The cynical concept of using the power of sport to launder a country’s tarnished image has been around for a long time.
Sportswashing spans Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics to Russia’s 2018 World Cup, four years after annexing Crimea.
But oil-rich Saudi Arabia, where an average of 129 executions were held each year between 2015 and 2022, is taking sportswashing into a whole new league.
