Consider This from NPR - Countries Accused Of Human Rights Abuses Are Pouring Money Into Soccer

Episode Date: January 7, 2022

A new owner can change everything for a professional sports team. And in the world of professional soccer, more and more of those new owners are countries accused of human rights abuses. Former Manchester City player Nedum Onuoha describes what it was like when a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family took charge of his club. Plus, New York Times reporter Tariq Panja explains why complaints about where money is coming from does little to change this growing trend, as evidenced by the recent purchase of Newcastle United by a Saudi-led investment group.And in case you missed it on our All Things Considered radio broadcast, co-host of the show and of this podcast Audie Cornish is considering a new adventure and leaving NPR. You can hear the show's tribute to Audie here.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Elsie Chang here with a few quick announcements. The first, the most important, is we want to let you know that our colleague, my dear friend, Adi Cornish, who you have heard hosting this podcast for the last year and a half, is leaving NPR this week. I know, I know we feel the exact same way here. Adi, though, you know, she is off to start a grand new adventure in the audio world, and we can't be more thrilled for her. She didn't just host this podcast, of course. Audie was also, like me, a host on NPR's radio show, All Things Considered, for many, many years. But for all of Audie's talents on both platforms, she was also so incredible off mic, too, as a friend and a colleague.

She has meant so much to this organization on so many levels. And there are just countless people inside NPR and outside NPR who are going to miss hearing her and having her be part of NPR. All Things Considered is working on a special tribute to Adi. There's a link to it in today's episode notes for this podcast. Also, speaking of this podcast, here's the second announcement. Starting tomorrow, you will be able to hear a new episode of Consider This every Saturday. Yes, that's right. Those episodes will be hosted by none other than NPR's Michelle Martin, one of the best in this business.

And that means new episodes of Consider This six days a week, helping you understand a big news story, not just what happened, but what it actually means. So again, that starts tomorrow. All right, thanks for listening. Here is today's show. When Natum Anuaha started playing for Manchester City back in 2004, the Premier League soccer team didn't have the reputation it does now. There wasn't that much money being spent on players. Transfer fees weren't huge. We kind of existed.

We existed in the Premier League. Anu Aha tells NPR that in 2007, a new owner came around, promised to spend big on the team, but instead landed them in financial trouble. That was weird to go from the high of like, this is the new beginning to all of a sudden, this is a catastrophe.

So many eyes on us. Things weren't going great. His club was in dire straits. The future seemed pretty bleak. And then one day he was at home watching the news and everything changed. And then all of a sudden the club, which I knew that was a bit unstable, has now just signed Rubino and been taken over by these people. And they're now calling us the richest club in the world. Those people, the team's new owners, were part of an investment firm from the United Arab Emirates, run by a member of the royal family in Abu Dhabi.

But, you know, we should say the UAE has long been accused of being an autocratic governing body that has carried out acts of torture and limited free speech. But with their money, this team was transformed. He can win it! Oh! He's won the title! Surely for Manchester City! Manchester City is now synonymous with success. They have won the Premier League championship five times in the last ten years, and Forbes ranks them as the sixth most valuable soccer team in the world. It came out of absolutely nowhere in terms of the view of the players.

Anuaha, who is now a sports broadcaster in the UK, says if there was any uneasiness about the geopolitical consequences of being tied up with the UAE at the time, he didn't see it. And he's since witnessed purchases like that one become more of a trend. The Saudi takeover of Newcastle United is signed, sealed, and for these fans, something to shout about. Paris Saint-Germain, everyone knows about their huge investment by the Qatari Investment Authority. This might sound incredibly cynical, but I believe that football, with all the money that's involved in it, has a level of corruption within it, just for what it is, because that's what money tends to bring. Consider this. Wealthy countries with a history of human rights abuses are showing a growing interest in soccer.

A lot of money is changing hands, but the scrutiny about where that money comes from does little to stop it. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Friday, January 7th. Support for NPR and the following message come from the new VentureX card from Capital One. Earn 10x miles on hotels and rental cars and 5x miles on flights when you book through Capital One Travel. Capital One.

What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com for details. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today In the most recent season of the Apple TV show Ted Lasso, a player on the fictional AFC Richmond soccer team has a dilemma.

You want to look at your photos from the Dubai airships? Oh, yes, please. Oh, God, I'm very nervous, but also very excited. Richmond's soccer team has a dilemma. You want to look at your photos from the Dubai airships? Oh, yes, please. Oh, God, I'm very nervous, but also very excited. Star defender Sam Obasanya is doing an ad campaign with the team's sponsor, the fictional Dubai Air. But then he discovers that the company has been recklessly polluting his home country, Nigeria. It's come to my attention that Dubai Air's parent company,

Cerithium Oil, is destroying Nigeria's environment and at the same time bribing government officials to look the other way. I can't be the face of one of their subsidiaries. Obasanya drops the ad campaign, but then goes a step further. He covers up the Dubai Air logo on his uniform with black tape, and his teammates follow him. Retainment wear. Go wear the same kit. black tape, and his teammates follow him. This daring move is supported by the team's owner, and then soon after, like magic, the team has a whole new sponsor. In the real world, if a player had spoken up, he would have been out of his club before the next game.

Tarek Panja is a reporter for The New York Times who covers the darker corners of the global sports industry. One of the things we haven't seen in this era of athlete activism really have been players speaking out over ownership groups. Panja has been reporting on the very real trend of countries with controversial human rights practices pouring money into sports. We talked about one recent example when the Premier League soccer team Newcastle United was purchased by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia this past fall. You have pointed out that there are obviously human rights abuses that these fans should be concerned about, including the assassination of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi officials.

Has that human rights record even slightly entered the conversation since this purchase was announced? I was struck by and I was kind of shocked by how little it mattered to the fans of this particular team. Obviously, fans of other teams were railing against this, maybe for self-serving reasons. One thing I've noticed here, I wonder if Saudi Arabia would buy another team, whether they'd be just as welcome. I think they would be. I think for soccer fans, they were willing to swallow anything if there is that chance to dream that we're going to have a winning team on the field. You know, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. So on the day of the takeover, you had Newcastle fans arriving

at the stadium for the first game dressed in thobes, you know, the white tunics that proliferate in the Gulf. So these guys in the northeast wouldn't have ever gone to the Middle East, were dressed in head-to- head to toe in Gulf garb, Saudi Arabian flags, talking about how rich that they suddenly were, chanting slogans to that effect too. Everything is acceptable as long as you can promise us the world. Okay. So I see that for a lot of these fans, these wealthy countries from the Arabian Peninsula, buying these teams means greater opportunities for these teams that they are total fans of. But what's in it for these wealthy countries to take an interest in global sports leagues? Like we see Manchester City is now owned by officials in the United Arab Emirates. We see a prominent soccer team in France, Paris Saint-Germain is owned by Qatar. So why is this

becoming a trend? There isn't a bigger global platform, I would argue, than professional soccer. There just is not. Billions of people around the world follow this, not just follow it casually. It stirs so much passion. Now, if you think about Saudi Arabia under Mohammed bin Salman, for example, he is launching, in effect, a total reset of Saudi Arabia. Raves in the desert, movie theatres, we're just like you. Nothing says we're just like you than owning, I would say, a professional soccer team, a sport that is loved by billions. It really puts these countries on a map like no other entity, no other product can. Qatar, for example, is a really good one. It's

smaller than Saudi Arabia, it's smaller than Connecticut, if you're in the US, and smaller than Yorkshire, a county in the UK, a very tiny percentage of the world's population would have ever heard of this place at the time it bid for the Soccer World Cup. I would argue that's been turned on its head now. And most people will have heard only, if only for its association with international soccer. Well, let me ask you this. I mean, as you mentioned, Qatar is going to be hosting the World Cup next year, but an investigation by The Guardian last year estimated that there are more than 6,500 migrant workers in places like India and Nepal who have died there since World Cup planning began a decade

ago. And yet these games have not been cancelled. Let me just ask, why do you think these revelations have not caused more concern? I guess it's a question of values. Look where the people are coming from. We're talking about people from Nepal, Bangladesh, and India. But for a lot of people, these are distant lands that they don't have real contact with. Maybe the guy who owns the restaurant down the road or something like that. They've almost become non-people.

They've become invisible in ways. Soccer, for some reason, is able to pulverize all these bad headlines. We're all marching towards this big tournament. What are we going to talk about. You know, I remember the day before the first game of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, or the week before leading into it, the UK newspaper, the Sunday Times, had published this story of how several FIFA officials, soccer officials, had accepted huge bribes. And for two days, it was huge news.

And then the referee blew the whistle for the first match of the 2014 World Cup. Brazil hosting Croatia in Sao Paulo. We didn't talk about that again. Yeah. I'm also thinking about the Winter Olympics. I mean, they'll be held in Beijing next month. The White House said that it won't be sending any U.S. government officials to protest the, quote, ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang. But American athletes will still be participating in those games, of course.

So what do you think the larger lesson is here? These tournaments or these events, these sports are like a juggernaut that can't be stopped. There is a symbiotic relationship between money and sports federations and nothing, no genocide, no human rights abuses seems to be, it's untrammeled, seems to be able to stop that. China will have enough global leaders there. We will write the stories that there's a boycott, yet the games will go on. And once the first medals start being awarded, that's what's going to be the focus. I personally feel there is a responsibility on us and the media to keep pointing this out. Whether sports federations are willing to do anything, I have my doubts.

Tarek Panja is a sports reporter for The New York Times. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.