Sportswashing: media headline or analytic concept?

Sportswashing is a neologism that has begun to appear with increasing regularity in the English-language media over the past few years. However, there has been limited academic discussion of the term and certainly no sustained analysis of what it might or might not offer to sports scholars. This lacuna is particularly curious given the rapid rise in interest in related issues, such as the links between sport and soft power, sporting mega events and place branding and sports diplomacy. Therefore, this paper has three main objectives. First to trace the links between sport and other forms of ‘washing’ (whitewashing, greenwashing etc) and to identify similarities and differences in these approaches. Second, to situate sportswashing within the wider literature on sports and state relations so as to better assess what, if anything, makes it different from cognate terms, including propaganda, public diplomacy, soft power and place branding. Third, to reflect on the utility of the concept, in both analytical and practical terms, in the contemporary era.