UNESCO: Combatting Sportswashing
Though the term sportswashing is relatively new, being coined within the past decade, the practice is almost as old as sport itself. Sportswashing is defined as the practice of using investment into sports to improve a country or private company’s reputation, or divert attention from abuses that currently press the nation. This becomes an issue in nations that carry a record for poor human, labor, or environmental rights policy, especially regarding women, who face great injustices in their respective sports. In recent times, between the 2022 winter olympics in China and the heavy investment into sports by Middle Eastern gulf states, sports washing is incredibly prevalent in the media. Delegates will have to consider different perspectives when it comes to investing and political involvement in sports, while also working to collaborate to devise solutions to sportswashing.