Game Changers: The Complex Relationship of Sports and Politics

Sports diplomacy is the mutual existence of sports and politics. With politics infiltrating the world of sports, these two domains do more than coexist, especially for sporting elites. But has this taken away from the ‘playfulness’ of sports?

Sporting memories of playing friendlies at school and micro-aggressions on the pitches still very much count as ‘playfulness’, but when diplomacy is brought into the mix, the sporting world can soon become calculated, political, and manipulated. Soon it becomes less about who has been battling for the ball during the first half, and more about what political messages are sent from one country to another.

Looking away from the modern era, sport has not always been a recreational activity, with its origins lying in violent sporting power plays. Take the ancient world, where the sport of ‘pankration’ was commonly played in Ancient Greek Olympics. It was a savage combination of boxing and wrestling, with no rules other than no biting and gouging — not that this did much to prevent ruthlessness.

Or looking at the medieval period, when jousting was a popular sport within European societies. It had extremely high rates of injury and death, with sharp lances being tools of the trade and competitors going at high speeds on horseback. These two examples show that sport has always been both a power-play and source of entertainment, and it did not originate as a playful pursuit of leisure.

As a recent example, take Afghan women’s cricket, who recently played their first competitive T20 match in Australia since 2021 as their contracts were destroyed when the Taliban’s oppressive regime began. Although the team could not play under their original name of ‘Afghanistan women’, they were united in a playful match of competitive, charity cricket. This is a prime example of how the politics of a country has the overarching power to dictate an elite national sports team. Having taken four years for these women to be able to play their sport without fearing for the safety of their team and supporters, they can only do so now with another country’s diplomatic protection — in this case, Australia — whose national flower was featured in their custom-made kit.

However, this can be spun positively. Whilst politics can dominate sport, in the modern day it has typically become an energy outlet and can create a sense of passion and hope for all those involved. Although playing across the world at Melbourne’s Junction Oval, the Afghan women’s cricket team wished to spread these messages of hope to those living under the Taliban, where the sporting world, especially for females, has become deeply oppressed in recent years.

To summarise, some sport traits have remained throughout history, but ‘playfulness’ has become a more recent part of the sporting world. And with the political focus of power and presentation — what some might argue elite sports is all about — it is unsurprising that politics has severely infiltrated this sphere. Even when politics dominates, sport still has the power to unleash positive emotions of hope and community for all, creating a unique and powerful relationship of sports diplomacy.

Image from Wikimedia Commons