The Danish Football Newsletter #1: Erik Sviatchenko and Dubai

It is a developing theme that footballer’s speaking out on social and political issues are being met at the highest level with, at best, apathy and, at worst, open hostility.

Marcus Rashford’s campaign to end child poverty in the UK was described as ‘celebrity virtue signalling on Twitter’ by Conservative MP Brendan Clarke-Smith. When Mesut Özil criticised the detainment and treatment of Uighur Muslims by the Chinese government, Arsenal distanced themselves from his comments and Yaya Touré told him to ‘stick with football’.

Up to this point, these players have been using their platform within football to highlight wider issues outside of the game. However now, in Denmark, we are starting to see players look within the game and bring attention to the role that football is playing in these issues, openly holding the practices of their club to account and calling for direct action.

In an interview with Danish newspaper Politiken, published on October 18th, FC Midtjylland captain and 2020 Superliga Player of the Year Erik Sviatchenko publicly questioned whether the club should drop Dubai as a destination for their winter training camp.

In the interview he says, [translated] “We ask if it might be an idea to refrain from travelling to Dubai next year”, going on to state “I can see how it can look to some that on the one hand we run good projects in FCM Samfund (a club-led community outreach programme) and then at the same time go to Dubai and forget about human rights”.

In doing so, the 29-year-old defender joins a growing number in Denmark who have spoken out against the UAE, with FC Copenhagen amongst those who have announced they would no longer travel to Dubai for training camps after fan backlash over their trip in the winter of last year.

The United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is part, have a history of human rights abuses relating to the suppression of free speech, the exploitation of migrant labour, and the use of torture camps on prisoners. The country is an absolute monarchy, with no democratically elected institutions and a strict ban on any criticism of the regime.

The country is also one of the most powerful forces in football, with Dubai-based airline Fly Emirates sponsoring some of the biggest clubs in Europe such as Real Madrid, AC Milan, and Arsenal (whose stadium bears the airlines name) amongst others. Manchester City are owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group, which in turn is owned by Sheikh Mansour, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family and the Deputy Prime Minister of the UAE.

Emirati wealth pervades modern football, using the sport as a means to improve the countries reputation on an international scale, a strategy otherwise referred to as ‘sportswashing’.

Sviatchenko’s comments naturally garnered attention, and soon news that Sviatchenko himself was on holiday with his family in Dubai earlier this year was circulating, leading to accusations of hypocrisy from the Danish media. In an interview with B.T to clarify his position, he said that the club should seek information from hotels and other places they visit regarding the working conditions of their employees to ensure that ‘things are in order’ before travelling, just as he had done 10 months previously.

It seemed that Sviatchenko was back-tracking on his comments slightly and, under scrutiny, taking a weaker stance on the position the club should take as a way of justifying his personal trip. More clarification was needed, and on his Instagram after the interview he confirmed that, after reflection, he would not travel to Dubai with his family again ‘as the situation is now’.

The incident reflected similar accusations of hypocrisy after others within football have spoken out about political issues. Özil’s stance on China was negated by his relationship with the press and media-censoring Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whilst Guardiola’s symbolic gesture of wearing a yellow ribbon in solidarity with imprisoned pro-Catalan politicians was met with questions surrounding freedom of speech in the UAE under the rule of his employers at Manchester City.

Whilst those holding others to account should, of course, be held to account themselves (let him who is without sin etc), these questions should not come at the cost of important discussions on how football and politics can work together to enact social change on matters of moral and ethical significance.

What Sviatchenko was essentially saying in his initial interview with Politiken was that he does not want the faces of himself and his teammates to adorn the brochure of a hotel that was built on the backs of exploited migrant workers. He does not want to be seen as an ambassador for a country whose ruling elite have been flagranting violating fundamental human rights and silencing anyone who dares to oppose them.

His concerns were not without reason and hard evidence. In James Montague’s excellent book When Friday Comes, he describes his first-hand experience of the conditions of these labourers living in cramped work camps on the outskirts of Dubai, saying “Men from India sobbed in front of me as they told me how they were trapped here, earning 50 dollars a month, working in 50 degree heat. Human sewage ran through the camp. Suicide was a credible option of last resort.”.

Pro-democracy campaigner Ahmed Mansoor is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence in solitary confinement for criticising the government on social media, on the charge of intending to ‘harm national unity and social harmony and damage the country’s reputation’, despite Amnesty International, The Gulf Centre for Human Rights, and European Parliament all calling for his immediate release.

In 2018, British PhD student Matthew Hedges was arrested at Dubai airport on suspicion of spying and kept in solitary confinement for 7 months, being interrogated regularly and refused the right to a lawyer. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but was eventually released and pardoned, with the UAE wanting to avoid creating diplomatic tensions after lobbying from the British Foreign Secretary.

In a piece for The Atlantic, Hedges criticised Britain’s refusal to speak out against the UAE, describing how “Western governments’ complicity, primarily by way of silence, gives authoritarian rulers confidence in their actions. National leaders, Britain’s included, are reticent to condemn countries they regard as security allies over human-rights violations.”.

Money, as we know, talks, and there is an air of immunity with which the UAE government conducts themselves, safe in the knowledge that their financial might and diplomatic ties will allow them to conduct their business as they wish without fear of retribution.

This is, I think, where football comes in. There is no moral obligation for footballers to speak out on these issues, and footballing institutions do not have a responsibility to be the mediator in humanitarian crises. However, there is a platform that has been created by the globalisation of football that allows clubs and individuals to take stands and draw attention to injustices in a way that almost transcends politics.

Sviatchenko was not calling for democracy in the UAE, nor for the Danish government to publicly denounce the country and risk souring diplomatic relations. Rather, as the UAE increasingly looks to its Sovereign Wealth Fund to increase influence and improve their international reputation through sport, he is using his platform to make a personal, peaceful, and public stand against the countries violation of fundamental human rights, and encouraging the club he captains to join him in doing so.

Isn’t that what a captain should do? Of course these issues are complex, as are the people involved in them, but human rights are not political, and Sviatchenko should be commended for speaking out.

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