Knock LA

Sports fans have suffered through more than a decade of unbridled sportswashing — a company or state using sport to draw attention away from human rights abuses and environmental degradation. Major events like the Olympics and football clubs such as Manchester City, Arsenal, and Paris St. Germain have all fallen victim to attempts by authoritarian regimes, oil-states, and industry to clean their respective images. Allowing companies and states to sportswash taints the very cultural event we love because it sends the message that businesses and branding is more important than the fan culture, experience, or the game’s reputation. For football fans it transforms a game rooted in community into a commercial product, the outward message being your sport is for sale, and your values and morals don’t matter. 

For many, sportswashing is a foreign concept. Whether it’s a premier league football team, or an authoritarian regime taking over a major sporting event, it’s a problem that seemingly happens elsewhere. But it’s not. Chevron, a major oil and gas producer, is a prominent sponsor of the Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) and is exploiting Angelenos’ love of football to sportswash its reputation. 

Chevron signed an agreement with LAFC in 2018 to be the team’s official energy partner. As a result, Chevron got to clean up its contaminated image and LAFC benefitted from more financial resources to develop opportunities for youth soccer players. The contract is up for renegotiation in 2027, and a recently launched campaign called Kick Chevron Out of LAFC says it’s time to give Chevron the boot.

Football is uniquely positioned to stop sportswashing. Football brings communities together and belongs to everyone. Children, men, and women in any country or community can make a ball out of anything and find something to call a goal. Football stands for inclusion and a level playing field for all. Communities around the world unite around something entirely wholesome and positive: their football club. There is no greater force than football to bring all walks of life together. LAFC knows this. 

LAFC’s motto is street by street, block by block to advance positive community change. But LAFC taints its image and commitment to stand shoulder to shoulder with its fans when it partners with corporations like Chevron who are torching the environment and helping genocidal regimes like Israel. No organization that seeks to root itself in the community and stands for positive change should ever partner with entities that cause so much death and destruction. 

Chevron’s logistical and material support concretely enables Israel’s ongoing genocidal project in Gaza. Chevron is a major energy and economic partner of Israel. In 2020, Chevron acquired the Tamar, Leviathan, and Dalit gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. It also profits from the East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) pipeline that it operates off the coast of Gaza. This activity allows Israel to collect hundreds of millions of dollars each year in tax revenue from Chevron. Chevron also profits from Israel’s war mongering and imperialism. Israel’s oil and gas purchases operationalize military bases, prisons, and establish illegal settlements. 

While Israel benefits from Chevron’s oil, Palestinians in Gaza suffer. Palestinians also pay higher rates for energy, are provided worse services, and are even banned from the grid, as Gaza has been since October 2023. These actions have earned Chevron a spot on the official Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) list, a movement which seeks to hold corporations accountable for their complicity in Israel’s apartheid and genocide against Palestinians. 

It also behooves us to reiterate Chevron’s other crimes and environmental destruction across the globe. Chevron polluted the Niger Delta for decades and ravaged its ecosystem. It deliberately dumped 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into Ecuador’s Amazon Rainforest. Chevron has also been repeatedly sued for violence against indigenous communities around the world. A 2021 report analyzed 70 lawsuits against the company and found 65 percent of cases involving documented claims of severe human rights abuses, including torture, forced labor and slavery, rape, murder, and genocide. 

Like sportswashing, Chevron doesn’t just harm communities abroad. Chevron destroys the environment and victimizes marginalized communities right here in Los Angeles. Chevron was born and raised in California. Its first two refineries were erected in Richmond and El Segundo. In fact, that’s where the city’s name comes from: it’s the second, or el segundo, Chevron refinery in the state. The Richmond refinery is the worst greenhouse gas emitter in the Bay Area and the El Segundo refinery is the worst ocean-polluting refinery in the country. Last year, following years of notices of violation from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, an explosion at the El Segundo refinery caused a large fire and released toxic gases into the air. 

Oil and gas consumption is also undoubtedly linked to climate change which is wreaking havoc on Angelenos. Los Angeles suffered its worst wildfires yet in January 2025,  killing over 400 people, injuring hundreds more, and displacing tens of thousands. This year’s super El Nino is fueled by climate change and has the potential to devastate Southern California communities and economies.  

Beyond climate change’s impacts on Angelenos, Chevron has been among the leading donors to ICE supporters in Congress and consequently has helped ICE and DHS agents terrorize immigrant communities. LAFC has yet to square its Chevron partnership with its commitment to stand “shoulder to shoulder with all members of our community” in the face of ICE terror. Chevron’s support for ICE also flies in the face of LAFC’s strongest supporters who set aside football rivalries to fight back against state violence and protested ICE’s assault on LA. 

The list of atrocities goes on. If you’re Chevron, a partnership with LAFC makes sense: you gain associations with community building and the beautiful game to wipe away the dirt and blood. But why does LAFC want to tie itself to a corporation with this reputation? What does LAFC gain from partnering with Chevron? This partnership comes at a greater cost than any financial benefit because associating with Chevron works against efforts to build a positive image and participate as an ethical neighbor in the Los Angeles Community.  You can’t stand shoulder to shoulder with all members of a community when you partner with a corporation exploiting them, conducting war crimes, and engaging in environmental devastation across the globe. That’s not community building. That’s a corporate occupation. 

While football brings people together, Chevron tears and burns them asunder. Football lives through its fans, and Chevron exploits them. Chevron’s presence in football is nothing more than a repeated, dirty foul on the people’s game. LAFC must do more than show Chevron the red card.  It’s time to ban Chevron from the stadium altogether. 

Want to learn more about the campaign? Attend the teach-in on Kick Chevron Out of LAFC on Saturday, October 3rd from 1:00 to 3:00pm at Midnight Books.

Dave Smith is a lawyer by training and advocates zealously on behalf of indigent accused persons in Los Angeles County. He is also a life -long football fan and has supported LAFC since the inaugural 2018 season. As a supporter he is very interested in the intersection of fan culture and democracy in sports. He hopes that one day fans will have a greater say over the future of their beloved game. A better football is possible.

Lyndsey Nolan is an organizer with Chevron Out Of Palestine, a Los Angeles-based collective founded in 2024 to elevate the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) Movement, which names Chevron as a primary target.