Skip Donoghue
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Vanish is good
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Sport washing
- Thread starter Cityfan1977
- Start date
Sportswashing is another nonsense concept invented by Amnesty International or some such organisation. Organisations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and Western charities are regarded as liberal and somewhat radical in the Western world. They are supposed to represent people with a conscience but they are the modern-day equivalent of the missionaries of the Victorian world. They want to region to adopt Western civilised values failing to understand the relationship between East and West which is oppressive and exploitative. In practise all they do is justify militarism. "We must send our army in to help the people". Seen it so many times. The majority are well-meaning people but they do not understand. You can't have political freedoms without economic freedom. Great Britain's modern day democracy didn't start out as a modern-day democracy did it. It started out as a monarchy, conquering the world, and the world developed at separate rates. All this stands behind international politics today and the end product is you have 'advanced nations' and those playing catch-up.
Where are these campaigns against Sportswashing when the England national team plays, or the Stars and Stripes booms out before some international sporting event? You find that sportswashing only targets third world countries, and minor nations.
Where are these campaigns against Sportswashing when the England national team plays, or the Stars and Stripes booms out before some international sporting event? You find that sportswashing only targets third world countries, and minor nations.
NowInMilnrow
Well-Known Member
Some very good posts in this conversation. CityFan1977 makes the good point that if ADUG's use of Manchester City as a vehicle for 'sportswashing', i.e. hiding their human rights record behind a successful football club, then they are making a pretty crap job of it! The high profile of the club now is only highlighting their human rights record. Clearly that is not what they want, and so is highly unlikely to be what they intended.
The only positive exposure that they get from the club is advertising of their national airline on the shirts and stadium name, and the free tourist advertising on match-day ("visit Abu Dhabi" etc). I read an interesting article over 10 years ago now describing how the Arab states are looking how to diverge their economies, preparing for the day when the oil runs out. If they did nothing then when the last drop goes up the pipe they would in for a catastrophic economic cliff-fall. We have seen how next-door in Dubai they have very successfully improved their tourist economy - it is now a major stop-over point for flights, and hosts many major sports events. This is what Abu Dhabi are also now trying to achieve, and a good vehicle for that is to have a highly successful and visible football club acting almost as an ambassador for that aim. It's also why they are buying football clubs all over the world, not just in England. The idea that these clubs can be used as feeders may also be intentional, but is less important, and in practice is unlikely to achieve much, as we have seen, with the only current example being Aaron Mooy!
Basically, it's got nothing to do with 'sportswashing'.
The only positive exposure that they get from the club is advertising of their national airline on the shirts and stadium name, and the free tourist advertising on match-day ("visit Abu Dhabi" etc). I read an interesting article over 10 years ago now describing how the Arab states are looking how to diverge their economies, preparing for the day when the oil runs out. If they did nothing then when the last drop goes up the pipe they would in for a catastrophic economic cliff-fall. We have seen how next-door in Dubai they have very successfully improved their tourist economy - it is now a major stop-over point for flights, and hosts many major sports events. This is what Abu Dhabi are also now trying to achieve, and a good vehicle for that is to have a highly successful and visible football club acting almost as an ambassador for that aim. It's also why they are buying football clubs all over the world, not just in England. The idea that these clubs can be used as feeders may also be intentional, but is less important, and in practice is unlikely to achieve much, as we have seen, with the only current example being Aaron Mooy!
Basically, it's got nothing to do with 'sportswashing'.
It's Sheikh Mansour's investment. I don't think it's part of any strategic thinking by the UAE state. He's using people close to him who are advisers to the Executive Council of the UAE but I don't think City are a UAE project. They are a Sheikh Mansour project in the same way that football clubs all over the world are the property of billionaires. Other UAE Sheikhs have tried to buy Premier League clubs, most notably Liverpool.Some very good posts in this conversation. CityFan1977 makes the good point that if ADUG's use of Manchester City as a vehicle for 'sportswashing', i.e. hiding their human rights record behind a successful football club, then they are making a pretty crap job of it! The high profile of the club now is only highlighting their human rights record. Clearly that is not what they want, and so is highly unlikely to be what they intended.
The only positive exposure that they get from the club is advertising of their national airline on the shirts and stadium name, and the free tourist advertising on match-day ("visit Abu Dhabi" etc). I read an interesting article over 10 years ago now describing how the Arab states are looking how to diverge their economies, preparing for the day when the oil runs out. If they did nothing then when the last drop goes up the pipe they would in for a catastrophic economic cliff-fall. We have seen how next-door in Dubai they have very successfully improved their tourist economy - it is now a major stop-over point for flights, and hosts many major sports events. This is what Abu Dhabi are also now trying to achieve, and a good vehicle for that is to have a highly successful and visible football club acting almost as an ambassador for that aim. It's also why they are buying football clubs all over the world, not just in England. The idea that these clubs can be used as feeders may also be intentional, but is less important, and in practice is unlikely to achieve much, as we have seen, with the only current example being Aaron Mooy!
Basically, it's got nothing to do with 'sportswashing'.
Oil is still 46% of UAE GDP by the way (https://www.thenational.ae/business/economy/uae-economy-to-outperform-middle-east-in-2019-1.850256)
Still they are way down the list of oil-producers. The US is the biggest oil- producing nation on the planet producing 15 M bpd oil. The UAE 4m.
bobbyowenquiff
Well-Known Member
Amnesty Interntional and Human Rights Watch seem to be much more critical of the UK and the USA for supplying weapons which are being used in the Yemen civil war. I realise UAE is part of the coalition but, apart from some criticism of the conditions of migrant workers (which is a common problem across the world) I can find little criticism of Abu Dhabi. Where is all the evidence of human rights abuses? According to a family member who has worked extensively in the Gulf for decades Abu Dhabi is one of the most liberal places in the entire region. There are lots of horror stories from Saudi but very little about Abu Dhabi. I am not an expert in politics but the rebels in Yemen are backed by Iran which has a horrific reputation. Why is Abu Dhabi singled out by some sections of the UK press?Sportswashing is another nonsense concept invented by Amnesty International or some such organisation. Organisations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and Western charities are regarded as liberal and somewhat radical in the Western world. They are supposed to represent people with a conscience but they are the modern-day equivalent of the missionaries of the Victorian world. They want to region to adopt Western civilised values failing to understand the relationship between East and West which is oppressive and exploitative. In practise all they do is justify militarism. "We must send our army in to help the people". Seen it so many times. The majority are well-meaning people but they do not understand. You can't have political freedoms without economic freedom. Great Britain's modern day democracy didn't start out as a modern-day democracy did it. It started out as a monarchy, conquering the world, and the world developed at separate rates. All this stands behind international politics today and the end product is you have 'advanced nations' and those playing catch-up.
Where are these campaigns against Sportswashing when the England national team plays, or the Stars and Stripes booms out before some international sporting event? You find that sportswashing only targets third world countries, and minor nations.
mancity2012_eamo
Well-Known Member
Maybe Iran supports Liverpool.Amnesty Interntional and Human Rights Watch seem to be much more critical of the UK and the USA for supplying weapons which are being used in the Yemen civil war. I realise UAE is part of the coalition but, apart from some criticism of the conditions of migrant workers (which is a common problem across the world) I can find little criticism of Abu Dhabi. Where is all the evidence of human rights abuses? According to a family member who has worked extensively in the Gulf for decades Abu Dhabi is one of the most liberal places in the entire region. There are lots of horror stories from Saudi but very little about Abu Dhabi. I am not an expert in politics but the rebels in Yemen are backed by Iran which has a horrific reputation. Why is Abu Dhabi singled out by some sections of the UK press?
BlueAnorak
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 31 Oct 2010
- Messages
- 26,186
Amnesty International is more worried about the human rights record of the UK and USA. Fact.
BlueAnorak
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 31 Oct 2010
- Messages
- 26,186
Because our owner has Brown skin, is an Arab and come from the Middle East. It is pure racism - end off.Amnesty Interntional and Human Rights Watch seem to be much more critical of the UK and the USA for supplying weapons which are being used in the Yemen civil war. I realise UAE is part of the coalition but, apart from some criticism of the conditions of migrant workers (which is a common problem across the world) I can find little criticism of Abu Dhabi. Where is all the evidence of human rights abuses? According to a family member who has worked extensively in the Gulf for decades Abu Dhabi is one of the most liberal places in the entire region. There are lots of horror stories from Saudi but very little about Abu Dhabi. I am not an expert in politics but the rebels in Yemen are backed by Iran which has a horrific reputation. Why is Abu Dhabi singled out by some sections of the UK press?
Newman Noggs
Well-Known Member
If we're going to start inventing pejorative phrases, how about media "image-washing".
That's taking medium sized clubs whose fans murder innocent football-goers from opposition teams thus getting their competitors banned from getting the riches they have had the benefit of, and inventing myths like "most knowledgeable supporters", "European Royalty" "famous nights under the lights" etc ad nauseam and re-packaging them as guardians of the game.
That's taking medium sized clubs whose fans murder innocent football-goers from opposition teams thus getting their competitors banned from getting the riches they have had the benefit of, and inventing myths like "most knowledgeable supporters", "European Royalty" "famous nights under the lights" etc ad nauseam and re-packaging them as guardians of the game.
Ghandi's Flip Flops
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- Joined
- 14 Aug 2009
- Messages
- 1,383
Was quite a good letter published in football365's mailbox the other day from a Luton fan
But everyone is just as bad as each other
Disclaimer: I am a Luton Town fan who backed no horse in the title race between City and Liverpool.
It is getting really tiring hearing ignorant generalisations in the mailbox about the owners of Man City. People write in to this website almost every day from positions of ignorance, assuming they understand the realities and political intricacies of life and policy in The UAE. Firstly, Abu Dhabi, despite being the seat of the UAE government, is an Emirate that is politically distinct from the other 6 Arab Emirates; therefore, the actions of the Abu Dhabi royal family is distinct from the UAE as a whole, just in the same way that England and London have policies and practises that differ entirely to those in, say, Blythe in Scotland. Consequently, the Man City owners are not a vanity project for an entire country, as frequently espoused on these pages, but are representative of one royal family in one emirate. In reality, the Abu Dhabi group, and its business interests are in direct competition with groups from neighbouring Emirates e.g. Etihad vs Emirates (airlines) and Etisalat vs DU (mobile networks).
Furthermore, the frequent assertions about the treatment of homosexuals in The UAE smacks of the kind of imperialist head burying that Nigel Pearson would be proud of. In our ‘progressive’ society in the UK, same sex marriage has been legalised for four and a half years, but homosexuality has been ‘tolerated’ for much longer; the UAE is still in the ‘tolerated’ phase. UK Legislation banning gay people from joining the army was only formally repealed in 2016. A royal pardon for Alan Turing being chemically castrated for homosexuality was only forthcoming in 2013. Britain has literally just made things adequate for gay people, and yet we have mailers writing in to decry the circumstances surrounding homosexuality in the UAE that they know nothing about, most probably lumping ‘them lot that are all the same’ in together and assuming that Brunei and Dubai are the same place. They are expecting the same level of traction and rate of change in a 2nd world nation, that operates Sharia law, as they have had in Britain (which itself has been glacial in the rapidity of its changes). The reality in the UAE is that homosexuality, whilst illegal, is tolerated and accepted in a live-and-let-live fashion, in much the same way as it had been in Britain until very recent legal changes. I say this as someone who lived with three different gay housemates in the UAE in the last 10 years, none of whom ever felt persecuted or unable to live the way they wanted to. Rates of homosexuality amongst young, unmarried Arab men are high, and tolerated, though there is still the cultural expectation of a heterosexual marriage – not really all that different to most countries where legal progress is not always reflected by the cultural zeitgeist.
Given that the pope condemned the burgeoning legal rights of homosexuals in the UK upon his visit to Britain in 2010, it is not hard to see, in a country underpinned by its religious theology, why the rapidity of change has been slower in the Gulf states than in the UK and Europe. And, given the opprobrium and hostility that my sister has faced as an openly gay woman whilst outside of cosmopolitan city centres in the UK, the legal rights of gays in the UK are masks to deeply-rooted prejudices based on sexuality in large swathes of people in the country. Hatred and intolerance for gays is present in the UK, just as it is in the Gulf states. Legal alterations represent progression, but not ultimate solutions to the cancer of homophobia. It will take time for the same legal changes to become manifest in the Gulf, just as equal-rights bills for women have taken longer, but are now in existence in a growing number of Gulf states, including the UAE. I say this not to excuse the absence of progressive legislation for gays in the UAE, rather to point out the hypocrisy of the soapbox criers in the mailbox who have total misguided faith in their moral authority and superiority because they are British (full disclosure – I am too).
As for the UAE’s involvement in Yemen, the UK are just as culpable as any of the countries involved in the war, and arguably have the greater power to stop hostilities. Every airstrike, tank or sophisticated military weapon in the hands of a Saudi or UAE soldier was provided to them by UK arms dealers, sanctioned by the British government, and increasingly aggressive foreign policies in the Arabian Gulf have occurred thanks to the emboldening of the ruling families, particularly in Saudi, thanks to political partnership with our country and the US (amongst others). We have either backed, directly participated or turned blind eyes to almost every military incursion in the Gulf and Middle East for the last thirty years. It was us and the US who stuck Saddam Hussein on the throne, only to return and depose him, send Iraq into political disarray and create the power vacuum that allowed for the disease of ISIS to fester. We have no moral authority to criticise anybody for inhumane military incursions; our, and our American cousins’, foreign policy is responsible for more unnecessary bloodshed than any Middle-Eastern regime. Go to Kurdhistan, Kabul, Damascus, Palestine or Basra and ask the citizens there about the moral authority of the British. Again, I say this not to condone what the UAE and Saudi are doing, but to reassert that the UK has no moral highground from which to judge when it comes to unethical military intervention; it is a shame that we all share.
So stop throwing ‘them lot over there’ style comments out about people and governments that you know nothing about, and check your own history before falsely asserting your own entitled sense of moral superiority. The world is, tragically, an unethical sh*thole and pretty much all of us are complicit in some sort of atrocity, from climate change to unwittingly buying products that fund zionist extremists. Don’t pretend you are any different.
Jurgen Guardiola