IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/311289.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The limits of sportswashing. How the 2022 FIFA World Cup affected attitudes about Qatar

Author

Listed:
  • Gerschewski, Johannes
  • Giebler, Heiko
  • Hellmeier, Sebastian
  • Keremoğlu, Eda
  • Zürn, Michael

Abstract

Non-democratic regimes have increasingly been hosting major sports events to boost their visibility and image abroad, which sparked debates about the potential for “sportswashing”. Using the case of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar we examine how the framing of the tournament influenced opinions about Qatar abroad. Our pre-registered survey experiment with more than 14,000 respondents in eight European countries conducted before the tournament shows that framing it in light of human rights issues in Qatar leads to more negative attitudes towards the host of the World Cup. In contrast, frames emphasizing Qatar’s organizational capacity improve respondents’ attitudes. The heterogeneity of effects across countries highlights the relevance of the national information environment for the effects of major sports events on public opinion. These findings suggest that critical media coverage could potentially mitigate sportswashing efforts while uncritical coverage can increase the legitimacy of autocracies.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerschewski, Johannes & Giebler, Heiko & Hellmeier, Sebastian & Keremoğlu, Eda & Zürn, Michael, 2024. "The limits of sportswashing. How the 2022 FIFA World Cup affected attitudes about Qatar," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 19(8), pages 1-19.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:311289
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0308702
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/311289/1/Full-text-article-Gerschewski-et-al-The-limits.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0308702?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:311289. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.