Washing dirty clothes in sport is called sportwashing. Major oil and gas companies are spending $5.6 billion on global sports sponsorship across 205 active deals. A giant, constant and conditioning economic outlay. Dirty money (to clear one’s conscience) is how the report Dirty Money – How Fossil Fuel Sponsors are Polluting Sport published by the independent think tank New Weather Institute defines it.
THE COMPLAINT COMES SOON of the United Nations Future Summit, where Secretary General Antonio Guterres asked the G20 countries – responsible for 80% of total carbon dioxide emissions – for a tax on fossil fuel extraction, arguing that «a future without fossil fuels is of course” but “a fair and quick transition is not”. Guterres himself, last June 5, on the occasion of World Environment Day, had urged governments to ban the advertising of oil, gas and coal companies responsible for the climate crisis, adding that «human beings constitute a threat to life on Earth comparable to the meteorite that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.” The appeal has been accepted, for now, only by The Hague, in the Netherlands, the first city in the world to ban commercials from polluting companies.
BACK TO THE STUDYthe survey finds that the sports with the highest number of agreements are football (59 active agreements as of March 2024, equal to 994 million dollars), motorsports (40 for 2 billion and 186 million dollars), rugby ( 17 for 65 million), golf (15 for 209 million), ice hockey (15 for 192 million), American football (8 for over 640 million), cycling (3 for 486 million). The lion’s share of sponsors is Saudi Aramco (1.3 billion dollars), considered the most polluting company in the world in terms of carbon emissions as well as the most profitable. Controlled by the government of Saudi Arabia (Prince Mohammed bin Salman designates its president), it has become the main sponsor of FIFA and will remain so until 2027; in 2020 it entered into a mega partnership with Formula 1. Followed by the British multinational Shell (470 million dollars), the French TotalEnergies (340 million dollars) and the English petrochemical giant Ineos (777 million dollars).
The fastest growing investments come from the petrostates of the Middle East. Bin Salman rejects the accusations with icy sarcasm: “If sportswashing will increase my GDP by 1%, then we will continue to do it.” A long-term strategy that will bring the football World Cup to Riyadh in 2034. Even Italy, in its own small way, is witnessing the trend: Eni has taken over from Tim, after 25 years, as title sponsor of the Serie A championship with the Enilive brand.
THE SPORT IS OUTSTANDING one of the sectors that Big Oil is using to clean up its reputation, investing billions in sponsorships that allow it to portray itself as generous companies attentive to the public interest. «The oil companies, which are delaying climate action and adding further fuel to the fire of global warming, are using Big Tobacco’s old playbook and trying to pass themselves off as sports patrons.
But air pollution from fossil fuels and the extreme climate conditions of a warming world – explains Andrew Simms, co-director of the New Weather Institute – threaten the very future of athletes, fans and events ranging from the Winter Olympics at the Football World Cup. If sport wants to have a future, it must cleanse itself of the dirty money of the big polluters and stop promoting its own destruction.” Fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change, which will cost the global economy – according to The Gathering Storm (2021 UN adaptation gap report) – 300 billion dollars by 2030.
SOME VOICES OF DISSENTHowever, it is also moving in sport, even in football where Messi and Ronaldo have become even richer thanks to petrodollars. Former Australian men’s football captain Craig Foster bluntly stated: “It’s disheartening, although not surprising, to see my sport, football, top the shame list when it comes to sponsorship of fossil fuels. For too long, the uncomfortable questions surrounding the oil and gas sponsors who are undermining our secure future and that of sport have been ignored. We, as athletes, fans and custodians of sport, must face them.”
IN SERIES A, MORTEN THORSBYmidfielder for Genoa and the Norwegian national team, does not hide his environmental activism and commented on the study as follows: «It is shameful that football is the sport with the highest number of agreements with fossil fuel sponsors. It is ironic that these oil and gas companies spend billions of dollars sponsoring sports, while killing the future of sports and the future of young players due to climate change. Through football we should spread the message that our future should be free from oil and gas.”
IMOGEN GRANT, CHAMPION Olympic rowing competition, and the discus thrower Samuel Mattis invite us to be wary of easy short-term gains which can, instead, have devastating impacts on the planet in the long run. The New Weather Institute’s report concludes with a call for sports authorities to end sponsorship of fossil fuel companies and to demand transparency on sponsors’ emissions data and mitigation measures.
