[Soup] Why do dictators love the World Cup?

On the 10th of last month, flight QR644 from Doha, Qatar, arrived at Kathmandu Airport in Nepal.

A white wooden crate was loaded down from the cargo hold of the plane.

On the outside of the box were written the words "Remains of the late Umeshi Kumar Yadaf, 21-year-old male, Nepalese."

Umeshi (pictured below) was a young man in his 20s working on a construction site in Qatar.

He even sold his water buffalo to raise a $1,500 job placement fee.

However, Umeshi's 'Qatar Dream' ended in tragedy.

He returned as a cold corpse.

Umeshi's parents don't know exactly why their son died.

He was only told that he had an accident by falling while lifting a scaffolding at a construction site.

Upon hearing this story, the British BBC directly inquired about the company, but the answer came back saying, "We told Umeshi to abide by the safety standards several times, but he did not abide by the regulations. An accident caused by Umeshi's negligence." .

After the decision to host the World Cup in Qatar in December 2010, Qatar experienced a development boom.

Qatar, which has only 12% of its own citizens, has actively accepted foreign workers.

However, the working environment was not good and sacrifices continued.

Britain's Guardian analyzed, "In Qatar, 6,500 foreign workers have died since winning the right to host the World Cup."

Even 70% of the deaths were classified as 'natural deaths' such as heart attacks, not accidental deaths.

Of course, that's the Qatari government's claim.

Autopsies were rarely performed.

Most of the victims' families living in slums in India and Southeast Asia do not know how to investigate the death of their children.

And 20 days before the opening of the World Cup, the Qatari government forcibly evicted thousands of foreign workers staying near World Cup tourist accommodations without prior notice.

They were foreign tourists visiting Qatar and people who should not be seen by foreign media.

For the Qatari government, which has so far denied human rights abuses, their existence was tantamount to evidence to refute their claims.

The goal of improving the national image through the World Cup should not be damaged.

It wasn't just Qatar.

Attempts to launder negative reputation by saying, “We are not such a bad country,” using sports spirit and enthusiasm for games as leverage was a “common” case in sports history.

There have been other cases where repression was carried out to cover up evidence of repression, like this one.

It's called 'sports washing'.

[Authoritarian countries eager to host sporting events]

Last month, Professor Adam Scharp of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, published an interesting study on sports washing.

Recently, it was said that the hosting of sporting events is more preferred in authoritarian countries than in democratic countries.

The research team analyzed the host countries of 11 sporting events since 1945, including the World Cup, Summer and Winter Olympics, and world-famous track and field, basketball, cricket, handball, ice hockey, rugby, table tennis, and volleyball championships. .

Then, after classifying the host country into a democratic country and an authoritarian country, the number of times was compared.

After the Cold War, it was the result of data analysis that the more authoritarian countries are, the more often they hold sporting events.

It was only 8% in the early 1990s, but has recently surged to 37%.

It is a symbolic scene that China and Russia are eager to host sporting events.

China hosted the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, while Russia hosted the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and the 2018 World Cup.

Another big event, the World Championships in Athletics, was held in Moscow, Russia in 2013, Beijing, China in 2015, and Doha, Qatar in 2019.

In February, the issue of sports washing arose at the Beijing Winter Olympics.

At the opening ceremony, female cross-country athlete Dilnigar Ilhamjan, who was the final runner of the torch relay, became controversial.

As her name suggests, she is a non-Han Uyghur minority.

She was a near unknown player.

At the time, Western countries were not sending diplomatic envoys under the pretext of China's suppression of Uyghur human rights.

Naturally, there was a political interpretation that it was China's goal.

He must have wanted to let people know that "China is a country that is open enough to allow ethnic minorities to be the final runners in the torch relay."

Criticism has emerged that China is laundering the image of human rights abuses through the Winter Olympics.

It is paradoxical that just 10 months later, the Uyghur issue is on the cutting board again due to an apartment fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Prefecture.

Of course, even in democratic countries, there are not a few cases of inducing domestic integration through sporting events.

It is a well-known fact that former President Nelson Mandela, the first elected president of South Africa after universal suffrage, held the 1995 Rugby World Cup to overcome racial tensions.

The economic purpose is also strong.

Sports events can provide momentum for attracting foreign investment and revitalizing the tourism industry.

However, recent democracies tend to avoid sporting events.

A huge amount of tax is invested to hold a sporting event, and this is because of the risk of facing domestic criticism if the effect is not as good as expected.

The Beijing Winter Olympics were selected as democratic countries withdrew their bids.

Sweden gave up its candidacy due to the burden of huge stadium construction costs, and as a result of Poland's referendum, 70% opposed it.

At the time, Beijing's only competing candidate was Almaty, Kazakhstan.

[Olympic governing body to Ukrainian invasion agency]

Dictators in authoritarian countries derive various benefits from sporting events.

Its history goes back to the early 20th century.

As such, the history of sports washing is venerable.

Italy's Mussolini, synonymous with fascism, held the 1934 World Cup, and Germany's Hitler held the 1936 Berlin Olympics. 

Dictators wanted the enthusiasm of crowds at sporting events to be embodied in the political space.

Dictators who communicated with the public through speeches rather than debates always needed the enthusiasm of the crowd.

Externally, it could also be an opportunity to wash the image of a dictatorship and, furthermore, to show off its cultural and technological superiority.

In this respect, the cases of Mussolini and Hitler were the origins of sportswashing.

However, it does not stop at the intangible effect of 'image improvement'.

Sporting events also bring real and tangible benefits to individual dictators.

Professor Sharif pays attention to specific things that happen in the domestic investment process after an authoritarian country hosts a sporting event.

A prime example is the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

Hosting the Olympics kicks off a construction boom.

At the time, President Putin gave privileges by granting various contracts related to the construction of the Olympic Games to his closest aides.

The Rothenberg brothers, who own Russia's largest gas pipeline construction company, Troy Gas Montash, and Putin's close friends, have amassed billions of dollars in contracts related to the Sochi Winter Olympics.

Even, Putin is suspected of concentrating governance resources through the Winter Olympics at the time and pouring them into the war.

A 2017 book by George Washington University professor Robert Ortung, “Putin’s Olympics: Sochi Winter Olympics and the Evolution of Russia in the 21st Century,” digs into the process in detail.

In February 2014, right after the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia invaded and forcibly annexed the Ukrainian territory of the Crimean Peninsula.

The organization that managed the merged Krim region in the process was Krymstroy.

However, Creamystroy was an organization that only changed its name from Olympstroy, a state-run company created for the Sochi Winter Olympics.

Olympstroy was a state-owned enterprise created to build Sochi's Olympic Stadium and create a recreational area.

He granted Olympic contracts to construction companies and managed the security of the Olympic operation process.

Naturally, he was able to absorb money, information, and manpower.

In other words, the military and labor force concentrated through the Sochi Olympics played a role in the invasion of Crimea and its post-management. 

As a result, the Olympics were at the forefront of the operation to annex Ukraine's Crimean region.

The invasion of Crimea deservedly received international condemnation, but it helped perpetuate Putin's rule.

The tragedy led to the current war in Ukraine.

Professor Otong concludes:

[Clever Dictator]

Of course, not all dictators are successful at sportswashing.

Democratization or dissidents against the dictatorship also see sporting events as an opportunity to publicize the reality of the regime.

For dictators, international attention is focused on them, so they cannot just suppress them as hard as they always did.

The dilemma of sports washing.

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