Beyond the pitch: sportswashing and nation-building in Latin American World Cup media

This study examines how the FIFA World Cup has been framed as a political and symbolic arena in Latin American newspaper coverage from 1978 to 2022. Drawing on thematic content analysis of 49 articles from leading Spanish- and Portuguese-language outlets across Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, the study investigates how media narratives construct national unity, legitimise political authority, and facilitate sportswashing and soft power strategies. Guided by framing theory, legitimacy theory, and concepts of nation-building and soft power, three research questions address how newspapers framed the World Cup in relation to national unity, regime legitimisation, and diplomatic image management. Findings reveal three dominant themes in Spanish-language coverage diplomacy and soft power, national unity, and political legitimisation and four in Portuguese-language coverage, which additionally identifies symbolic disputes over football’s contested political meaning. Across both ­corpora, football consistently emerges as a vehicle for political communication through which regimes manufacture consent, project inter­national credibility, and manage reputation. Importantly, media did not merely reflect these processes but actively produced the political meanings attached to the World Cup. These findings contribute to sportswashing and sport diplomacy scholarship by demonstrating that media framing is a constitutive element of soft power, not simply its amplifier.