by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Scriven called on the government to address and potentially ban foreign ownership of English football clubs and sports organisations.
Lord Scriven has accused Formula One chief executive Stefano Domenicali of arrogance and damaging the sport’s reputation by failing to address issues surrounding sports washing, in a debate held in the House of Lords on Thursday.
“This debate has lifted the lid on the murky waters some are swimming in regarding sports laundering and the government will now act,” he said. “I hope that, following this debate, the UK government will act to control its role, due diligence on human rights issues and also consider foreign ownership of Newcastle United by Saudi Arabia and the McLaren F1 team at Bahrain in the new bill. is before parliament, in relation to banning foreign state ownership of clubs and teams here.”
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Lord Scriven, who is vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on democracy and human rights in the Gulf, raised the debate in the House of Lords to highlight the issues of “countries using sporting events to ‘wash sport’. human rights record, and the role of sports bodies in helping this practice”.
He explained that he wrote to Domenicali on March 11 in a letter shown to the Guardian. He strongly criticized the chief executive in the report for repeatedly failing to act on human rights abuses in Bahrain.
In the House of Lords he cited the case of Sayed Hashem Alwadaei, who the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy alleges was arrested during an F1 test this year and subsequently “tortured and interrogated and blindfolded without his lawyer present on allegations of participate in unauthorized. peaceful protests”. Lord Scriven insisted he was targeted as part of a concerted effort to silence protests around the grand prix in March.
Lord Scriven said he had made repeated attempts to contact Domenicali, to no avail. Saying that his emails and letters were not acknowledged, in which he asked for evidence that F1 was a force for good and that he did his due diligence on human rights in the countries he visited.
“Mr Domenicali’s arrogance, lack of professionalism and involvement has left me with no choice but to seek this debate and seek more control of F1 and other such UK-based sports bodies over their practices ,” he said. during the debate. “His leadership of F1 is damaging the reputation of his sport as he refuses to address the issues surrounding F1 and human rights.”
In his letter to Domenicali he set out clear dissatisfaction with the position of the chief executive. “Your choice not to contact me shows that you have no strong evidence of F1’s positive impact on human rights and that due diligence has been done to mitigate risks if at all,” he wrote .
“I believe you think it is appropriate for the senior leadership of F1 to ignore those who are concerned about the activities of F1, which will allow the Bahraini authorities to abuse human rights and continue to wash the sport of their record on human rights.”
The debate also raised the issue of sports laundering and the ownership of football clubs in England. On Tuesday the government published the football governance bill which proposes that the regulator for English football would be able to strip bad owners of their right to run a club and force them to sell their holdings.
However, it did not include a provision that would have prevented foreign states from owning English clubs, despite a proposed decision last week to ban Abu Dhabi’s acquisition of the Telegraph Media Group .
There were a number of Lords who indicated their intention to make amendments to the football regulation bill in an attempt to ensure that sports laundering and foreign ownership of English clubs are addressed.
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However, Lord Parkinson, the parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, insisted that the government would not expect the regulator to ban foreign ownership of English clubs.
“We do not think it would be appropriate for a football regulator to make unilateral assessments of human rights concerns,” he said. “The regulator’s main focus is the financial sustainability of the clubs and the industry. Clubs have many different types of ownership including state ownership or owners who may be close to foreign governments.”
F1 also issued a statement. “For many years Formula 1 has worked hard to be a positive force everywhere it drives, including economic, social and cultural benefits. Sports such as Formula 1 are uniquely positioned to cross borders and cultures to bring countries and communities together to share the passion and excitement of competition and incredible achievement. We take our rights responsibilities very seriously and set high ethical standards for our counterparties and those in our supply chain, which are covered by contracts, and we pay close attention to their adherence.”
