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The dangers of sportswashing for the Olympics
Should there be a limit on foreign investment in professional sports? Sportswashing—when a government uses sports to improve its country’s reputation, distract from human rights abuses, or political controversies—has become a major problem in athletics and pro sports. But can governments do anything to stop it?
Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins joined Ian Bremmer on GZERO World ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris to talk about politics, sports and how they overlap. Saudi Arabia has invested billions of dollars in the last few years in sports like golf and tennis to help burnish its global reputation as a modern, forward-looking country. Sportswashing isn’t just a moral issue but also a political one, Jenkins points out, because the more foreign money that gets entangled in domestic companies, the more difficult it is for governments to draw a red line. Jenkin also addresses the NBA’s complex relationship with China on issues like Hong Kong, another example of how financial ties can lead to compromising on democratic values, a position Jenkins calls “the anaconda in the chandelier.”
Watch full episode: The politics of the Paris Olympics
Season 7 of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, launches nationwide on public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
Politics, power, and the Paris Olympics: Insight from WashPo sports columnist Sally Jenkins
Listen: The 2024 Summer Olympic Games kick off in Paris this week as the world’s most elite athletes representing more than 200 countries gather in the French capital to compete for gold. Over the next two weeks, we’ll see triumphant wins, heartbreaking losses, superhuman feats of strength, and touching displays of international sportsmanship. But politics loom large at the Olympics, threatening to overshadow the City of Light’s big celebration. Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins joins Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World Podcast to discuss the biggest stories heading into the 2024 Olympics, including the ban on Russia’s Olympic Committee, calls for Israeli athletes to compete under a neutral flag, and security concerns at what Jenkins calls “the most sprawling and urban Olympics in history.” They also dig into the problem with Saudi sportswashing, the NBA’s financial interest in China, and a transformative WNBA season that’s bringing more eyeballs to games than ever before.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
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Ian Explains: Why authoritarian rulers love the Olympics
The International Olympic Committee says global politics have no place at the Olympics and insists the Olympics promote democratic values through sports, so why does the IOC keep awarding the Games to authoritarian countries like Russia and China?
On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down the complicated relationship between global politics and the Olympic Games. The IOC has an uncomfortable history of cozying up to authoritarian rulers, like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who use the Games as propaganda, who use the Games to project the image of their country they want the world to see. Calls are growing for more transparency in the IOC, which has faced accusations of corruption, bribery, and bid-rigging in recent years. The 2024 Olympics will be a test of the IOC’s ability to remain politically neutral while balancing the ideals of democracy with the geopolitical realities of a world that’s more fragmented than ever. Can they stick the landing?
Watch more on the full episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, in which Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins discusses security concerns and logistical challenges at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the complicated relationship between global politics and the events, and sportswashing.
Season 7 of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, launches nationwide on public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: Subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
A picture taken on 20 April 2023 shows a general view of the West Bay skyline in Doha corniche at sunrise in Doha,Qatar on 20 April 2023
Qatar: The little country that could
It has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, is one of the biggest landowners in the UK, boasts a sovereign wealth fund of $475 billion, and even owns a sizable piece of the Empire State Building. And yet its population is smaller than Madrid’s.
Of all the countries in the Middle East, there’s perhaps no other that punches above its weight more than Qatar. The tiny, exorbitantly wealthy Persian Gulf nation of roughly 2.7 million people has garnered incredible regional and even global influence – and constantly seems to be involved in the biggest stories of the day.
In 2022, the eyes of the world were on Qatar as it hosted the FIFA World Cup. More recently, Doha has been at the center of cease-fire negotiations in the Israel-Hamas war that began in October. It’s also been tied to less flattering stories, including new allegations of corruption against US Sen. Bob Menendez, who until recently chaired the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But how did Qatar become so powerful?
It’s all part of the plan. In the mid-1990s, Qatar set itself on a strategic path to build its wealth and increase its international influence, says Raad Alkadiri, former managing director for energy and climate at Eurasia Group.
Qatar invested heavily in liquified natural gas (LNG), bringing in US and European companies as part of this effort. It’s now one of the top exporters of LNG in the world.
The Gulf state also invited the US to set up an air base within its borders after Saudi Arabia refused. Al Udeid Air Base, which the US has been operating since 2001, is the largest US military base in the Middle East.
All of this was about “national security as much as anything else,” says Alkadiri. Qatar is situated in an often volatile region, and is surrounded by larger, potentially threatening neighbors like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Building relationships with powerful countries such as the US serves as a layer of protection for Qatar.
Hedging its bets. Qatar has been “very careful not to put its eggs in one basket,” says Alkadiri, and “agility” has been key to its success.
Nowhere is this more clear than in its striking diplomatic agility: at the same time that it hosts a major US military presence, it also maintains close ties with Washington’s biggest regional foe: Iran. Qatar and Iran share the world’s largest natural gas field, the North Dome/South Pars, which for years has helped fill Doha’s coffers – giving it ample reason to stay on Tehran’s good side.
Doha has also long cultivated ties with Islamist political groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Taliban. Qatar, for example, has pumped millions of dollars into Gaza over the years (with Israel’s approval), while also hosting exiled Hamas political leaders.
By being open to dialogue and engagement with a wide array of actors, Qatar has put itself in a unique position to serve as a mediator in a number of conflicts. Qatar helped foster a temporary cease-fire in Gaza late last year that coincided with the release of hostages taken on Oct. 7. Doha has also served as an interlocutor between Washington and the Taliban, both before and after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Doha has gone hard on soft power too. It’s invested in everything from art to sports as part of a deliberate strategy that gives it the ability to “pull different levers when it needs to.”
Qatar Sports Investments, a subsidiary of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, owns the Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (PSG) in France – one of the most prestigious soccer teams in Europe (Kylian Mbappé, widely considered one of the best players in the world, is on PSG).
The Qatari state also helped put itself on the international map by founding Al Jazeera in the mid-1990s. Al Jazeera’s critical reporting on an array of issues in the region has also made the outlet, and Doha by association, a target of various governments – but it’s also given Qatar outsized influence in its neighborhood and the wider world.
“They have always sought to give themselves room for maneuver and have used energy, the media, money, and long-standing relations with Islamist groups as a way of being able to achieve that,” says Alkadiri.
No absolutes. It’s no secret that Qatar’s insistence on charting its own path has led to blowback from its neighbors at times – most notably in the form of a 2017-2021 blockade involving Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries.
The blockade was influenced by Qatar’s relatively amicable relations with Iran, a longtime rival of Riyadh. Its relationships with Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, which pushes a conservative interpretation of Islam and is considered to be a terrorist group by the Saudi government, also drove Qatar’s neighbors against it. The US played a role in ending the blockade, which ultimately did little to nothing in terms of altering Qatar’s foreign policy.
Qatar used the various measures at its disposal to ensure it has the level of independence and international support necessary to withstand the blockade, says Alkadiri.
And though Qatar leveraged its connections with Hamas to help secure the release of hostages last year, Israel and the US have also criticized Doha for continuing to host Hamas officials amid the war in Gaza. “The Israelis, up to Oct. 7, were quite happy to rely on Qatar's relations with Hamas as part of Israel's policy in the region,” says Alkadiri.
But Alkadiri also emphasized that none of this is to say that Qatar does not have an “ugly underbelly.”
The Gulf state is, after all, led by an emir who has absolute power and has often faced criticism on human rights issues. But with ample cash to splash out and a diplomatic rolodex that also serves as an invaluable form of currency, Doha has managed to avoid much censure over these issues.
Qatar has “never had absolutes,” says Alkadiri. “It’s always had wavy edges. That’s served it well.”