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This summer’s World Cup will be a “bonanza of sportswashing” according to human rights organisations, who claim the Trump administration is using sport as a political tool to “cover up abuses”.
With supporter groups warning they have “absolutely no clue” what will happen to fans if they do “stupid stuff” in the US during the tournament, the Sport and Rights Alliance (SRA), which includes Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, has called for more to be done to ensure the protection of individual rights at the World Cup, which begins in six weeks.
HRW’s Minky Worden defined sportswashing as the “practice of using a beloved sporting event to attract fans and positive coverage that might also serve to cover up serious human rights abuses”, and argued the term – previously used in relation to autocracies or non-democratic regimes – should be applied to the current US administration. The US is co-hosting the tournament with Mexico and Canada.
