Azerbaijan Wins UFC Genocide Championship
UFC President Dana White poses with the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev on June 20, 2025. In 2020, Azerbaijan demonstrated for other countries that the international community would stand by allow countries to seize territory through genocide. (Photo via AZERTAC/background edited)
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) mixed martial arts promotion is setting up stage in a country with a history of enjoying violence on a genocidal level.
Azerbaijan will be the latest benefactor of “sportswashing” when it hosts the main event between light-heavyweights Jamahal Hill vs Khalil Rountree Jr. in the capital city of Baku on June 21, 2025.
The term, “sportswashing,” involves states with poor human rights records hosting major sporting events to garner international business and positive public relations with citizenry from other countries to overlook the nation’s crimes.
The UFC reaches approximately 900 million households annually, according to Fight.tv. across approximately 40 events per year, the company averages 509,000 viewers.
This popularity has the capacity to normalize relations with autocratic foreign powers who then use their wealth to oppress its own citizens or attack other countries.
Azerbaijan teaches its citizens in school racist ideology against Armenians – who happen to inhabit the neighboring Republic of Armenia – referring them to dogs among other insults
A region called Nagorno Karabakh or the Republic of Artsakh – depending on who you ask – is the ancestral homeland for many Armenians but, due to Soviet era politics, Azerbaijan was allowed to claim sovereignty over the land.
Even though the Armenians of Artsakh filed a legitimate claim for independence during the fall of the Soviet Union, the international community rejected its recognition, and the Armenian community lived under threat for nearly two decades.
Azerbaijan launched a 44-day invasion in 2020 to subject large portions of Artsakh. The remaining Armenians who fled to the capital city of Stepanakert spent the final ten months under blockade in 2023.
Nelly Aslanyan was a young mother who survived 2020 but was forced to flee conquered territory only to find herself surrounded by enemies in 2023.
“We went through the harsh days of the blockade with our 3-month-old baby. In the end, it was much worse, there was no milk, diapers, or medicine for the baby. ”
Luiz Moreno Ocampo, the first chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, wrote an opinion article in the Washington Post on September 22, 2023, expressing his expert belief that Azerbaijan’s actions constituted a genocide.
“The world must call the crime by its proper name,” said Ocampo, “Resistance to using the term “genocide” has been a long-standing problem in international affairs.”
In April 1994, most U.N. Security Council members refused to label the mass killings in Rwanda as genocide. Little has changed in 30 years,” Ocampo said.
Many other states have not only not been held accountable for their own human rights abuses but have benefitted from “sportswashing.”
Another country with a poor human rights record, Saudi Arabia, has hosted the UFC in 2024 and 2025. The Saudis have also bought ownership into British football clubs.
Qatar also created controversy in 2022 with its hosting of the FIFA World Cup. Court documents show FIFA officials were bribed by Qatar, said Niall Hearty.
Each of these countries seek to normalize business relations through positive public relations garnered by these events as the emotional highs of sports causes sports fans to ignore “political” issues.
Unbiased news media underreport human rights concerns, and state-owned media in authoritarian countries also push aggressive propaganda in support of the host nation.
In a 2024 report, Christopher Toula, an assistant professor of mass communication, co-wrote on the impact the Qatari owned media outlet, Al-Jazeera, had on dictating coverage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Al-Jazeera English reached over 12 million viewers across 228 videos related to the World Cup, according to the report. Over half the videos were focused on the sport itself, and positive reporting on Qatari culture.
“They wanted to showcase a modern Middle Eastern country,” Toula said, “With the eyes of the world on the country, they did try to make sure that criticism was kept to a minimum which often involves suppressing free speech.”
The French media organization, France 24, had the most coverage of any outlet, with 293 total videos. (Toula, 2024) F24 also did the most coverage on human rights issues, with 28 videos.
These numbers paled in comparison to F24’s sports coverage and failed to report on corruption in Qatar.
Toula said thousands died in harsh conditions to build the stadiums for the World Cup, and FIFA officials had been arrested for accepting bribes from Qatar to host the event in its country.
The Netherlands Trade Union Confederation and other organizations sued FIFA on behalf of a migrant worker in Qatar, but a Swiss Court ruled they didn’t have standing, and only Qatar could sue FIFA if the state wanted. (George, 2023)
For countries like Qatar, the payoff can be enormous as sports fans become normalized to associate their passion with the hosting nation.
“People have strong, irrational attachment to sport,” Toula said, “It is like any fandom. It provides an emotional outlet for national identity.”
Kathryn Hartzell, a doctoral student at University of Texas at Austin, agrees with Toula on the impact countries can have on tapping into the large viewership of sports to impact how people view various countries.
Hartzell said these events build on sports diplomacy for government officials to interact with one another and other nations viewed Qatar as a successful operation.
“That’s why Saudi Arabia is putting money into hosting in 2032,” said Hartzell, “They want to become the soft power that being a media capital provides and longer-term investments than just oil.”
Sonja Dahlmans, a Dutch master’s student in Islamic studies, said there aren’t enough people talking about the ethics standpoint of companies and organizations engaging with authoritarian host nations.
People criticize human rights advocates for “politicizing” sports, when the whole point for countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia to host major sporting events is the political goal of increasing their political influence, Dahlmans said.
Many people who are sports fans buy into the public relations trap set by human rights violators and often vilify people who speak out against abuses, Dahlmans said.
When Brazil hosted the FIFA World Cup, there was a problem with child prostitution in the country, Dahlmans said. A Dutch actress attempted to raise awareness on the situation and was labeled “a goody two-shoes.”
The reason for this attack against human rights advocates could be because sports fans have made a fetish out of their sports club or team.
The “Journal of Sports & Social Issues” captures this fetishization through the lens of football fans in Britain, whose teams have been bought by Saudis.
“While fans know perfectly well that their owners may be in breach of human rights violations, for which their club serves as an opportunity to distract from such concerns, equally, they remain well-aware of the potential successes and failures that come to characterize sport.” (Black, Sinclair, & Kearns, 2024)
“Yet, what none of this comes close to preventing is the veneration that their club (i.e., their fetish) provides—a veneration which, in certain scenarios, can result in fans openly deriding the evidence of journalists, freely partaking in online abuse.” (Black, Sinclair, & Kearns, 2024)
Nicole Hendricks, an assistant professor in public relations, credits social media leverage as a reason why fans insulate themselves from the moral implications of supporting human rights violators.
Online engagement and marketing strategies work for countries politically, the same way a corporation benefits from advertising and public relations to overcome scandals, Hendricks said.
“Trying to put faces with a problem instead of just saying human rights is a problem,” Hendricks said is important to get buy in from the public on human rights issues.
One of those faces is Aslanyan and her family. For the rest of her life, she will remember the sound of explosions as she held her infant son when Azerbaijan attacked.
For many fans of the UFC, they only care that Azerbaijan will host the pounding of fists in the latest sports event to ignore human rights.
Bibliography:
Christopher M. Toula & Ryan Broussard (08 Nov 2024): Soft power through soccer: how Al-Jazeera, and other international broadcasters, covered Qatar and the 2022 World Cup, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, DOI
George, G. (Sept. 01, 2023) The Sinister Truth of Mega-sporting Event Preparations Marquette Sports Law Review. Fall2023, Vol. 34 Issue 1, p219-245.
Black, J.; Sinclair, G.; & Kearns, C. (June 01, 2024) The Fetishization of Sport: Exploring the Effects of Fetishistic Disavowal in Sportswashing Journal of Sport & Social Issues. Jun-Aug2024, Vol. 48 Issue 3/4, p145-164.
Qatar, Bribery, FIFA and the World Cup: Niall Hearty https://www.rahmanravelli.co.uk/expertise/global-bribery-and-corruption-investigations/articles/qatar-bribery-fifa-and-the-world-cup/
Call what is happening in Nagorno-Karabakh by its proper name: Luis Moreno Ocampo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/22/nagorno-karabakh-genocide-armenia/
UFC vs Boxing Popularity 2024: MMA’s Rise to Overtake in Pay-Per-View Sales: Austin Jones
https://www.fight.tv/post/mma-s-rise-to-overtake-boxing-in-popularity-and-pay-per-view-sales
