Once again, there are strong rumblings of a sport boycott against Russia holding the football World Cup finals in 2018 after the shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines plane over Eastern Ukraine and the unconfirmed allegations that Russia is supplying arms to the separatist rebels accused of causing the death of all 298 passengers on board.
How often have we heard that sport and politics do not mix? Yet, once again, sport is about to be the sacrificial lamb on the altar of punitive measures in the hands of politicians.
British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has joined forces with other world leaders for Russia to be deprived of holding the prestigious World Cup and the Formula One Grand Prix, scheduled for next October in Sochi, the fabulous site of the last Winter Olympic Games and a favourite resort of President Vladimir Putin.
Clegg warned that if no such action is taken “ it would make the world so weak and so insincere in the condemnation of Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and support for the rebels”.
Of course, the chorus of boycott voices stems from the perception that the Russian bear is flexing its muscles once again with a massive plan to lure back the former Soviet Union in its grasp.
Undoubtedly, sport has become a political football subject to international tensions and never-ending disputes with their attendant sordid repercussions on international sport and the inevitable involvement and occasional interference of politicians.
Sport, particularly football, in modern society is serious business with serious functions to perform. Recent events in the international arena compel me to point out the stark realities of professional high performance sport.
Sadly, elite sport is passing through a most difficult period, its credibility is at stake, its values are being questioned, its moral fibre is threatened. Understandably, there is a feeling that the age of innocence in sport is truly over and an air of cynicism is among us, clouding our beliefs in the most pervasive activity in the world.
But one is inclined to ask: is sport a legitimate target for political aims? Should Russia, under autocratic Putin, be allowed to bask in blazes of glory as he splashes billions of dollars to give his regime a respectable image as he did during the Sochi Winter Olympic Games last year?
FIFA, the world governing body of football, has already ruled out any form of boycott against Russia after the tragedy of the Malaysian airliner, insisting that the tournament could be a force for the good of mankind.
In the wake of this burning issue, it is well to remember George Orwell, best known for his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and the allegorical novel Animal Farm (1945), for his article ‘The sporting spirit’ on international sport in the academic journal The Tribune of 1945.
Of course his statement shows the irreconcilable conflict between the idealist and the realist as he stressedthat sport “is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence - in other words it is war minus the shooting”.
This severe condemnation of sport was most seriously opposed by the affable and intuitive Pope John XXIII and other world leaders who believed that sport can definitely contribute to international goodwill. Studies of the international discord related to international sport such as the Olympic Games do not seem to support the optimistic opinion of the ecumenical pope, although they do not entirely negate these expectations.
The gentleman athlete of my generation, Christopher Chataway, in War without weapons, has produced the single most comprehensive study of this subject as well as the most authoritative by stating: “Could it be that in describing the odd phenomenon of 20th century international sport as ‘war minus the shooting’ Orwell was producing not a condemnation, as he thought, but its ultimate justification?”
Events last century have strengthened the age-old ties between sports and politics. Particularly the Olympic Movement and the international sports system have provided a forum which nations could exploit to flaunt their political systems.
The Nazis of Adolf Hitler and the Fascists under Benito Mussolini were quick to grasp the possibilities of using sport as political, diplomatic and propaganda vehicles.
In the late 1980s, the nuclear stalement between the United States and the former Soviet Union may have put a halt to confrontation of a military nature between the two countries but it did not eliminate the ongoing competition without weapons on the sports field.
Both Orwell and Chataway have proved their point: sport is occasionally an alternative to war.
This severe condemnation of sport was most seriously opposed by the affable and intuitive Pope John XXIII and other world leaders who believed that sport can definitely contribute to international goodwill
I can provide a long list of boycotts in the international arena stemming from political motives or to use sport as a vehicle for their aspirations. As a former MOC secretary general, I have come across many instances when international sports, in particular the Olympic Games, have been used for political gains.
In 1896, the founder of the Modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin did his utmost to prevent Germany from participating because of the overwhelming defeat of France by Prussia in 1874.
In 1908, in London, there was great animosity because the US refused to dip their flag to Edward VII; in 1936, Berlin’s blatant use of the Olympics as Nazi propaganda is well known; in 1948, the exclusion of Germany and Japan from the London Games as a result of World War II; in 1968, in Mexico, the raised arm salute of Afro-Americans on the victory podium; and South Africa was disqualified from the Games because of its apartheid policies;
In 1972, the Palestinian terrorist attack on the Israeli team at the Munich Olympic Village; in 1976, the Canadian government’s refusal to allow a delegation from Taiwan to participate in the Montreal Olympic Games;
African boycott of the Games; the 1980 boycott of the United States and allies of the Moscow Olympics because of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan; the 1984 boycott of the Los Angeles Games by the Soviet Union and allies.
The list is endless.
Some will argue that if international manifestations of sport are so attractive to political opportunists, why not abolish them? Why not remove temptations from their paths? Indeed, why not?
But what then will be next to fall? And what would ideologies resort to?
In spite of its failures in the sports international arena, wisdom suggests that nations should continue to “to seek, to find and not to yield”.
Indeed, Orwell, in his crisp definition of sport as “war minus the shooting” was, unknowingly, uttering a justification and not a condemnation.
Lino Bugeja is a former general secretary of the Malta Olympic Committee.