The fight for football’s soul
Off the pitch, all is not what it seems. David Gorin delves into the dirty facets of the beautiful game
Seeing only beauty in the things we love, adoring football fans unite in tribal support of their teams, behind the benevolence of owners who engineer big-money player purchases, and grateful for corporations who pump in bulging sponsorship funds. But scratching beneath the game’s glossy veneer reveals the Machiavellian flipside of human nature, manifesting in abuses which turn into self-parody phrases like Fifa’s "football family" and Uefa’s "financial fair play". Football’s foundations are now reinforced with politics, power and money. Sportswashing is a neologism for reputational laundering through sport. Even unconscionable, awful affairs: Amnesty International describes it as "glossing a human rights record, to wash a little blood away".
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