States of Play: How Sportswashing Took Over Football

"As chair of the award, I often tell people that the award is important because it has improved the standard of writing about sport. People do write better about sport than they used to. It’s not entirely down to the Sports Book of the Year prize, but it is partly. One of the significant things this year has been how much hard work and effort has gone into a lot of the books that made the list. Miguel’s book is a prime example. Boy, has he done his research! This is not something cobbled together, it is minutely observed and crafted. Now, that could lead to two things: first, a treatise that is not very accessible, or second, a very readable and very engaging book. You feel like you’re in the brain of Miguel, and his soul as well. You can feel that this is a serious subject that requires as much research as possible, but also a subject he cares about emotionally. You just feel this is someone who loves sport—in this case, football—and doesn’t like what’s happening to it because of the rise of sportswashing. He takes you through the big, big picture of it. So: the history of sport and money, which is another way you could describe this book. He looks at all aspects of it. Sportswashing is something that bothers me a lot, and so I was a bit worried that I would just be depressed at the end of this. That it would say: look, the world is rubbish, money rules and sport is ruined. But, actually, he remains upbeat about it. He points to the innate passion of football fans and says it doesn’t have to be this way. Women’s football, for example, is almost the antidote to the elite men’s game, because they take their community with them. The people who go to watch women’s football don’t pay a huge amount of money to watch it. It remains part of the local community. So there’s hope, he says. If you ever wondered why the World Cup was held in a tiny, hot country like Qatar, this book explains the power of the oil rich nation."