🧵The Opening Ceremony - at best a storytelling about the host nation, at worst a three-hour show of cultural propaganda.

For decades, @iocmedia has let host nations use it politically.

A long thread with links to articles, pictures and videos👇 /1 olympics.com/ioc/news/captu… When analysing the opening ceremony of the #Olympics , @Joe_Nye's theory of soft power can be extremely useful, as the opening ceremony allows the host nation to craft a powerful, staged narrative of its past and present, often imbued with propaganda. /2 nature.com/articles/palco…

🧵#TdF2023 begynder senere i dag. Et cykelløb fyldt med eufori og dramatiske fortælling. Men Touren og cykelsporten bærer også på nogle særlige skyggesider. Førstnævnte er der rigeligt om i øjeblikket, så her en lille tråd om sportens mørke sider. Byd endelig ind med inputs! Først og fremmest må @OlavSkaaning og Niel Christian Jungs formidable arbejde med at afsløre omfattende dopingmisbrug i sporten nævnes. Jeg har tidligere talt med Olav Skaaning om deres forrygende dokumentar ’Tavshedens pris’ – et journalistisk mesterværk.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1447829616366952451

🧵#TDF2023: A stage for power games❗️

The world's most prestigious cycling race is just days away, but authoritarian leaders are leveraging it for political gain. Keep an eye on UAE Team Emirates, Team Bahrain Victorious, and Team Jayco AlUla.
uaeteamemirates.com First off: UAE Team Emirates, launched in 2017 under the name UAE-Abu Dhabi. Bringing UAE and Abu Dhabi in the name clearly stated the connection to ruling family of UAE - today's president being Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

🧵It seems many overlook some of the problems and conflict of interest when football clubs transform into state-owned prestige projects, possibly due to their emotional attachment to the sport and specific clubs. Here, I provide three clear examples: #ManCity, #PSG & #NUFC. 1/5 #ManCity and the ownership from #AbuDhabi👇2/5

https://twitter.com/StanisElsborg/status/1665299488188116994?s=20

Next level multi-club-ownership by #NUFC owners - the State of Saudi Arabia.

https://twitter.com/pif_en/status/1665711868676022272

https://twitter.com/neom/status/1665716139454767104

🧵The sponsors of Manchester City

Okay, so I tried to look into some of the sponsors of #ManCity – the state-run project from #AbuDhabi.

It’s long but I hope it is worth it. mancity.com First and foremost, it is worth mentioning that #ManCity is part of City Football Group (CFG), established in 2013. From 2008-2015, CFG was wholly owned by ADUG, a private investment and development company belonging to Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. cityfootballgroup.com

#ManCity won the #PremierLeague. Now aiming for the FA Cup!

Here’s a thread about the club that has won five PL titles in six years - a state-owned project from #AbuDhabi and a club that's charged with 115 instances of rule breaches❗️ Might be worth for the media to tell today❓

https://twitter.com/StanisElsborg/status/1556224930521485313

I highly recommend @sportingintel’s brilliant recap at #ptg2022 on a decade of #ManCity's skullduggery and succes👇Also @james_corbett, @katpijetlovic. @PhilippeAuclair ends with a shocking view on football and unregulated/illegal sources of financing vimeo.com/721879685

🧵Has #Qatar2022 been a success for the State of Qatar🇶🇦? It might be too early to determine, but looking at the success of Qatar’s sports political strategy in the last 15 years might give some answers. Long thread! This article is by @MiguelDelaney 1/23
independent.co.uk/sport/football… Shortly after🇶🇦was awarded the hosting rights of the 2022 World Cup, Qatar Foundation reached a five-year, £125m deal with the #Barcelona as shirt sponsor. The agreement marked the first time that Barca were to be paid to advertise on their jerseys. theguardian.com/football/2010/…

🧵🇩🇰@DanishMFA and @thetradecouncil encourages companies to participate in the 🇸🇦Saudi Arabian prestige project #NEOM. Story by investigative journalists @SandraBlenner & @FlorianElabdi from @DanWatchDK❗️I contribute with the part on sport and politics👉danwatch.dk/undersoegelse/… /1 #NEOM is a $500-billion mega-city and one of the Public Investment Fund’s most ambitious projects. NEOM is set to become “the future of sport” and “a top destination for major sporting events”. /2

🧵To understand Qatar’s political use of sport, we have to widen our understanding of the mechanism they use. Here, we see the Aspire Academy Global Summit. One piece in their sports strategy and PR mechanism. 1/7 Aspire Academy was established by an Emiri Decree, No. 16 of 2004 as an independent government-funded agency that reported directly to the Emir. In 2008, Aspire Zone Foundation was established by Emiri decree to compromise 3 org.: Aspire Academy, Aspetar and Aspire Logistic. 2/7

A short story on UEA Team Emirates
- the men behind the political project

Thread🧵1/
cyclingnews.com/news/pogacar-l… The team was launched as UAE-Abu Dhabi in Abu Dhabi in 2017, overseen by the team's president M. S. Al Yabhouni Al Daheir. Bringing UAE and Abu Dhabi in the name clearly stated the connection to ruling family of UAE - today's president being Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan./2

THREAD - THE OLYMPICS AND POLITICS
Every day during the Tokyo Olympics, I will in this Twitter thread post an example on the link between sports, politics and the Olympic Games. First example below👇 #1 - 🇨🇳
In 2008, the Chinese organisers used the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing for political self-promotion. The opening ceremony was for example used to signal ethnic integration in the world’s most populated country with more than 1.4 billion people>