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Tracey Holmes for The Ticket and ABC Sport

LIV Golf, sportswashing and women's rights in Saudi Arabia in the spotlight as Adelaide event wraps up

British Open champion Cameron Smith (centre) was a major drawcard in Adelaide. (Getty Images: Sarah Reed)

The LIV Golf show, for now, is over. The caravan has rolled on, but not before scenes of wild celebration throughout the weekend. And judging by early reports from fans, players and government officials, it was a success.

General-admission tickets were sold out well before the tournament began, giving South Australians and others a rare glimpse at this country's best golfer, British Open champion Cameron Smith.

But the event was also playing out against allegations of sportswashing given the financial backing of the LIV tour is from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) and that country has a poor human rights record.

American Talor Gooch won LIV's first event in Adelaide. (Getty Images: Asanka Ratnayake)

Sportswashing is a label used to call out those who use sport to launder their reputation. It can be used to describe the way sport is used by individuals, corporations, and governments.

Saudi Arabia is constantly accused of sportswashing, while others are ignored, because of its $1 trillion investment in sport through the nation's PIF.

Some of those investments include the backing of the breakaway LIV Golf tour, its purchase of English Premier League team Newcastle United, and the signing of one of the most high-profile athletes in the history of sport, Cristiano Ronaldo, who now plays for Al Nassr in the Saudi Arabian Football League.

Beyond what is generally viewed as the washing of its reputation sits Saudi Arabia's strategy of reform called "Vision 2030". Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) describes it as a program of "economic reform and diversification".

Part of the program included women being given the right to drive while elements of the male guardianship system were dismantled. It allows women to work in all industries, and means they no longer need the approval of a male relative to obtain a passport or to travel overseas.

Australia and Saudi Arabia collaborate in countering terrorism, the two countries trade with each other, and Australia's universities benefit from Saudi's education drive, with more than 6,000 students studying in Australia, many of them beneficiaries of the King Salman Scholarship Program.

The World Bank reports the majority of university graduates in Saudi Arabia are female.

Our agricultural sector imports fertilisers from Saudi Arabia, then ships back barley, wheat, dairy and other products.

Saudi Arabia has a major issue with obesity and diabetes. Just like Australia, the authorities in Saudi Arabia see sport as a way of building a healthier society.

(From left) Donald Trump, Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Greg Norman and Saudi Golf Federation boss Majed-Al-Sorour at a LIV event in New Jersey. (Getty Images: Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire)

Sport is seen as an alternative industry that can be built to help replace the country's reliance on petrodollars.

Giving women the right to drive has already had profound impacts on shifting societal norms and cultural practices.

In the Gender, Place & Culture Journal, Inmaculada Macias-Alonso and her co-authors have researched the early impact of the lifting of the driving ban.

They report opposition to women's rights, legitimised through religious and cultural traditions, is slowly being eroded because women can now drive themselves, giving them more options and decreasing male family members' obligations.

"Increasing numbers of Saudi women drive themselves, and along with that change, they are increasing their economic and social opportunities. A significant number of men are on their side," the article says.

Saudi's Vision 2030 states that by the end of the decade it is hoped women's workforce participation will rise to 30 per cent. In 2000 women represented 10.1 per cent of the workforce, by 2020 it had risen to 25.9 per cent.

Saudi women can now study abroad, run for seats in municipal elections and are included in the Shura Council.

Of course, none of that erases the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, nor the imprisonment of human rights defenders and critics of the Saudi regime.

But it highlights the shifting, complex, geopolitical world in which sport exists.

Perhaps what's most in need of a wash is our simplistic, jingoistic reporting of sport where "we" are the good guys and "they" are the bad guys.

There was an outcry when it emerged FIFA was in discussion with the Visit Saudi tourism board to potentially sponsor this year's FIFA Women's World Cup co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

That outcry was justifiable given many women, particularly from the LGBTQI+ community, view football as their safe space.

All sexual relationships outside of marriage, including between same-sex couples, are criminalised under sharia law. The maximum penalty is a death sentence.

So far, though, there have been no allegations of sportswashing in our own country, despite Australia having the worst Indigenous incarceration rates in the world, where in some jurisdictions children as young as 10 can be detained without charge.

Despite there being 540 Indigenous deaths in custody since 1991, no-one has ever been found guilty.

Our treatment of refugees in detention has been found to be in breach of international law and UN conventions we've signed.

Australia is one of only two countries to have had the UN's Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture cancel a visit – because it was denied full access to institutions in NSW and Queensland.

The term sportswashing can only maintain legitimacy if it is seen to be applied without bias or hypocrisy.

The test will be how often we apply the sportswashing lens to our own plethora of international sporting events leading up to the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

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