Action Replay: War in the Way (2026)

The Action Replay column from the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sportcity in Manchester is a venue for a number of sports facilities, most notably the Manchester City football stadium, but also the Velodrome and National Squash Centre. This idea of hosting various amenities in one area can of course be applied on a national or international level too, and the Middle East is a prime example.

The Persian Gulf in particular has seen a lot of state and private investment in sport, part of a programme aiming to attract increased tourist and leisure visitors more generally. We have previously examined the role of sportswashing in this (see Action Replay for October 2023 and December 2024). The 2022 football World Cup in Qatar was one of the first instances. Saudi Arabia then took the lead, winning the bid to stage the 2034 World Cup, as part of a Vision 2030, supposedly aiming to ‘diversify the economy and invest locally and internationally’ (pif.gov.sa). The Middle East Sports Investment Forum (mesifglobal.com) holds regular conferences to discuss future opportunities, with a meeting in London scheduled for June; a standard delegate ticket costs just £1500.

But a very big ‘but’ has materialised, the US-Israeli attack on Iran and Lebanon, and the Iranian attacks on neighbouring countries. Bombs and drones have made travel to and from the region difficult and unpredictable, and simply being there became unacceptable for some. The motor racing grands prix due to be held in April in Bahrain and Saudi were called off, as was the MotoGP grand prix in Qatar. Perhaps a hundred events of all kinds had been cancelled or postponed since the start of the war (Guardian 21 March). Sports such as football and motor racing are likely to better protected than tennis and golf, for instance.

The same source quoted a professor of Eurasian sport industry (!) as saying that the Gulf states had placed too much emphasis on events, without diversifying sufficiently. Manufacturing equipment and clothing would have been a good idea too, but it may well be too late to get into that market.

The war shows the unpredictability of capitalism as far as business ventures are concerned. Capitalists don’t take possible wars into account when planning new businesses or expanding existing ones. It remains to be seen what effect the ‘cease-fire’ in operation at the time of writing will have. But that just reinforces the uncertainty surrounding the fighting and its consequences.

‘The war has come at the wrong time,’ the professor mentioned above said, though he presumably wasn’t saying that there is a good time for wars.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Warming up (2026)

The Action Replay column from the January 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

The UN has a programme called Sports for Climate Action, described as ‘a global movement harnessing the unifying power of sport to address climate change and build a more sustainable and resilient future’ (unfccc.int). Sport can be adversely affected by climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity, but supposedly it can also be an agent for promoting collective action. Sport, it is claimed, needs to adapt to the impacts of global warming and also to engage its global audience to make their own contribution to fighting climate change.

All very well, of course, but a look at some of the environmental impact of professional sport paints a rather different picture. In motor racing, Formula 1 (F1) will be moving from the use of fossil fuels to an allegedly sustainable fuel from next season, fuel which might then be used in ordinary cars. But, as noted in the November 2025 Science Focus, there are major issues involved here. The new fuels may be low in carbon emissions but still emit many other pollutants, hence not really being sustainable. The synthetic fuels may in fact involve CO2 emissions in the process of producing hydrogen from natural gas, so the overall climate impact is not at all clear. In any case, fuel from races is only a tiny part of F1’s total carbon footprint, with massive amounts of global travel playing a far larger part. Carbon emissions in the logistics side of F1 have already been reduced, but there is still a long way to go to achieve real sustainability.

Another example would be this year’s football World Cup, which will be played in the US, Canada and Mexico, in stadiums from Vancouver to Mexico City, so meaning much long-distance travel. It will involve 48 teams and 104 matches (sixteen more teams and forty more games than previous tournaments). Scotland, for instance, will play their group matches in Boston and Miami, which are well over a thousand miles apart. One estimate is that the tournament will generate over nine million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, almost double what previous ones have produced.

In addition, the heat will mean that many of the venues will be effectively unplayable during the afternoon. Many top players have already suffered while playing in hot conditions in the US, as in last year’s Club World Cup, and also there will be hundreds of thousands of supporters, plus backroom staff and media workers who will have to endure extreme heat at many matches, reaching over thirty degrees or perhaps even forty. FIFA are apparently keeping ‘an open mind’ on all this, which presumably means they won’t be making any significant decisions quite yet, if at all.

So global warming can affect not just people’s living conditions, but various kinds of leisure activity too. And sport can exacerbate climate change, as well as (just possibly) help to combat it.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Size isn’t everything (2025)

The Action Replay column from the March 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Modern-day capitalism is sometimes called corporatism, because of the large conglomerates that include a number of businesses. Costa Coffee, for instance, was once owned by Whitbread but now comes under the Coca-Cola empire, which has over five hundred brands, including Fanta and Innocent Drinks. You may not have heard of Associated British Foods, but they own Primark, Ovaltine and Twinings, among many others.

Perhaps it will not come as a big surprise that parts of professional sport are evolving in a similar direction, with multi-club ownership becoming fairly common (it’s sometimes just partial ownership). For instance, the Fenway Sports Group is an American company that owns Liverpool FC, the Boston Red Sox (baseball) and the Pittsburgh Penguins (ice hockey). They also own a stock car racing team and a golf league. They claim to have a ‘track record of taking cherished and iconic clubs to new heights.’ John Henry has 40 percent of the company’s total stock, and other large companies and wealthy individuals are partners too.

More commonly, though, it is just football that is involved. Manchester City is the flagship club in the City Football Group, which is mostly owned by Sheikh Mansour and his Abu Dhabi United Group. Among others falling under its umbrella are Girona in Spain, Palermo in Italy, New York City FC and Shenzhen Penguin City in China. Supposedly there is much co-operation among the clubs, in areas such as combined scouting and player sharing.

There are a number of other examples, and it’s not just top clubs that are involved in such ventures. Walsall FC (in League Two) have been acquired by the Trivela Group in the US, which also owns Drogheda United in Ireland and Trivela FC in Togo. They wanted to buy Silkeborg in Denmark, but supporters there objected.

There are various regulations concerning multi-club ownership. In England no-one is allowed to exercise control over more than one league club, and similar restrictions apply at European level, with clubs controlled by the same owners or directors being prohibited from competing in the same European competition. Back in 2017, for instance, UEFA investigated whether two clubs in the Red Bull group (Leipzig and Salzburg) could play in the same competition; it was determined that they could. There have also been more recent examples, such as AC Milan and Toulouse in 2023. Other issues can arise too, such as artificially inflating a player’s transfer value.

No doubt owners and their lawyers will put every effort into keeping within the regulations, just as all capitalist companies do in their quest for profit.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Games and the Olympics (2024)

The Action Replay column from the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a 2013 Action Replay we raised the question of whether chess counted as a sport. We felt that maybe it did, as the top players were required to take drug tests. But of course chess does not involve any physical exercise, which is usually counted as an essential aspect of sport.

Similar questions have arisen more recently, in connection with this year’s Olympics, as to whether certain other activities are to be considered sports. This applies to rhythmic gymnastics, skateboarding and breakdancing, for instance, which are certainly physical but somehow do not resemble traditional sports. As another example, people now often see martial arts as a sport rather than a form of combat.

And the same may apply to gaming or esports (electronic sports), competitions involving video games, where people compete either individually or in teams. There is little physical effort, other than pressing buttons and so on, but they can be psychologically quite demanding. They can be played for fun, but there are also professional players, and the whole enterprise is surprisingly big, with plenty of people watching others play. Nearly a hundred million watched the 2018 final of the world championship for one video game, League of Legends, for instance.

Recently the International Olympic Committee announced that the inaugural Olympic Esports Games will be held next year in Saudi Arabia. The country has over 23 million gamers, with a hundred full-time professional esports players, and its Minister for Sport described it as ‘a global hub for professional esports’. Women there are apparently participating more and more in esports, and indeed in sport more generally. Such is the official picture, anyway, no doubt designed to counter claims of how much discrimination Saudi women suffer from.

Just like other sports, capitalist companies have seized on esports to promote their products, in what has been termed esportswashing (nakedcapitalism.com, 25 August). Car manufacturers, oil companies and even the US armed forces have signed sponsorship deals with the esports industry. The fanbase is global, mostly young and overwhelmingly male, and they are a good target for capitalist concerns that need to boost their public image. Saudi Arabia was already using football for more general sportswashing (see Action Replay for October 2023), so this is not all that new.

As sports expand and adopt new methods of playing, much of the marketing and other paraphernalia stay in place.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: To a tee (2024)

Not Jon Rahm

The Action Replay column from the February 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

It might be thought that golf is a rather straightforward game: hit a ball with various clubs until it finishes in the cup. But behind that is a great deal of controversy and power play.

For one thing, the design of golf balls will be modified so that they cannot be driven quite so far. Tee shots are likely to be about fifteen yards shorter for top players and less than five yards shorter for recreational players, with the changes not being introduced for a few years yet. According to the chief executive of the R&A (which runs the game in the UK), ‘the sport has to take its responsibility and be cognisant of our environmental and sustainability impacts. Making golf courses ever longer, we start to run out of property and it is not environmentally responsible.’ Good to see that they are taking things so seriously.

A far more thoroughgoing change to professional golf, though, is the emergence of the LIV Tour (the name refers to the Roman numerals for 54, the number of holes played at LIV events). This may well have an influence similar to that back in the 1970s of World Series Cricket, set up by tycoon Kerry Packer, which had a big impact on television rights and players’ income. LIV Golf is financed by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, and is aimed at establishing a new golf league to rival the PGA Tour. It is all part of the attempt to present a positive view of Saudi and its rulers (see the October 2023 Action Replay).

The biggest recent signing for LIV is that of Spanish player Jon Rahm, ranked number three in the world, who had previously said he would not be joining it. He is, according to some reports, going to ‘earn’ £450m or more in the deal. He says he plays golf for the love of the game, and that he is ambitious but not greedy. If Rahm is indeed going to be paid that kind of money, then it will certainly not come from the LIV circuit’s income from golf, which was less than $100m last year. Clearly the money to pay him will be sourced from Saudi coffers.

There was originally a lot of argument and criticism between LIV and the more ‘traditional’ game. Joining LIV means a player cannot take part in the Ryder Cup international team competition, but no doubt that is a rather minor consideration. LIV golfers are now being allowed to play on the European tour, despite being previously barred. So perhaps the conflict is gradually settling down and a way of existing alongside each other will be arrived at, one that benefits the power-holders, and maybe the players too.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Running into the sand (2023)

The Action Replay column from the October 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Top footballers nearing the end of their careers have various choices when their legs begin to go and their skills start to fade. The US is one popular destination, and Lionel Messi, for instance, joined Inter Miami in July from Paris St Germain, and will be earning at least $50m a year.

But recently a new alternative has emerged, of players going to Saudi Arabia. At the end of last year, Cristiano Ronaldo signed for Al Nassr, at an annual salary of $200m; not bad for a 38-year-old. This August, Neymar left PSG for Al Hilal, for a transfer fee of €90m. There have been plenty of other examples too, with Saudi clubs having spent £753m on players from European sides this year, and the latter want guarantees that they will be paid on time.

One of the more controversial moves was that of Jordan Henderson from Liverpool to Al Ettifaq, which is managed by Steven Gerrard, who moved there in July after a rather mixed managerial career in the UK. While in Britain, Henderson frequently spoke out in support of the LGBT+ community, which made many people wonder why he had moved to a country where gay and lesbian sexual activity is illegal. His response was that the situation might change, and that ‘having someone with those views and values in Saudi Arabia is only a positive thing.’ Which might charitably be described as wishful thinking.

In 2022–3, the average attendance in the Saudi Pro League was just over nine thousand, though some clubs draw much larger crowds. Matches are broadcast on TV in various countries, though not by Sky or TNT. All this activity and spending has taken place since four top clubs were taken over by the Public Investment Fund, a ‘sovereign wealth fund’ (a kind of state-owned version of the likes of Blackrock). It’s part of Saudi Vision 2030, a project intended to increase various kinds of diversity in the country. In leisure terms, besides football, it also includes wrestling and live music concerts. It is run, of course, by the de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman.

The venture into football has created various kinds of controversy. The Fund owns Newcastle United, and there have been claims that when a Saudi club bought one Newcastle player, it inflated the price in order to help United’s finances. So the transfer market may be being disrupted, but then it’s never been, well, a level playing field.

Above all, the sporting side of Saudi Vision has been described by many as sportswashing, using sport to disguise nasty practices of one kind and another and promote the reputation of an individual or an organisation. And this time that goes even further, supposedly boosting the standing of a whole country, or at least its rulers.

Paul Bennett

Russian billionaire won, workers nil (2003)

A couple of arseholes.

From the September 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

The sale of Chelsea Football Club to the second richest man in Russia made a good story for the tabloids – and even the broadsheets. “From Russia with £3.4bn” and “Tycoon buys club with loose change” were typical headlines.

There were some spicy elements in the story. The price of Chelsea FC – a mere £140m – would have enabled Roman Abramovich easily to buy also Manchester Utd, Real Madrid and Juventus. The buyer is a youthful 36; his casual dress and unshaven appearance is not that of your archetypal billionaire. On top of that he is a foreigner, mysterious, somewhat reclusive and therefore of dubious character. Also a bit of a paradox: MP for a remote and poverty-stricken area in Siberia, spending one week a month there, the rest of his time on a vast estate in a heavily guarded area strictly off limits to the Russian public because the new wealthy live there.

Abramovich is interesting not so much for his foray into football, but as an exemplar of changes in Russia in the last few years which have made that country a leading player on the stage of world capitalism. In August 1998 there was a financial crash, the rouble was devalued, and international credit dried up after some defaults in payments. In the Yeltsin era businesses had been privatised in opaque deals which (according to the Guardian of 3 July) “make Britain’s privatisation fat cats look like lean models of self-denial by comparison.”

Astute businessmen like Abramovich were able to become extremely rich extremely fast by exploiting the laws which allowed companies to trade on the huge difference between Russian and western prices for raw materials. Abramovich’s businesses, which included oil, television and aluminium companies, grew in number and complexity. His companies are nested within companies within other companies, many of them outside Russia. His British interests are controlled by a holding company, Millhouse.

More can be learned about contemporary Russian capitalism from the 5 July 2000 issue of Worldlink, the magazine of the World Economic Forum. This magazine enables workers employed to help run capitalism in the interests of one set of exploiters to talk to workers employed to help run the same system in the interests of other exploiters. Apparently, things are looking up for Russian capitalists, especially those with political connections (Abramovich is said to be a close friend of President Putin). Earlier Russia had “poor” banking and tax systems. Now “liberal currency regulation allows enterprises and individuals to keep their money in good international banks instead.”

What do the Russian workers think of this new system compared with old-style “communism” (state capitalism)? Many of them are worse off and certainly not sharing in the prosperity of the privileged few. Insofar as there is a political opposition in Russia, it is centred on the old Communist Party beliefs. But, as Worldlink is happy to report: “The communists now only insist on more state enterprises and more state financing . . . Both the right and the left have come to their senses and settled for a normal market economy.”

No wonder Blair and Putin shake hands when they meet, no doubt congratulating each other on the success of the system – for themselves and their cronies. The workers have yet to realise that there is an alternative and to act together to bring it about.

Stan Parker

The World Cup of Shame? (2023)

From the January 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many members of the Socialist Party, including the present writer, are keen football fans. We love the skill, the beauty, the athleticism of the game.. But at the same time we have severe reservations about the way it is organised and the conditions under which it is played. It is a kind of paradigm of capitalism as a whole, the system we all live under. What this means is that human beings produce the most potentially brilliant mind-blowing inventions and innovations and exhibit the most fantastic skills and ingenuity in putting them to use, whether that be in the field of technology, education, food and drink, sport, and much else. Yet there are almost inevitably serious warps in the way these are used and express themselves. That is partly because so much of what takes place in capitalism is focused on, bent towards money and profit rather than human need, but also because, through its system of forced wage and salary work as a means of survival for the vast majority, it engenders in the individual a sense of powerlessness, of being just a tiny cog, of being able unable to fulfil one’s individual potential.

Most people cope with this by considering it somehow natural quite simply because they have never known or imagined anything else, but also because, as one writer has put it, ‘distraction technologies and the entertainment industry sell us meaningless thrills to patch over the pain’.

Which takes us back to football and the spectacle the world is now emerging from, that of teams of highly talented footballers pitted against one another to win a coveted competition, the World Cup. One might have thought that the awful treatment – lethal in some cases – of those workers who built the structures and the infrastructures for the staging of the spectacle and the retrograde mentality of the rulers of Qatar (and apparently most of the inhabitants) would have led many of those with a degree of fellow feeling for other human beings to consider boycotting what one writer called ‘the World Cup of shame’. But few, it appears, went down that road, the vast majority being swept up in patriotic (or nationalistic or jingoistic – choose the word) hero worship of their own team and its players, individuals whose wealth dwarfed anything their normal daily grind could allow them to even dream of.The pictures on the television screen often showed nothing short of mass hysteria as teams scored goals or won matches, a true bread and circuses for modern times.

Yet at the end what was left was anti-climax, even for the supporters of the team that won the competition as they returned to their normal everyday lives as wage slaves and the powerlessness inherent in that role. Perhaps the spectacle they had experienced was an example of what the writer Charles Eisenstein, in his book The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, calls ‘a substitute for the expression of one’s own greatness’.