Play the Game

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Play the Game

Play the Game is an international conference and an initiative promoting democracy, transparency, and freedom of expression in world sport.

27/08/2026

🎙️ New Play the Game Podcast episode:

Visit Rwanda: From Arsenal to Aston Villa and the sports politics of Paul Kagame’s Rwanda

Aston Villa’s new partnership with Visit Rwanda is the latest chapter in a much longer story about sport, image, power, and politics.

In this documentary-style episode, Stanis Elsborg looks at how Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, has used global sport to reshape the country’s international image – from Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, and Atlético Madrid to the NBA, cycling, FIFA, and now Aston Villa.

You will hear from Carine Kanimba, daughter of Paul Rusesabagina, whose story inspired the film Hotel Rwanda. Kanimba argues that Visit Rwanda is not only a tourism campaign, but a political branding project.

This is a story about how sport can become part of a government’s international image – and why the meaning of a sponsorship is shaped not only by clubs and sponsors, but also by fans, critics, journalists, activists, and affected communities.

🎧 Listen to the Play the Game Podcast in your app of choice.

Link in comments 👇

Photo: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham/Photoprofi30/Hammad Khan/Adam Davy/Mike Hewitt via Getty Images

22/08/2026

🎙️ Have you subscribed to the Play the Game Podcast yet?

Our podcast is about the people, powers, and politics shaping sport – and we already have a strong collection of episodes ready for you.

You can listen to:
⚽ Gianni Infantino’s first ten years at FIFA
🗣️ Abdullah Ibhais on Qatar 2022, prison, pressure, and media control
💸 FIFA’s betting expansion and integrity risks ahead of the 2026 World Cup
🌍 Jules Boykoff on sportswashing, mega-events, and the politics of FIFA 2026 and LA 2028
🏟️ World Cup projects in Mexico and their impact on communities and ecosystems
⚽Karim Zidan on Donald Trump, sport, and the MAGA political machine
🚨 Lindsey Kennedy on online betting, scams, slavery, and organised crime in Southeast Asia
⚖️ Why international sport needs independent oversight

Subscribe to the Play the Game Podcast in your app of choice👉 https://play-the-game-podcast.captivate.fm/

19/08/2026

FIFA’s latest crisis has once again raised a fundamental question for international sport:

Who holds those in power to account when sport’s own systems fail❓

In a new opinion piece, Play the Game calls for permanent independent oversight to protect the sports we love 📢

🗨️ “FIFA’s elected bodies and internal checks did not alert the football world. Investigative journalism did. Then the familiar cycle begins. Sports leaders claim to have learned the lessons and announce another round of reforms promising greater transparency and integrity – until the next survivor, whistleblower, or investigation exposes what the system still failed to stop,” write Stanis Elsborg, head of Play the Game, and Jens Sejer Andersen, founder and senior advisor.

That pattern reaches far beyond FIFA – from corruption and doping scandals to abuse, match manipulation, and other integrity breaches.

🔎 In the piece, Play the Game argues for genuinely independent oversight in international sport – and presents ClearingSport as a proposal for an international entity able to counter crime, corruption, and other integrity breaches in sport.

The article is also available as a narrated podcast episode🎧

Read or listen in your app of choice. Links in comments 👇

18/08/2026

The impact of climate change on sport goes beyond postponed fixtures and big stadiums built for a cooler world.

The cost falls on the grassroots first.

The next Play the Game story reports from the Indian Sundarbans, one of the most climate-exposed places on earth. There, a group of girls has taken up football – defying the local stigma around girls showing their legs and arms in public. The game gives them something rare: a reason to be out of the house, in a group, with an ambition attached.

The changing climate is steadily taking it back. Cyclone by cyclone, flood by flood, the island loses ground and becomes harder to live on – let alone to practise football on.

The United Nations has documented that climate change is already reshaping sport worldwide. These are the people it reaches first, and they are the least equipped to adapt.

Ritwika Mitra reports on what the climate crisis is quietly taking from a generation of young athletes – and on the local organisation trying to hold on to it.

Link to the story in the comments 👇

Photo: Ritwika Mitra and Swattik Jana/Getty Images

13/08/2026

What happens when FIFA is asked to reform itself?

In our podcast episode on Gianni Infantino’s first ten years at FIFA, we include this important clip from Miguel Maduro.

Maduro was once asked to help strengthen FIFA’s governance after the corruption scandals that shook world football in 2015.

His conclusion is still striking:

FIFA, he says, is dominated by two fundamental problems – a political cartel with a high concentration of power, and the absence of effective independent scrutiny.

For that reason, he argues, FIFA cannot truly reform itself from within.

Gianni Infantino came to power promising reform, transparency, accountability, and a “new FIFA”.

Ten years later, the question is what kind of FIFA he actually built.

🎧 Listen to the Play the Game Podcast episode:

Stanis Elsborg on Infantino’s FIFA: Ten years of power, politics, and so-called ethics

Link in comments 👇

22/07/2026

🎙️ Have you listened to the Play the Game Podcast yet?

The podcast explores the people, powers, and politics shaping sport - through interviews, narrated articles, conference presentations, and critical stories from around the world.

These are the episodes we have published so far:

🗣️ Qatar 2022 whistleblower Abdullah Ibhais on prison, pressure, and media control
💸 FIFA’s betting expansion and integrity fears ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup
🌍 Jules Boykoff on sportswashing, the 2026 World Cup, and the 2028 Olympic Games
🏟️ How World Cup 2026 projects in Mexico are putting communities and ecosystems under pressure
🏌️‍♀️Karim Zidan on how sport became part of Donald Trump’s MAGA machine
⚽ Stanis Elsborg on Gianni Infantino’s FIFA: ten years of power, politics, and so-called ethics
🚨 Lindsey Kennedy on scams, slavery, surface-to-air missiles, and online sports betting in Southeast Asia

Subscribe to the Play the Game Podcast in your app of choice 👉https://play-the-game-podcast.captivate.fm/

17/07/2026

The World Cup legacy FIFA does not want to talk about!

As the football world on Sunday celebrates the champions of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, another story deserves attention: the legacy left beyond the pitch.

In a new op-ed for Josimar, Stanis Elsborg , head of Play the Game, argues that the tournament’s true legacy will not only be measured by goals, trophies, or record audiences. It will also be judged by what happened outside the spotlight: intensified policing, communities bearing the costs of mega-event development, barriers to fan mobility, concerns over governance, betting interests, and the questions raised by journalists, researchers, and civil society.

Read the full article and join the conversation👇

https://josimarfootball.com/2026/07/17/the-world-cup-legacy-fifa-does-not-want-to-talk-about/

16/07/2026

🎙️ New episode of the Play the Game Podcast

Online sports betting is often presented as entertainment – a fast-growing industry built around odds, apps, sponsorships, and fan engagement.

But behind parts of that industry lies a much darker story.

In this episode, you can hear investigative journalist Lindsey Kennedy expose how illegal online gambling networks in Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and the Philippines have developed into sprawling criminal empires built on human trafficking, forced labour, torture, corruption, and organised crime.

The episode also connects the story to international sport.

According to Kennedy, companies linked to these criminal networks have been able to sponsor major European football clubs, using sport to clean their image, build legitimacy, and move closer to the mainstream.

This is a story about online betting, modern slavery, football sponsorships, organised crime – and the human cost of an industry that reaches far beyond the betting slip.

🎧 Listen to the Play the Game Podcast in your app of choice. Link in comments 👇

09/07/2026

Whether you’re a cricket fan or you care about the global development of sport in all its diversity, Play the Game’s newest investigation was written for you.

Cricket's power brokers are gathering in Edinburgh as we speak to decide how to divvy up the game's money. Behind the scenes, Peter O’Brien’s reporting reveals that the system that hands out those funds is quietly being gamed.

To get there, Peter dug into documents obtained exclusively from the International Cricket Council (ICC) – the sport’s global governing body – and surveyed its nation members. Most only dared to speak on condition of anonymity.

Here’s what he found:

💰 Cricket’s money is wildly concentrated. The ICC's 12 richest members take 88.8% of the budget – India alone nearly 40%. The other 98 members share just over 11%.

📝 It runs on an honesty system. Funding is set by a self-reported "Scorecard" almost nobody checks – creating fertile ground for dishonesty, insiders say.

🔍 The transparency is gone. The ICC stopped publishing the data that could help outsiders verify any of this. Of 98 boards surveyed, 80 didn't reply. Only one shared its figures.

🗳️ Reform is blocked by design. The nations benefiting most hold the votes to change the rules – the same votes being cast in Edinburgh this week.

As cricket marches towards the 2028 Olympics and the global spotlight that comes with it, it's worth asking who this money is really for – the grassroots it claims to serve, or the powerful few who keep the scoreboard in their favour.

Read the full investigation. Link in comments👇

02/07/2026

Psst. We know! We're also excited about the Tour de France's 2026 Grand Départ in Barcelona this Saturday🚵🏼 But...

Before we tune in to the big race, let's reflect on the money that fuels the engine of cycling's showcase event. Play the Game's newest investigation turns to next year's Grand Départ – and what it could mean for the sport's relationship with Big Oil.

When the Tour de France rolls into Edinburgh in 2027, it will meet a city that has banned fossil fuel advertising🚫 What happens next could reshape how professional cycling and Big Oil do business.

In a two-part investigation for Play the Game, George Timms examines cycling's deep entanglement with the fossil fuel industry – and whether it is starting to unravel🔎

Edinburgh's ban on high-carbon advertising in council-owned spaces will be in force when the city hosts the 2027 Grand Départ. Scottish Greens councillor Ben Parker argues that should mean sponsors like TotalEnergies and INEOS can't display their logos across the city – an unprecedented situation for the Tour⚠️

The investigation traces how fossil fuel money runs through every level of the sport, from teams to national federations; why cycling – a clean-air sport increasingly exposed to the climate crisis – is such a valuable canvas for oil companies; and whether cycling's governing body, the UCI, is willing to act before public pressure forces its hand🛢️

👉🏼 Part one asks whether Edinburgh could be the beginning of the end for fossil fuel money in cycling.

👉🏼 Part two turns to the UCI, the "hypocrisy gap" between its sustainability rhetoric and its inaction, and the lessons cycling could draw from tobacco's exit – and from other sports that have already dropped their fossil fuel backers.

Links in comments👇🏼

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