Aramco's Petrodollar Backing of World Cup Leaves Stain of Sportswashing

The Lead: Sportswashing at the World Cup

If you've watched the World Cup, you've likely seen the prominent signs announcing Aramco as the tournament's "energy partner." This Saudi Arabian fossil fuel company happens to be the world's single largest corporate polluter, while Saudi Arabia has been a major blocker of international climate change negotiations. Aramco's sponsorship represents a troubling aspect of FIFA's increasing sportswashing practices that have angered fans worldwide.

The Historical Connection: Football and Fossil Capital

The relationship between modern football and polluting industries has a long history that can be divided into three distinct periods. Initially, football grew in British society as a tool to order and discipline workers, then became a cultural export of the British empire and capitalism. The traditional 3pm kick-off time originated from the Factory Act of 1850, which granted workers Saturday afternoons off from 2pm.

European industrialism, militarism, and colonialism further exported football globally, with industrialization in Britain creating the conditions for competitions requiring order, discipline, and structure. Football spread from England and Scotland to industrial areas across Europe and to ports in South America.

The postwar period saw football professionalized and increasingly dominated by clubs in industrial cities, often closely linked to the car industry. Juventus had ties with Fiat, Wolfsburg with Volkswagen, and economic regulations made elite men's football more spread out than today.

The Sportswashing Effect: Petrodollar Domination

The establishment of the Champions League and Premier League in the early 1990s marked football's increasing globalization, opening the sport to new forms of fossil capital investments favoring the biggest clubs in attractive cities.

While the 1990s had nine European club champions from nine cities, only three clubs have won the Champions League since who weren't part of the 14 elite clubs that pushed for its expansion in the late 1990s. Those three—Chelsea, Manchester City, and Paris Saint-Germain—all entered the elite level with petrodollar investments: Chelsea with Roman Abramovich, Manchester City with Sheikh Mansour, and PSG with Qatar Sports Investments.

Today, there's only one way for a club to enter the elite level of men's football in Europe: investment from a petrostate. This further locks in the carbon intensity of the sport and embeds fossil fuels as a crucial part of global culture.

The Future Outlook: Breaking the Fossil Fuel Cycle

Fossil fuel companies need to become a "necessary evil"—so embedded that we can't imagine life without them. This is where sportswashing plays a crucial role, with football and FIFA facilitating this normalization of fossil dependence.

For every petrostate or oil magnate that buys a football club, for every event or club sponsored by a fossil-fuel company, and for every airline logo on players' shirts, the dominance of fossil capital becomes more entrenched. This makes it harder to imagine the game—and the world—without fossil fuels.

As we love our beautiful game, we risk accepting the necessary evil of fossil capital to keep it alive and flourishing. Aramco has bought into the World Cup to sell us the idea that we have no choice but to continue burning fossil fuels. This relationship between football and fossil fuels represents a significant challenge to climate action and requires critical examination from fans and stakeholders alike.