Sportswashing allows autocrats to burnish their reputations — and leaves a stain on hosts

Given that Manchester City just won the Champions League for the first time in its history, it might sound like a strange time to argue that Abu Dhabi’s purchase of the club has had damaging impact on the city.

But that’s the conclusion of “Easy Cities To Buy” — a new report examining the costs cities pay when autocratic states buy their football clubs. A comparative study of the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates’ takeover of Manchester City in 2008 and the Saudi-led Public Investment Forum’s (PIF) takeover of Newcastle United in 2021, it shows how sportswashing projects can not only burnish the reputations of these states, but also undermine the institutions that are meant to sustain local democracy in their host cities.

In both Manchester and Newcastle, local political leaders have largely turned a blind eye to the dismal human rights records of their Gulf state partners, ranging from war crimes in Yemen to the disappearance and torture of dissidents and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

And in Manchester, council leaders didn’t just decline multiple opportunities to criticize Abu Dhabi, they also actively suppressed criticism. In one notable example, a senior councilor insisted a reference to the city’s relationship with Abu Dhabi be removed from a piece of political theater the council had itself commissioned to commemorate Manchester’s proud record on free speech and democracy.

Similarly, after the deal to buy Newcastle was approved in October 2021, Chi Onwurah — the Labour MP for Newcastle Central — insisted she’d be unwavering in her criticism of the city’s Gulf partners, proclaiming: “If you think the NUFC takeover will stop me criticising the Saudi Regime you don’t know me and you don’t know Newcastle.” Yet, when the NGO Reprieve reached out to the city’s councilors and MPs for assistance in setting up a meeting with the club’s chairman Yasir al-Rumayyan — one to discuss a Saudi citizen facing the death penalty after a grossly unfair trial related to an alleged offence that occurred when he was just 14 — no one responded.

It’s also notable that on the day the takeover went through, a member of the Saudi-led consortium singled out Onwurah as one of the individuals “who made this day possible.”

It’s not just local politicians who are failing to hold the UAE and Saudi Arabia to account either — it’s local press too.

It’s fairly difficult to find much meaningful coverage of Abu Dhabi’s links to Manchester in the Manchester Evening News (MEN). The decimation of local media in the United Kingdom clearly hasn’t helped on this front, but in Manchester in particular, the mainstream local media seems to have avoided touching upon human rights issues, possibly due to a prevailing editorial mindset that assumes most readers don’t care when set against the perceived benefits of UAE’s commercial activity in the city.

As one former MEN journalist told me: “Everyone was just so pleased at the prospect of the investment. Like Newcastle, Manchester had been deprived of private and public investment for years. In a way, you don’t blame the fans for not caring too much. They got Kevin De Bruyne and big shiny buildings. A local paper would never bash their main football club without some pretty good evidence. You could cause damage which you would never undo.”

Of course, one can’t be blind to the political realities facing cities desperate for foreign investment. Both Manchester and Newcastle have suffered from deindustrialization and austerity, having some of the highest rates of child poverty in the country.

And cozying up to Gulf states may seem to offer a lifeline: After the UAE’s ruling family took control of Manchester City in 2008, they entered a £1 billion real estate partnership with Manchester council to regenerate previously dilapidated parts of the city. And Newcastle’s political leaders have talked up the possibility of Saudi investment driving regeneration there as well.

But even the economic benefits of Manchester council’s deal with Abu Dhabi are now being called into serious question. A 2022 report from researchers at the University of Sheffield found the council had “sold the family silver cheap,” giving Abu Dhabi public land at a remarkably low rate, allowing it to funnel profits into offshore entities and circumvent affordable housing regulations.

Gulf money may well help regenerate a city, but who really benefits?

Political leaders need to assess takeovers in the round, based on a strict cost-benefit analysis. Fans might — and do — argue that results on the pitch trump concerns about placing our most cherished community assets in the hands of autocrats, but civic leaders have a higher duty to the cities they represent. And allowing autocrats a free hand to carve out soft power enclaves in their cities is a dereliction of that duty — one that may yet come back to haunt them.

Other cities eyeing Gulf investment would do well to pay close attention to what’s going on here. And with state ownership of football clubs on the rise, we all need to consider the ramifications of ceding control of these powerful cultural sporting institutions to abusive and profoundly undemocratic states.