The spread of sportswashing within top-flight football: a discussion of its underpinnings, mechanisms and probable consequences

Purpose: The paper discusses a range of aspects of the spread of sportswashing within top-flight football, identifies the motivations of its proponents, what is on offer to football clubs, their followers and local communities and the ways in which it coheres with the nature of the modern game. Design/methodology/approach: A range of disparate literature, both academic and non-academic, is synthesised to provide a broad-ranging introduction to the spread of sportswashing within top-flight football. Findings: Sportswashing is likely to increase within top-flight football in future years as a result of its resonance with aspects of the game's evolving nature. Resistance to its continuing spread presently appears improbable. Originality/value: As relatively recent development within football, the sportswashing topic has produced a limited literature to which this paper contributes.