The Ugliness of the Beautiful Game: How can Supporters Morally Enjoy Football in the Modern Era?

Abstract

In this essay, I will address the issue of sportswashing, from the perspective of supporters who wish to maintain an ethical relationship with football, even in cases where the football in question has become directly involved with sportswashers. More specifically, my research question asks: in cases where a sportswasher has become directly involved in the football, in what ways (if any) would it be morally permissible for football fans to continue partaking in the joys of football?

Sportswashing is a process that occurs when an agent strategically uses their involvement in sport - usually by means of hosting a sporting event or owning a club - to cleanse a morally tainted reputation and change the public perception, rather than addressing the moral problems that gave them such a reputation (Fruh et al., 2022). Although the severest moral wrongdoings are usually the background injustices that the sportswasher is hoping to distract away from, to minimize, or to normalize, I focus on the specific wrongs of sportswashing: that it corrupts footballing institutions, communities, and identities, and threatens to make participants complicit in the sportswasher's moral wrongdoings.

I argue that supporters who see themselves as moral supporters can simultaneously participate in the typical activities of fandom, without being deemed complicit in the background injustices of the sportswasher. However, to be able to say that a supporter is participating ethically in the football in cases directly linked to sportswashing, there are certain conditions that must be met. If the conditions are satisfied, we can reasonably say that the supporter is engaged in fandom critically and has renovated her participation with football in a way that is morally permissible.