The obvious context to today’s conversation are the terrible events happening in Ukraine, which has brought in to sharp focus sport’s role in the political landscape that surround them, in particular the role of governing bodies and the supply chain of professional enablers that are part and parcel of sportswashing and the soft power strategies beloved by autocratic regimes. 

My guests are two experts in the relationship between business and geopolitics.

Robert Barrington served as Executive Director of Transparency International UK and is now Professor of Anti-Corruption Practice at the University of Sussex. 

Professor Dan Hough heads the department of politics at the same university and together they’ve written a book that couldn’t be more timely. 

It’s called Understanding Corruption: how corruption works in practice

Unofficial Partner listeners can get a 30% discount by clicking the above linkand using the code EMAIL30

If you're interested in sports business analysis and comment, follow @UnffclPrtnr on Twitter and join thousands of busy sports execs who receive the UP Newsletter every Thursday. 
 Sign up via unofficialpartner.com 

As usual, every episode of Unofficial Partner can be found by using the big podcast providers, including Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app. 

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.

Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.