Dealing with sportswashing – an exercise in honour and popular culture

Qatar 2022 has become a symbol of sportswashing, a flagpost for discussions about accountability, responsibility, and morality within different sport disciplines, football being a prime example. “Moral violation” has been listed as the crime surrounding sportswashing (Fruh, Archer & Wojtowicz 2023, 103). After frenzied use of the word in connection to the last football world cup 2022, there came a flood of articles, together with plentiful publications to be found in the popular press. This text does not have a heavy research claim, but it is a reaction to something that is curious, yet not clearly defined, hence difficult to study. It is also a reaction to a massive interest of the subject among Swedish high school students. Most of my research has been in the cultural context of football, and I have been contacted by quite many students to be interviewed about the subject. I am not an expert on sportswashing, but I know my way around stadiums. I became curious as most of the young people who wanted to talk about this phenomenon were ready with critical views and moral judgements. They were mostly concerned how to and who could stop it. Iy’s as if sportswashing exists without properly materializing.