What about the Sports-washed?

Twb Article 3 min read

What’s a football fan to do in the face of their sports-washing owner?

Author

S'bo Gyre

Published

March 15, 2022

Let’s be honest, as fans all we want to see is our club succeeding at the highest level. Good organizational management combined with owners with a genuine passion and financial support for the club is considered a bonus. 

Chelsea supporters have had the luxury of having the textbook definition of an almost faultless owner in Roman Abramovic. His passion for the west London club was clear to see. Though he strategically never gave interviews during his tenure, his frequent appearances at Stamford Bridge for standard and blockbuster match days was the icing on a cake sweetened by his seemingly bottomless financial injections into the club and the community. 

On sporting merits alone, no one can blame Chelsea fans for having a close affinity to the Russian oligarch.

That said, football does not exist in a vacuum. Football is a reflection of society and the moral conflict the Chelsea fans find themselves in is a prime example. 

Chelsea and the wider football community have always known of Abramovic’s sports-washing and have chosen to look the other way because his work outside the game, though controversial, was tainted by more allegations than proven facts. 
However close affiliation to those said to be aggressors in the Russia-Ukraine war is where the boundary has been set.

Abramovic was one of the first to sports-wash in the modern era but when one casts one’s mind back to Silvio Berlusconi's acquisition of AC Milan in the late 1980s, there is little difference. The age of social media has made it near impossible for billionaire owners to silence those who call out the sports-washing but not from actually going through with it. 

Football has long since availed itself as the perfect sports-washing haven. The acquisition of clubs is regulated by the respective leagues, so casting a brighter light on fans who have diminishing power is disingenuous when it’s authorities whose questionable criteria allow this to happen. 
Scenes of Chelsea fans chanting the Russian’s name during a minute’s applause in support of Ukraine were distasteful but it is a symptom of the greed the sport has become synonymous with. Fans who are mostly grown adults should have greater discretion but they are not the problem- they are merely pawns who form a part of it.

The astronomical financial potential of football has made profits, revenue and market value a greater consideration than an owner’s human rights record. If not, the Saudi-led consortium would have never had a whiff at purchasing Newcastle United.

For the fans, it’s all about winning and not much else. Until such a time that these criteria are revised and strictly adhered to, there will be many such instances for fans to grapple with. After all, there is only so much they can do to affect change at that level.

Modern football is having its days of reckoning. A sport whose growth is largely attributed to the regular day-to-day person is being tested to see if it still recognizes its superpower is not its capacity to create revenue but its ability to resonate with the beauty of humanity.

Written by 

S'bo Gyre (@FootballFemmes)
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