines the importance of questioning the ethics of club owners.
Some people don’t want to hear it. “Sportwashing is not but a racist term used against Arab owners,” says Manchester City fan channel City Chief when asked their thoughts on the club’s owner, Sheikh Mansour.
When questioned about the close ties between Mansour’s Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) and the country’s government, City Chief denied those links, replying: “Man City are not owned by a state.” Der Spiegel recently revealed that Abu Dhabi, described by Amnesty International as “one of the most brutal states in the Middle East” facilitated payments to the club. Pressed on what the principle of nation-state ownership meant for football and whether they’d mind if a country like North Korea owned their club, they wrote “North Korea can own a club, no problem with that. You think US and UK are any better than North Korea?”
Does it bother fans that foreign state ownership is helping pull clubs away from the local communities and fans they represent, and pricing many out of attending matches? “Sheikh Mansour has done more for Manchester than our government,” says City Chief. “Majority of our fans prefer our owners to ones at Man Utd, Spurs and Liverpool. We are blessed.”
“Blessed” is a word many Newcastle fans have used to describe the situation since the club’s takeover by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the government’s sovereign wealth fund, controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in October 2021. Substantial investment and a boost in performance has lifted the mood around the club and city. Most supporters seem to have bought into the project, and given the years of Mike Ashley-led underachievement and lack of investment that preceded the Saudi-backed era, that’s not surprising. What remains striking is the extent to which some supporters push beyond the on-field action to defend the Saudi government.
“Our dreams have come true as football fans,” says Barry Thomas, who runs Newcastle fan channel Through Black & White Eyes. “We want to be happy again, to have a full St James’ Park, to be in the running for trophies. The other side of the fence is what happens in their country. Personally, I’m not a politician and I don’t look into it.”
Shouldn’t football fans in the UK have a duty to at least understand where the money is coming from? “Should I really be sticking my nose into it when it’s none of my business?” says Thomas. “All the voices saying that Saudi is terrible, the human rights are terrible ... where was all that before they took over Newcastle United?”
Human rights campaigners and political activists have been raising these points for years, but they didn’t impact English football until recently, when oppressive regimes started investing in the Premier League.
Crucially, the tribal nature of supporting a club means that many fans jump straight on the defensive. A siege mentality has formed among many Newcastle fans, and journalists known for commenting on the issue of sportswashing and the intersection of football and global politics are viewed as anti-Toon. The reality is that most neutrals don’t particularly care how successful Newcastle are; in fact, if their success wasn’t so inextricably linked to the murder and persecution of Saudi citizens, many people would probably be quite happy for them. But that doesn’t fit the narrative.
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“You shouldn’t throw stones if you live in glass houses,” says Thomas. “The UK at the moment has a terrible record of people living on the streets, knife crime, gun crime. We’ve got to tackle our own problems before we tackle another country’s.” Thomas is not wrong to highlight the UK’s own injustices and inequalities, but the key point that’s missed here is that you can oppose injustice in multiple places simultaneously. When fan protest groups raise legitimate concerns about state ownership in sport, this is the kind of mentality they encounter.
“The whataboutery and intellectual somersaults are just amazing,” says John Hird of NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing. “Fans come up with a lot of arguments to justify the horrible fact that Newcastle United is owned by one of the bloodiest dictatorships in the world.
“Most fans are in the middle ... we say they’re there to be won over. The Saudi human rights activist Lina al-Hathloul came to Newcastle and told horrific stories about her sister and the thousands of people imprisoned and tortured, and you could see reporters going ‘I didn’t know this’. We wrote to all of the local members of parliament (MPs) and 77 councillors ... only three councillors agreed to meet her. So I won’t blame ordinary fans ... most fans can say ‘What about my MP?’ What about the councillors? They haven’t done anything!’”
Local politicians haven’t just failed to criticise Saudi Arabia’s investment in the northeast; according to The Athletic’s report, “local MPs and fan groups had pushed for the deal to happen”. Meanwhile, in Manchester, the city council’s slashed-price land sales to the ADUG have given Abu Dhabi unassailable local power and influence. Westminster’s cynical election-driven viewpoint was highlighted by government emails detailing how potential regional investment has “a levelling up slant”, which is “very popular with ‘red wall’ MPs and grassroots communities”. Red wall is a term used to describe traditional, Labour Party voting districts. In the 2019 British general election, many of those typical Labour seats were won by the Conservative party.
When those in power embrace the encroachment of foreign dictatorships in football clubs – historic, working-class community assets – it makes it far easier for fans to shrug their shoulders. And this is particularly true for younger supporters who have only ever known football to be driven by corporate greed and corruption – and whose view of the game is more likely to be shaped by conversations online.
“It’s a generational thing,” says Hird. “[The age divide] struck me at the protest. I wouldn’t say that young people are more susceptible [to sportswashing], but the people who should know better – MPs, councillors, people running fanzines – they should have explained the issues more clearly. We’re at a crossroads, because if we allow more clubs to be owned by nation-states, where’s football gonna end up? If you don’t have fairness, it ceases to be a sport.”
As long as sportwashing drives success, many fans will be willing to accept it. “Many clubs are state-owned these days as it’s the only way to compete,” writes Newcastle United supporter Nufc Iceman. That isn’t factually accurate [there are only two in England], but if fans continue to view financial investment and on-field performance as being more important than the very soul of a football club, that’s the way things will go. By the time supporters realise what has been lost, it will be too late. – Guardian
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