Opinion | Anthony Joshua vs Andy Ruiz Saudi Arabia fight latest – but not the last – sports-washing success
- ‘Clash on the Dunes’ follows WWE and Brazil vs Argentina this year with more to come in 2020
- Criticism of kingdom’s human rights record has not prevented sport stars from accepting millions on offer
They say that money talks but it does much more than that. It speaks so loudly as to silence those without it and forces others to bury their heads in the sand. That’s the case in Saudi Arabia where Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz Jnr are fighting on Saturday night in the so-called “Clash on the Dunes”.
While the fighters are set to net millions of dollars, millions of Saudi citizens are being oppressed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s punitive regime. It seems much longer than a year ago when journalist Jamal Khashoggi was summoned to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and killed for the crime of being outspoken against the rulers of his homeland.
It seems longer ago because so much has happened in the meantime. The Joshua-Ruiz rematch is but one event on a sporting schedule that has quickly become the envy of the world and is only getting bigger.
Brazil and Argentina played a football friendly in the last international break, while next year will see the Saudi Tour cycling event run by the Tour de France organisers and a US$20 million Saudi Cup horse race join the Italian Super Cup and European Tour golf on the calendar.
The widely accepted term is sports-washing, one that stems from the Sport for Rights campaign of 2015 that attempted to put the spotlight on Azerbaijan’s “attempts to distract from its human rights record with prestigious sponsorship and hosting of events”.
