The Guardian’s Jack Snape asks important questions about the ethics of LIV Golf:
First it was LIV Golf now Saudi Arabia is staging a 32 billion football takeover
The irresistible advance of sportswashing?
Australians woke on Wednesday morning to the news that the Saudi backed LIV tour had merged with America’s Professional Golf Association (PGA) and DP, the European Golf Tour. The back room deals of obscure golfing organizations might appear irrelevant, but they are not. This is a blow to human rights across the globe. All three golf tours (LIV, PGA and DP) will form a new organizational entity to run men’s golf and it will largely be underpinned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). The PIF may be the world’s premier sportswashing body and it has scored a marketing coup with this amalgamation. It now has a large degree of control over the entire sport of men’s golf. Given that almost every golf tournament of consequence will be in large part funded by the Saudis, every tournament will be an exercise in sportswashing, which has now gone global. Every men’s tournament, by definition, will be an unethical event.
According to one report, what form the LIV tour will take in 2024 is now unclear (https://www.smh.com.au/sport/golf/pga-and-european-tours-in-shock-merger-with-saudi-backed-liv-20230607-p5dekc.html). This raises some interesting questions for Premier Malinauskas. After spending money to attract the LIV tour to Adelaide (we don’t know how much, because the government refuses to tell us), will the event go ahead in 2024? If it does proceed, will it still attract top-tier golfers now that PGA and DP tournaments are open to them? A trip down under in the northern hemisphere spring may be looking less appealing than it did before Wednesday’s announcement. Perhaps the most compelling question for the Premier, given the uncertainty that now hangs over the LIV tour, was the reputational damage to South Australia worth it?
The other unpalatable implication of the almost wholesale Saudi takeover of golf is, what sport is next? The answer is unclear, but it should concern all of us because no sport can now be considered safe from the sportswashing march of the Saudis. Craig Foster sums up the dangers:
Saudi Arabia taking over much of global professional sport and in so doing, co-opting influential sporting bodies & much of their fanbases as we’ve seen with @NUFC who quickly become defenders of human rights abuse & promoters of the regime.
Golf, booze and disruption. No dissent or do we just do things differently in the City of Churches?
Gather round for $80 million of football.
Let’s become an Ethical Festival State.
Ethical Events and Festivals Forum – 19 April 2023
South Australia has a proud history of Festivals. We are known as the Festival State. Let’s become an Ethical Festival State.
Firstly I would like to say that we do not take it for granted that we are able to speak freely and meet here today – in Human Rights language we have freedom of speech and freedom of association.
Welcome to Semaphore, home of the Semaphore Kite Festival. Last weekend thousands of people flocked here over three days to a community led and driven event supported by council.
Today we are talking about ethical events and festivals.
So how did we get here ?
This Forum has been conceived and organised by a small group of Le Fevre Peninsula local citizens, in response to the LIV golf tournament to be held from Friday at the Grange Golf Club. LIV is Latin for 54, there are 54 holes in the LIV golf tournament – PGA events have 72 holes. It’s a male only tournament. In addition to the fewer holes played, other differences in the LIV tournament include that it’s played over 3 days instead of 4, it features teams rather than individual players, there is no cut so all players play the full 3 days and players who have joined up are guaranteed huge sums of money.
LIV is funded by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia to the tune of $3 billion USD, with the concept developed by Greg Norman. LIV was not an event looking for sponsorship. LIV was conceived to be a vehicle to sports wash the Saudi regime.
After learning of the decision that South Australia was to host the LIV tournament, the first in the Southern Hemisphere – a first we would rather not have – I considered how to respond. Letters were written to the Premier, The Advertiser, Events SA and the Grange Golf Club. To no avail. Others including Jane Edwards were doing the same. A local suggested I talk with Georgia Heath, who she described as a young community driven woman who opposed LIV ‘who lived just around the corner’ ! The three of us met at a local coffee shop, and discussed how to approach what we all saw as concerning developments in our state. We questioned the ethics of partnering with the Saudi regime. We were concerned about lack of transparency and accountability.
So how to respond ? There were a range of options to consider – continuing with letter writing, protest actions, civil disobedience, paid media campaigns, joining the Golf Club and making representations internally, could events could be rated akin to the Easter egg rating system for ethically sourced chocolate ? getting on local media and other ideas to increase awareness. Or a combination of these options.
It was decided to hold this Forum to discuss the concept of ethical events and festivals more generally. As the LIV tournament was the catalyst, we decided to hold the forum two days before the LIV tournament starts. Raising awareness at a time when there was a focus on the event, and a world wide focus on Adelaide. The idea of developing a framework evolved.
While we came with a wide range of skills and experiences, we thought a forum would widen the pool of people who could contribute. The idea was that if we drew together a group of people from a wide range of backgrounds, we could distil just what makes a festival or event ethical and what could be included in a draft framework. So your presence here today is vital to the process.
Ethics is from the Greek word ethos meaning ‘way of living’. How do we, as a society, want to live? With the freedoms we have, and as citizens, we can influence how decisions are made in our society.
Festivals and events may be unethical due to their funding or sponsorship, in the way they are run or a combination of both.
The extent of SA tax payers’ money going towards the hosting of LIV has started to be revealed. InDaily published on Friday that Events SA have allocated $840,000, yes way more than ¾ million, for marketing, to ‘raise awareness’ about LIV. I have no doubt you could think of better ways to spend that sum! We have heard anecdotally today that the LIV dinner will cost $1 million. Who is I paying for that ? why such an extravagant affair ? who gets that money ? We are still to learn how much this event will be costing tax payers, and how much will be covered by the Saudis. Either way it’s not acceptable. This is sportswashing. As you would have seen in Jane’s comprehensive background paper, Sportswashing is an attempt by states or corporations to deflect attention from human rights abuses they have perpetrated, by sponsoring or hosting sports events. The headlines focus on the celebrities, not the ethical issues. Green washing is the same.
We do not suggest a Forum and an ethical framework is the only response to events or festivals that breach human rights, or are in other ways considered to be unethical. We think that a framework is but one part of the puzzle, a jigsaw piece that helps complete the picture. An ethical framework will be a guide – for example if a Council was considering whether to hold a sporting tournament funded by a particular sponsor or regime, they could look at the framework as a guide.
I have been trying to fathom why would Events SA think that the LIV tournament fits within the program of events to be hosted by SA in 2023. We have events and festivals – arts and sports – with an international flavour. Through July and August there will be many nations competing at Hindmarsh Stadium in the FIFA Women’s world cup. If it was decided that we needed another international sporting event as part of 2023 programming, surely there was another sporting event that could be hosted that did not risk reputational harm to our State.
While the LIV event has come with guaranteed financial backing and is packaged as an ‘off the shelf ‘ event, with sportsmen that those interested in golf want to see, LIV comes with the baggage of sports washing. South Australia has partnered with the regime through its hosting and the tax payers money allocated to the event. No amount of marketing can untell that story.
We urge the media to ask the hard questions of all those involved – the Grange Golf club, the Premier, the Ministers involved, the players and those engaged by the players – ask about the regime funding this event, ask about human rights.
Melanie Carter
19 April 2023
Background: Ethical Events Forum
The issue and its context
This forum is a response to the South Australian government’s decision to partner with the Saudi Arabia’s Investment Fund to hold the LIV golf tour in Adelaide this April. According to Human Rights Watch, it is blatant sportswashing by the Saudis (Human Rights Watch 2017). Our government is now a partner in this sportswashing.
The government spruiks the economic benefits of the LIV tour for the state but is less forthcoming about how much of the income generated stays in South Australia. It is also silent about the number of jobs created, whether they are ongoing employment, and about employment conditions. This raises questions of transparent governance and the widening gap between workers with secure, well-paid jobs and those struggling in the ‘gig economy’.
Our concern is that our government’s willingness to ignore human rights may inadvertently embolden autocratic, repressive regimes. Further, we worry that the lack of detail about the economic benefits of the LIV tour accelerates the public’s declining faith in democracy by weakening transparency and accountability by governments (Stoker et al 2018).
Sportswashing
The Sydney based Ethics Centre says sportswashing is an attempt by entities — states or corporations — to deflect attention from human rights abuses they have perpetuated by hosting sporting events, or injecting funds into sporting events or teams (The Ethics Centre 2022).
Sportswashing generates positive media about the entity’s links to popular and publicized sports. In place of headlines on human rights, we get ones celebrating sporting achievements and personalities. It also makes all those who participate complicit in human rights violations (The Ethics Centre 2022; Fruh et al 2022; Skey 2022).
Sportswashing attempts to avoid damaging ‘reputational capital’, because of its value to any entity engaged in the market, whether state or corporation (Eccles et al 2007). Sportswashing is related to ‘soft diplomacy ’ and ‘place branding’; both are used by states and companies to increase reputational capital. However, sportswashing should not be confused with place branding or soft diplomacy. These undertakings can both have positive outcomes; sportswashing, by contrast, only deflects attention from human rights breaches (Skey 2022).
Sport is important because it is profoundly important to many people; it can be used to garner the attention of specific groups and it often attracts mass audiences (Skey 2022). Sportswashing also exploits sport’s assets— enthusiasm, affiliation, and identity — to accomplish its objectives. In doing so, a range of people (participants, spectators, journalists, clubs, venues, media organisations, providers) become complicit in the wrong sponsors seek to camouflage (Fruh et al 2022).
A version of sportswashing occurs in the arts, where sponsors use events to hide questionable practices and enhance reputational capital. Artists involved in the 2014 Sydney Biennale successfully persuaded the organizers to cut Transfield’s sponsorship loose because of its association with the running of detention centres (Sydney Morning Herald 2014). Environmentalists and traditional owners forced organizers to end Santos’ sponsorship of the Festival of Darwin because of Santos’s links with fossil fuels (Canberra Times 2022). The Sydney Festival revoked the Israeli government’s sponsorship last year after artists and arts organizations complained (The Conversation 2022).
Why have ethical frameworks?
The Sydney-based Ethics Centre suggests that the choice of sponsors should be a careful and deliberative process, using a formal decision-making tool, because taken-for-granted assumptions and the values implicit in an organization’s culture can unwittingly shape decisions that have unethical consequences (The Ethics Centre 2022).
Both the Ethics Centre (2022) and the Victorian government (2019) argue that, in selecting sponsors, organizations and governments should consider their ‘foundational purposes’; that is, their reasons for being, and their values, goals, and guiding principles. Sponsorship (and supply chains) should align with these. For these reasons, we believe that, for governments, normal cabinet decision-making processes are unlikely to promote ethical decisions about sponsors and supply chains. An ethical events framework would assist transparent and deliberative decision-making.
Existing frameworks
Glasgow Commonwealth Games
Sporting events are an opportunity to enhance and extend human rights (Glasgow 2014). Both the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the 2018 games, held on the Gold Coast, created ethical frameworks for these events. The Organizing Committee of the Glasgow games directed attention to respecting individual rights and freedoms, including civil and political rights, as well as the right to privacy and family life. Further, the 2014 Games promoted freedom of association, conscience and belief, and expression. The Games also endorsed decent labour conditions, including wages, and worker health and safety. Suppliers, the organizers insist, must also adhere to ethical trading frameworks and the code of conduct for the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry. The Glasgow Games also formulated policies — albeit limited ones — promoting environmental sustainability
Gold Coast Commonwealth Games 2018
The Organizing Committee of the 2018 Commonwealth Games exemplified the deliberative approach to creating an ethical framework by engaging human rights experts, key stakeholders, and existing human rights assessment tools, to focus on:
- Supply chain impacts
- Athlete well-being
- Local community impacts
- Security
- Work health and safety (Gold Coast Commonwealth Games 2018:8).
The 2018 Games also formulated policies promoting:
- Indigenous participation in the Games, including opportunities for economic participation.
- Accessibility, diversity, and inclusion
- Engagement, particularly with local communities and stakeholders
- Gender Balance
- Links with LGBTIQ+ organizations (Gold Coast Commonwealth Games 2018:20-26).
Human Rights Risk Assessment
The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and the New Zealand Human Rights Commission (NZHRC) formulated a detailed ethical framework to guide the Fédération Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) staging of the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Together they developed a Human Rights Risk Assessment tool for assessing risks to human rights, particularly in relation to:
- the exploitation of migrant labour in creating infrastructure
- forced evictions of homeless and other people
- child labour that may be employed in the production of various kinds of merchandise (Australian Human Rights Commission 2021)
The following also require scrutiny:
- Use of labour in slavery like conditions
- Risks for workers, with special attention to strong labour and OHS laws, and regulations.
- Protecting the rights of migrant works (comprising approximately 11% of Australia’s workforce) because, for a variety of reasons, they are less likely to be assertive and less likely to report breaches.
- Younger workers, who are also more open to exploitation, because they are unaware of their rights and channels to address breaches of them. Sexual harassment of younger female workers presents a specific risk (Australian Human Rights Commission 2021).
Certain groups of workers and industries have been documented to be at high risk of exploitive practices:
- Construction
- Hospitality
- Security
- Cleaning
- Consumer goods (Australian Human Rights Commission 2021)
Volunteers may also be exploited by having roles and responsibilities that could be done by paid employees (Australian Human Rights Commission 2021).
All risks must be assessed in relation to sponsors and media organizations, as well as sporting participants, coaches, and support crews in the event (Australian Human Rights Commission 2021).
Additionally, organizers must promote the cultural safety of people attending the event. How safe are the environments for women, people of linguistic and cultural diversity, Indigenous people, LGBTIQ+ and people with disability? Additionally, Indigenous groups must be involved. This extends beyond a welcome to, and acknowledgement of, country. It must entail genuine and meaningful participation of Indigenous groups in the planning, running and management of such events (Australian Human Rights Commission 2021).
The risk assessment framework developed by ARHC and NZHRC offers a mechanism to identify the likelihood, scope and severity of risks, as well to assess how remediable they are (Australian Human Rights Commission 2021). This facilitates a deliberative and comprehensive calculation of risks, together with a means for identifying priorities. It also suggests that it is possible to create templates to gauge ethical risks in diverse events.
Environmental considerations
The State government of South Australia has guidelines for best practice in waste and recycling for events. It champions sustainability, promotes recycling and the diversion of organic and compostable material away from landfill. The guidelines focus on:
Minimizing waste
Developing waste management plans
Utilizing ethical service providers
Criteria for evaluation (Government of South Australia 2022).
References
Australian Human Rights Commission (2021) FIFA 2023 Women’s World Cup Human Rights Risk Assessment, Australian Human Rights Commission, https://humanrights.gov.au/about/publications.
Canberra Times (2022) ‘Santos ends Darwin festival sponsorship’,
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7947873/santos-ends-darwin-festival-sponsorship/
Eccles R; Newquist S and Schatz R (2007) Reputation and its risk, Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2007/02/reputation-and-its-risks
Fruh K; Archer A and Wojtowicz J 2022) Sportswashing: Complicity and Corruption, Sport Ethics and Philosophy, 17 (1)
Glasgow 2014 XX Commonwealth Games (2014) Approach to human rights:.
Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games (2018) ‘Approach to human rights: Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Government of South Australia (2022) Waste and Recyling at Events and Venues, Green Industries, South Australia.
Human Rights Watch (2017) Saudi-owned LIV Golf “Sportswashes” Rights Abuses
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/17/saudi-owned-liv-golf-sportswashes-rights-abuses
Skey M (2022) Sportswashing: Media headline or analytic concept? International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/10126902221136086
Stoker G; Evans M and Halupka M, (2018) Democracy in Australia: Democratic Decline and Renewal, Museum of Australian Democracy. https://www.democracy2025.gov.au/documents/Democracy2025-report1.pdf
Sydney Morning Herald (2014) ‘Biennale of Sydney facing uncertain future after severing ties with Transfield,
The Conversation (2022) ‘Sydney festival boycott when arts organizations accept donations, there is always a cost’,
The Ethics Centre (2022) Sportswashing: How money and politics are corrupting sport https://ethics.org.au/sportswashing-how-money-and-politics-are-corrupting-sport/)
,Victorian Government (2019) Victorian Government Sponsorship Policy, https://www.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-03/Victorian-Government-Sponsorship-Policy.pdf
Ethical Events April 2023