Home
Log-in
Spanish soccer and Uzbek cotton
For the money-hungry and ambitious, trading a bit of their status by associating with the Uzbek dictatorship in return for some hard cash may seem like a good deal (exhibit A: Sting). Exhibit B comes this week courtesy of the Spanish daily of record El Pais: Joan Laporta, president of the renowned Spanish soccer team FC Barcelona, seems to have signed a deal linking the team with Uzbekistan’s leading soccer club, Bunyodkor. Bunyodkor happens to be controlled by Zeromax, that many-tentacled vehicle for extraction of wealth said to be controlled by Gulnora Karimova, pithily described by the paper as “self-proclaimed ‘Princess of Uzbeks’, a woman with an extraordinarily broad curriculum. Parlty Princess Diana, Sarah Palin part, part Bond girl, part Cruella de Vil”[translation: google].
Zeromax, or Bunyodkor is reported to have funneled at least 8 million euros into the Barcelona club, which is also sponsored by, ahem, UNICEF. Conflict of interest, maybe? Since El Pais has emphasized that “what distinguishes Uzbekistan is the systematic abuse of children, millions of which have been forced into slave labor in cotton harvesting,” maybe the team’s Spanish fans and sponsors will feel that its standing of champion of human, and especially children’s rights is not what it used to be. The beautiful game, indeed.
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Cotton Campaign RSS Feeds
Follow Us On Twitter
About
REPORTS
Download 2010 SOAS Report What Has Changed
The production and export of cotton continues to be a major feature of the economy, politics and everyday lives of the people of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This report analyses the nature and causes of their use of child labour in the cotton sector.