Yep. Luckily, Google allows you to limit searches to particular dates, so you can see when people actually started talking about something. Actually the peak for the phrase sportswashing is 2005, and I think mostly refers to some golf tournament in Saudi and the Bahrain Grand Prix. In fact, every reference to sportswashing I can find refers to a country hosting a sporting event. If you search 'sportswashing Man City' and limit searches to before July 2011, you get "It looks like there aren't many great matches for your search." Even after we won the title, there was no talk of sportswashing. When Baku hosting the European Games in 2015, there were accusations of sportswashing, but it was still something that had not been levelled at City's owners at that point. When Guardiola arrived in 2016, it wasn't mentioned.
Genuinely, the first example I can find of someone being 'concerned' about human rights in relation to Man City is a 2018 article in the Independent by Miguel Delaney.
Yep. It's no coincidence that there is little academic interest in the use of the term "sportswashing". The general consensus is that "sportswashing", firstly, is a media-driven construct and, secondly, that it applies to states and is synonymous with the exercise of soft-power and nation building. In fact, it can be argued that the use of these terms, together with reputation laundering, which can also be used with corporations and individuals, is better terminology.
Further, it's no coincidence that "sportswashing" is used solely for states that are not seen to be western allies, or deemed not to have western values. So, when Qatar or Saudi Arabia are involved, it is "sportswashing" with the negative connotations, but when a western country with their own rights problems does the same it is not.
There are also problems with the underlying premise of "sportswashing", in that it assumes that the act in question negates or draws attention away from an unfavourable perception of the actor. I think we can accept, in the present climate with social media, that sponsoring or investing in sport to do either of these things in fact does the opposite. It merely draws attention, of whoever is offended by the activities of the actor, to those activities.
So, to conclude, I would say that Mansour owning City isn't a case of nation-building or the exercise of soft power because he isn't a state, nor is it a case reputation laundering as he, as an individual, doesn't have a reputation that needs laundering. So this "sportswashing" epithet, as well as being academically superfluous, is inappropriately used.
An argument could be made that sponsorship from AD state-owned entities is reputation laundering/ nation building/ the use of soft-power depending on your point of view. But then so are all sponsorships from state-owned entities from Qatar, SA and any other country involved in the exercise of soft power/ nation-building/reputation laundering.
Also, you don't have to bend very far to come to the conclusion that Standard Chartered's sponsorship of Liverpool is a much more blatent example of laundering of a pretty bad reputation than Mansour's investment in City.
To summarise: it's all bollocks.
As an aside, it is pretty clear that Mansour has made good money on his investment, and that PIF will with Newcastle. Not sure about Qatar/PSG but if anyone buys Liverpool or United for north of 3-5 billion, it is fair to say the lack of much of an upside would mean nation-building, the exercise of soft-power or reputation laundering ("sportswashing" to the great unloved) would be very much on the agenda.
