# Sportswashing Explained Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/rights-wrongs-6889244/sportswashing-explained Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/rights-wrongs-6889244/sportswashing-explained.md Podcast: [Rights & Wrongs](https://stenobird.com/podcast/rights-wrongs-6889244) Published: 2025-02-10T07:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://rights-wrongs.captivate.fm Audio file: https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/167cfb2e-f848-45c9-a56e-3bca060afe45/Sportswashing-final-converted.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/rights-wrongs-6889244/episodes/sportswashing-explained Duration seconds: 1589 ## Resource In late 2024, the international football association (FIFA) announced that Saudi Arabia would host the 2034 World Cup. This means the world’s largest sporting event will be taking place in a country where the government imprisons scores of activists and dissidents for peaceful criticism, denies women fundamental civil and human rights, and cheats migrant workers out of their pay, after treating them brutally. There’s a word to describe countries notorious for human rights abuses hosting major sporting events: “sportswashing.” Host Ngofeen Mputubwele traces the history of sportswashing from the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany to Saudi Arabia’s hosting of the World Cup. What can fans and athletes do to fight back against sportswashing? Listen to find out. Minky Worden:  Director of Global Initiatives at Human Rights Watch  John Hird:  Co-founder of Newcastle United Fans Against Sportswashing  ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/rights-wrongs-6889244/episodes/sportswashing-explained/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/rights-wrongs-6889244/sportswashing-explained.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.