With the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar right around the corner, a common term many sports fans will be hearing over the coming month will be the concept of sportswashing.
Commonly understood, sportswashing is the practice of utilising major sporting competitions or clubs to persuade the public an organisation or nation is providing a positive impact to the world, often in the direct contradiction of its own actions.
The idea of smoothing over legitimate domestic issues and concerns through sport is not a new concept, with the 1936 Olympics in Berlin infamously providing the Nazi regime a chance to promote antisemitism and racial supremacy to the world.
However, the increasing globalisation of major sporting events has led to sportswashing becoming more common place, and while the World Cup is in global sights at the minute, one such controversy has also been brewing for Formula One.
F1 is no stranger to controversy. Over the last 12 months, the competition, its owners, Liberty Media, and sanctioning body, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), have faced a tsunami of negative reaction from drivers, fans, and media alike.
Alongside major on-track issues such as the storm around Max Verstappen’s first World Driver’s Championship and the FIA’s subsequent penalties for Red Bull breaching the cap during the 2021 campaign – a growing complication for F1 is how it has handled accusations of sportswashing.
In 2022, around a quarter of nations the competition has travelled to for grands prix have been accused of human rights abuses or restricting free speech, including China, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, and Azerbaijan.
Additionally, the competition was originally scheduled to hold races in Qatar and Russia, two more nations accused of using sport to cover up human rights abuses, before they were cut due to the World Cup and the invasion of Ukraine respectively.
For many stakeholders, there is a concern the FIA is willingly turning a blind eye to these domestic issues and allowing sportswashing to take place, as well as actively contradicting themselves with its own key messaging.
A major campaign of the competition since 2020 has been the #WeRaceAsOne initiative – a scheme aimed at “tackling the biggest issues facing our sport and global communities”.
While this campaign, the official ESG (environmental, social, governance) platform of the competition, has focused primarily on issues of systemic racism and inequality in the sport, many have accused it of being nothing more than empty words given the sport’s actions to perpetuate sportswashing.
A legal complaint filed in October against F1 accusing the sport of breaching its obligations under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development regarding its Bahrain Grand Prix threatens to bring this simmering issue back.
According to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), “Formula One failed to engage with human rights stakeholders” ahead of granting the longest extension to a course in history, with the race to be held annually until 2036.
Criticism of the Bahrain regime, who utilises the Grand Prix as a way of showcasing unity as a nation, surrounds each running of the race, with allegations of the torture and unlawful imprisonment of peaceful protestors brought up in previous years.
The willingness from the FIA to engage with nations who appear to be hostile to wider equality while they promote inclusivity has led to fan campaigns reshaping the #WeRaceAsOne brand into #WeRaceForMoney – one taking aim at the competition’s own hypocrisy.
To many, it seems F1 has been long unaware or willingly ignoring the friction which can arise between stakeholders when awarding events, especially as its own key messages contradict with potential suppliers.
However, the FIA’s approach to addressing concerns of human rights groups and stakeholders has been mixed, with human rights group, Reprieve, accusing the competition of double standards earlier this year.
The group pointed to the swift cancellation of the Russian GP following the nation’s invasion of Ukraine as showing they will act to protect human rights, but the continued racing in Saudi Arabia, which had conducted executions for pro-democracy, was sportswashing the regime’s actions.
Actions will always speak louder than words for brand and organisations, and when communicating to a range of stakeholders, messaging must be clear and consistent.
The FIA and F1 have shown over 2022 that they cannot clearly communicate what the competition stands for, as by promoting inclusivity while ignoring human rights abuse, they are creating confusion as to its core messages and visions.
As a result, fans, and globally recognised drivers such as Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel have been quick to criticise the sport for sportswashing, which will do nothing more than continue to damage the trust of the organisation long-term.
The latest development in Bahrain, where the season is planned to kick off in 2023, is just another twist in the developing tale of how F1 is failing to walk the tightrope between globalising the sport and playing into the hands of nations keen to paper over the cracks.