Welcome everybody to soccer 101. My name is Taylor Rockwell, and all hail our benevolent soccer

overlords who have never done anything wrong and are kind and generous in their actions, which is my way of introducing the concept of sports washing.

It's a thing that has come to the forefront in sports in the last 15 years or so, but has been around for much longer than that.

Here with me to talk it all out is the man himself.

Graham Sovereign Well Fund, Ruthven. Hello, Graham. Hello, Taylor Rockwell. Yes, I'm very excited to do some washing with sports today. I've tried all kinds of detergents, but nothing gets those stains out like a good old-fashioned sovereign wealth front. So I mean, I still vent it. Exactly. I think if anybody can do it, it's their billions of dollars. For those who don't know, Graham was a long time outspoken critic of sports washing, but ever since his house tripled in size and the new owners brought in John McGinn to be his close personal best friend, he's been singing a different tune. Graham, I'm excited to hear all about the joys and benefits of sports washing and sovereign wealth fund ownership.

Yeah, if anyone wants a discount code as well for package holidays to Doha this summer, just hit me up.

It's quite a place.

It's you and Mr. Q working together.

All right, Graham, let's start with the very basics of this one.

For people new to the idea, for people who haven't watched most sports of late.

Or just participated in society in the last 15 years. NFL NBA holding strong. What is meant by the term sports washing?

Yeah, so this is a term that's been popularised in modern soccer and modern sport.

You hear it all the time.

It's become a pretty defining thing in the game over the last 15 years or so.

And by definition, sports washing is, quote,

the practice of governments, individuals, corporations or other groups using sports

to improve reputations tarnished by wrongdoing.

It is certain parties using the innate quality of soccer and sport as something people enjoy,

naturally, to create a different public image when perhaps that party doesn't deserve

a different public image. And even more cynical in soccer is the use of fan bases to get behind a certain party. And we can talk about this a little bit later on and why soccer is so effective as a tool for sports washing. But the TLDR is basically fans can essentially be weaponised, I guess, because we all know how tribal soccer can be.

So you'll have the support of one club lining up to defend their owners because of the money

that they've spent on transfers and shiny new players and new stadiums.

...