Book Workshop: The Ethics of Sportswashing

Sportswashing has recently grown into a vital concept in scholarly and public discussions of sport. In 2022, the Collins dictionary named ‘sportswashing’ one of their ten Words of the Year, reflecting the extent of public discussion of the term in the run-up to the 2022 Men’s Football World Cup in Qatar. The term is used as a criticism of owners of clubs or hosts of competitions and has established a foothold in both journalistic and academic work. But there has been very little academic discussion of what exactly sportswashing is or why it matters. 

In The Ethics of Sportswashing, Kyle Fruh, Alfred Archer, and Jake Wojtowicz take on a few main aims:

• Arguing for a clear and workable concept of sportswashing, which explains why sportswashing is distinctive from other issues while showing how it relates to them (e.g. other exercises of soft power).

• Defending the concept of sportswashing against critiques that it is a xenophobic concept wielded solely against Arab states. Exploring whether the concept should be applied more widely.

• Explaining why sportswashing is wrong. The arguments of the book will use real-world cases in showing how sportswashing corrupts institutions and sporting values, how it exploits an inescapable vulnerability of caring about sports, and how it renders players, fans, and others complicit.

• Offering a constructive picture of how moral responsibility for confronting sportswashing can be taken up by various parties.

Invited contributors to this workshop will offer comments and critiques, to which the authors will respond. There will also be time for general discussion of the book and its topics. 

Commentators include:

• Miguel Delaney (The Independent - Chief Football Writer)
• Jules Boykoff (Pacific University) 
• Joe Slater (University of Glasgow)
• Emily Ryall (University of Gloucester) 
• Cem Abanzir (Manchester Metropolitan University)
• Nicola Mulkeen (Newcastle University)   

The workshop will be hosted at Glasgow University and online, on May 21st 2026. The workshop will run 1pm-5pm local time.   

To register for this workshop, please email the three organisers at: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] 

A Zoom link will follow registration.