Campaigners have hit out after Newcastle United signed a £25million-a-year shirt sponsorship deal with a leading Saudi Arabian events company.
Amnesty International claims the contract with Sela is part of an ongoing sports-based PR effort by the desert kingdom to deflect from its human rights abuses. Sportswashing is when a country with a poor human rights reputation used the glamour of sport to cleanse itself and distract from the repression it carries out.
It comes as Saudi Arabia takes control of top-level golf with the shock announcement of a multi-billion dollar investment which sees its breakaway LIV league merge with the PGA and DP World Tours.
