When Liverpool fans greeted Manchester City at Anfield on Sunday with jeers and banners demanding the Abu Dhabi-owned football club be relegated, they took aim at what critics have long dubbed “sportswashing” – the practice of using high-profile sports investments to launder a tarnished international reputation.
Focusing solely on public relations, however, obscures a much deeper network of high-stakes diplomacy and geopolitical economics between London and Abu Dhabi.
The reality behind the United Arab Emirates’ acquisition of the club is an “inconvenient truth” rather than a mere branding exercise, according to Simon Chadwick, a leading sports business expert and co-editor of The Geopolitical Economy of Football: Where Power Meets Politics and Business.
Rather than buying influence through sport, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan’s 2008 takeover was the result of “intense diplomacy” that subsequently helped London navigate the global financial crisis that struck later that year, Chadwick said.