Israel, Chris Froome & Sportswashing
The term ‘sportswashing’ gets brandished whenever geo-political tensions and sport intersect. Put simply it refers to powers, typically states using sporting events/franchises as a means to launder their reputation and/or poor human rights track record. Though it has more recently cited as an issue in football (where national state owned airlines and oil refineries can be seen emblazoned on the shirts of players), it is by no means a new enterprise. The British Empire relied heavily on organised sport as a means of spreading its cultural will through the colonies.
Yet I have found myself thinking about it with renewed vigour in recent weeks, as I watch the Israel Start-Up Nation in the 2021 Giro D’Italia. I am of course referring to one issue in particular here, Palestine. Although, given sports long history of being a tool to divert attention from violent colonial occupations it is hardly surprising that these connections are being made.
On 8th May, as Israel Start-Up Nation riders rolled out of Piazza Castello for the individual time trial, news was breaking about some 200 Palestinians (and 17 Israeli police officers) wounded during a night of violent clashes in Jerusalem. It followed a month of oppressive restriction during holy month of Ramadan. The amplification of Israeli airstrikes, forced displacement and political persecution has been heavily condemned, but there is little ground to argue a direct correlation between the countries current military action and the inclusion of a state funded cycling team in this year’s Grand Tours. Even still, it does raise some interesting questions about contemporary ‘sportswashing’ and athletes individual agency.
Israel Start-Up Nation is not the only team to bear the name of a sovereign state in World cycling. Following football’s lead, 3 new ‘satellite teams’ have emerged from nations in the Middle East since 2017. Today, if you ask a cycling fan about Bahrain, they are probably more likely to talk to you about Mikel Landa of Team Bahrain Victorious as opposed to any human rights issues. But, in light of recent events, I wanted to return to an incident involving Chris Froome (around the time it began to emerge he would be joining Israel Start-Up Nation).
Having announced his departure from Team Ineos (formerly Team Sky) it emerged that Froome had changed his Twitter heading. Now this seems very trivial. Athletes will regularly alter their social media to align with sponsorship, Team marketing etc. But the nature of this is more cunning, an almost Orwellian endeavour. See, what Froome had actually done was simply crop the image to remove/cover up any ‘controversial’ iconography, notably the Palestinian Flag. It was then, just another attempt, to deny the existence of the indigenous population of Palestine and failure to recognise it as a state. And this is why Froome’s seemingly innocent twitter heading change is so problematic. In an instant he became a political pawn, deployed to reinforce and de-toxify Israel’s image. Though he should currently be questioning his affiliation to the team, I am highly doubtful that we will ever hear him use a press conference to criticise the hegemonic regime of Benjamin Netanyahu. Given the 4-time Tour de France winners sphere of influence within UK cycling, his decision to join the team and willingness to be initiated into the team’s geo-political world view looks like what political scientists would call inducement and coercion.
As I have alluded to, sport has long been a key battleground for diplomatic endeavours – think the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Football World Cup in Argentina's junta regime in 1978 or the 1995 rugby world cup after the end of apartheid. Yet there is something more insidious about the most recent attempts to ‘sportwash’. There are no longer any consequences to human rights abuse in sporting terms. So long as you are willing to ‘put up the money’ owning a sports team essentially allows business as usual. In such circumstances, sport is not about winning medals or athletic achievement. It exists with the sole purpose of furthering a government’s ideological and political agendas. As a fan of sport, such a thought is wholeheartedly depressing. For those who have until now, watched sport with an apolitical fondness. It is perhaps time for greater consideration of who wants what in return for their sporting investment.
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