Sportwashing concerns have been raised about one of the Manchester United ownership bids as Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the CEO of Ineos petrochemical company, remains in the race to buy the football club.
Speaking on the Manchester United podcast No Question About That, Client Earth director of communications Chris Duncan questioned why a company from the petrochemical industry would seek to buy a less profitable sports brand.
The Premier League club was put up for sale last year by the US Glazer brothers, who are asking for £6 billion. The Manchester United brand is also sought after by Qatari billionaire Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani.
“It’s a petrochemicals company, it doesn’t really have any consumer-facing brand apart from football kits, so the question is why are they doing this?,” said Duncan.
Describing the sportswashing tactics, he explained that “a lot of people don’t really know what Ineos does, all they’ll know is they’ve seen Eliud Kipchoge run across the finish line seconds under two hours with his Ineos shirt”.
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Although he said it was hard to be sure whether the attempt to buy Manchester United was out of love of the game on Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s part, or an attempt at sportswashing – Duncan likened the drive to be associated with much-loved sports brands to tactics formerly used by the tobacco industry.
He also highlighted how other fossil fuel players have acted similarly, pointing out that Aramco – the oil company for Saudi Arabia – sponsors the cricket world cup.
“We’ve got Shell sponsoring British cycling which raised a few eyebrows,” he added.
“They don’t really have products to sell to people and you look at that really high profile list of sporting names and you ask why are they doing it, if it’s not for improving their reputation? So it’s a really interesting intersection from sportswashing and greenwashing.”
ClientEarth, an NGO that focuses on using the law to create change, has previously taken action around an Ineos factory in Antwerp over plastic pollution.
In the five years leading up to 2021, the UK donated £5.8 billion to the cause.
