The 2026 World Cup begins in 67 days, which will be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada. However, it is not only a sporting event. As the Onda Cero journalist, Asun Salvador, explained in the podcast Zero Latitude, there is always something behind. “In Qatar that was the culmination of a strategy launched years ago on several fronts and on several continents,” he recalled.
Currently, several of the richest clubs in Europe are in the hands of sovereign funds linked to governments in the Persian Gulf, such as Manchester City, Newcastle, or PSG. There are also cases of players who have finished their careers in teams from Qatar or the Emirates. All of this is included in a phenomenon known as ‘sportwashing’.
Carlos de las Heras, head of Sports and Human Rights at Amnesty International, has defined it as “sports money laundering”, those “techniques and tools that certain countries implement using major sporting events or signings of big stars.” The ultimate goal is “to offer the world a modern, open and reformist image, when the reality of Human Rights is quite complicated.”
The World Cup in Qatar, the culmination of this practice
Thousands of workers died during the construction of the stadiums for the World Cup in Qatar. In these countries, the ‘kafala’ system is implemented, a regime of labor and immigration sponsorship, but which in reality involves the “violation and trampling of workers’ rights by the authorities and employers”, as De las Heras has explained.
FIFA and Qatar committed to creating what was called a delegated fund, which has helped to repair some of the violations committed, but Amnesty International has lamented that it is “totally insufficient” because it does not cover either the needs or the deficiencies of this entire system.
The case of Newcastle in the Premier League
Currently, ‘sportwashing’ not only affects football, but has spread to all branches of sport. De las Heras recalled that Saudi Arabia is the major investor in the Formula 1 World Championship and that it has created a golf circuit, with star signings such as John Rahm.
In football, one of the most striking cases is the purchase of Newcastle, a Premier club that has not won titles since the 1960s, by Saudi Arabia. According to De las Heras, Crown Prince Bin Salmán’s goal was “to enter the Premier League, which is one of the leagues with the most viewers.” Saudi Arabia did not want to be left behind compared to Qatar or the Arab Emirates, which had already entered after the purchase of Manchester City or Arsenal.
The Newcastle case, “fortunately”, the expert pointed out, has led to a change in the legislation. Although the purchase could not be stopped. The fans mobilized against it and this has meant that for two years it has been “mandatory to undergo a much more exhaustive evaluation” with questions such as whether those responsible for the purchase have been involved in human rights violations.
However, he regretted that not much can be expected from FIFA or the International Olympic Committee (IOC). For example, “Infantino and FIFA have created an award that came practically out of nowhere to give to Donald Trump, the FIFA Peace Prize” or the next World Cup to be held in the United States, taking into account the panorama of this country in terms of internal politics, ICE arrests, deportations…
A practice that comes from afar
“We have to redouble the pressure on institutions like FIFA so that, not only so that they are or act in a more ethical manner, but so that they comply with their own statutes,” De las Heras has demanded, because FIFA requires that, when organizing a World Cup, the country has to present evaluation reports on compliance with Human Rights, but neither the United States nor Qatar comply. “This is how you are being part of that sportwashing,” he lamented.
Contrary to what it may seem, this practice of ‘sportwashing’ comes from afar. The ancient Olympic Games were organized as a truce between Greek polis but also as a demonstration of power, and was repeated in events such as the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany, the 1978 World Cup in Argentina or the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where sport was combined with repression and human rights violations.
Already in the most recent examples such as the case of Saudi Arabia, according to Carlso de las Heras, the country uses sport as an investment niche within its economic diversification agenda, known as ‘Vision 2030’, since its economy still depends largely on oil and needs to project a modern and open image to the world.
