Week in Sportbiz: Tokyo 2020 Olympics hit by another sexism scandal; World Rugby boosts women’s game; LaLiga brings tiki-taka teachers to East Sussex
“I would like to show a new direction,” said Seiko Hashimoto upon taking over as president of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in the wake of a sexism storm last month.
Four weeks later, Hashimoto’s hopes have been torpedoed by revelations that another senior male official for this summer’s Games made derogatory comments about women.
Tokyo 2020 creative director Hiroshi Sasaki resigned after it emerged he suggested plus-size comedian and model Naomi Watanabe dress up as a pig for the opening ceremony.
Sasaki, who persuaded Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe to don a Super Mario costume for the Rio handover five years ago, wanted Watanabe to play an “Olympig”.
The 66-year-old former advertising executive said: “I sincerely apologise to her and people who have felt discomfort with such contents.”
It is the latest setback to Tokyo 2020, which was postponed last year due to Covid-19 and is set to begin in July despite widespread national unease at the prospect.
For Hashimoto, it is an embarrassing reminder of the outdated attitudes about women that still blight some parts of Japanese culture – and did for her predecessor Yoshiro Mori.
“When I became Tokyo 2020 president, I made gender equality one of our key initiatives for restoring the trust of the people,” she said. “This kind of thing should never have happened.”
World Rugby reveals WXV
Doing rather more for the equality cause this week: World Rugby.
The governing body announced its plans for a new, annual, 16-nations women’s tournament, WXV, set to start in 2023.
World Rugby will invest £6.4m in WXV, which is designed to help with the transition of the women’s World Cup from 12 teams to 16 in 2025.
The move is a timely statement of World Rugby’s commitment to the women’s game, after it postponed this year’s World Cup last week.
Spanish football plants flag in UK
The golden era of Spanish football may appear to be on the wane but that isn’t stopping LaLiga’s plans to indoctrinate tiki-taka in England.
The first LaLiga Camp UK summer school will open for business next year in East Sussex, promising to train youngsters aged 12-17 in Spain’s brand of the beautiful game.
Alongside sessions with Iberian football coaches, students will get Spanish language lessons and cultural experiences.
As some of LaLiga’s biggest clubs lurch from one financial problem to the next, no word yet on whether the syllabus will include book-keeping.
Irish club put their shirt on band tie-up
Football and music have an awkward relationship; for every World in Motion there are dozens of Diamond Lights, Fog On The Tynes and Vindaloos.
But Irish club Bohemians has pulled off that rare thing: a credible collaboration with a band, in this case Dublin rockers Fontaines DC.
Bohemians’ new away kit features the band’s name instead of a sponsor, repeating a similar move with the slogan Refugees Welcome last year that proved a big hit.
A 15 per cent cut of profits on the new shirt will go to Focus Ireland, a charity that helps the country’s 14,000 homeless people.
A big week for…
Camelot, which has strengthened ties with Great Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic teams. The National Lottery operator, which has helped generate £2.8bn in funding since 1996, has become an official supporter of Team GB and partner of ParalympicsGB.
DHL, which has extended its contract as official logistics partner of Formula 1. The company is the longest standing of all F1’s global sponsors, a union that began nearly 40 years ago, and will help ship cars, fuel and equipment to 23 races in the 2021 season, which starts next week in Bahrain.