CHAPTER ONE

RACISM IN SPORT

Throughout the world people discriminate among other as a result of difference that

nature has provided in order to enhance the identification and understanding of each other.

Unfortunately this gift of nature has been turned in to a source for discrimination, racial

discrimination result prominently when some people are viewed and treated as inferior to others.

The most common being that between the black and white races. Although this may not be the

only reason why racisms occur, it however provides a clear starting point for any discussion on

racisms.

Sport supposed to provide an avenue where people are treated equally, due to it power of

bringing people together to play under one umbrella, the core value of sport is fair treatment,

according Wikipedia( 2000) Sport is meant to raise awareness that adheres to the notion of fair

play this is only in principle, because sport has suffer from dramatic cases of racisms According

to Wikipedia(2000) racism in sports happens everywhere. People who discriminate others bring

racism into sport. As history has proceeded, racism in sport has shrunk dramatically. We see this

greatly in the NFL and other modern sports. Cornwell (1993) noted that racism in sport has a

thousand forms. For example, from the start of the 1936 Olympics, there was opposition to the

Olympic Games being held in Germany, "neither Americans nor the representatives of other

countries can take part in the Games in Nazi Germany without at least acquiescing in the

contempt of the Nazis for fair play and their sordid exploitation of the Games." Despite this

resentment, the Olympic Games continued.

The bidding for the 1936 Olympic Games was the first to be contested by IOC members,

who cast their votes for their favorite host city. The vote occurred in 1931 during the Weimar

1
Republic era, before Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933. By allowing only members of the

"Aryan race" to compete for Nazi-controlled Germany, Hitler further promoted his ideological

belief of racial supremacy. Other nations debated boycotting, with Spain and the Soviet Union

going through with a full boycott. The Amateur Athletic Union led newspaper editors and anti-

Nazi groups to protest against American participation, contesting that racial discrimination was a

violation of Olympic rules and creed and that participation in the Games was tantamount to

support for the Third Reich. Most African-American newspapers supported participation in the

Olympics. The Philadelphia Tribune and the Chicago Defender both agreed that black victories

would undermine Nazi views of Aryan supremacy and spark renewed African-American pride.

American Jewish organizations, meanwhile, largely opposed the Olympics. The American

Jewish Congress and the Jewish Labor Committee staged rallies and supported the boycott of

German goods to show their disdain for American participation. The 1936 Summer Olympics

ultimately boasted the largest number of participating nations of any Olympics to that point.

However, some individual athletes, including Jewish Americans Milton Green and Norman

Cahners, chose to boycott the Games.

During these Olympics, Margaret Bergmann Lambert was excluded in the 1936 German

Olympic team because she was Jewish.[5] She had to withhold her anger and frustration in

regard to Hitler's unequal and unfair ruling in Germany. Even though Lambert had equaled the

German national record in the high jump a month before the Olympic Games, she was denied the

opportunity to participate in the games.[6] In addition, the Nazi Press described African

Americans as "black auxiliaries" and eventually called for their exclusion from the Olympics.

Also, Hitler's Nazis created rules and restrictions within Germany that prohibited Jews from

2
being able to use local facilities and playgrounds for appropriate training, occurring as early as

March 1933. This gave Jews and other "non Aryan" people unequal training methods.

Great achievements by African-Americans, such as Jesse Owens, challenged the "Aryan"

ideal, or a Caucasian person without Jewish descent. Owens won four gold medals: one in 100

meters, 200 meters, long jump, and 4x100 meter relay. His achievements conveyed both the

notions of "interracial education" as well as "muscular assimilation" to help promote

sportsmanship towards African-Americans on and off the Olympic stage. However, these

achievements of interracial awareness and racial cohesion also solidified traditional social

hierarchies through the guise of "scientific" discoveries in physiology and anatomy. This racism

was not limited to Germans, as Americans observed racism as well.

America in one of the most racial segregation country this has pervaded every imaginable

aspect of American daily life. One do not need to go far to identify racism in America, the

blacks are killed by the white police on almost daily bases. Thus America experience provides all

the opportunities for discussion on racism in sport. Black s form majority of athletes that flies

American flag unfortunately they suffer lot of racial discriminations. Fie example American

Track and Field coach Dean Cromwell stated "It was not long ago that his [the black athlete's]

ability to sprint and jump was a life-and-death matter to him in the jungle. His muscles are

pliable, and his easy-going disposition is a valuable aid to the mental and physical relaxation that

a runner and jumper must have." These thoughts percolated throughout the Olympics, and made

discrimination commonplace in many aspects of the games.

You see a lot of Afro-American athletes, some of them earning fantastic money, and you

think everything's OK. But at heart, this is a deeply racist country, and the people who run things

have installed a glass ceiling. After his playing career is over, an African American athlete's

3
usefulness to sports becomes evident. It's zero. ‘For proof, consider the present state of affairs in

the US's big three sports - basketball, football and baseball. In the National Basketball

Association, where Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson became two of the most famous athletes

on earth, 75 per cent of all players are black. Yet of head coaches, only three out of 27 are black,

as are a mere 11 per cent of the 'front-office' executive and managerial staff.

In the 28-team National Football League, matters are no better. Fully 60 per cent of

players, but only two head coaches, are black. Only baseball remotely measures up, with blacks

and Hispanics providing 31 per cent of players, and 21 per cent of managers (six out of 28).

Among this latter group is Cito Gaston, who has just led the Toronto Blue Jays to the first back-

to-back World Series triumphs since the Yankees in 1977- 78. But the proportion of blacks in

front-office management posts in baseball is a puny 8 per cent - and in the extreme case of the

As sports progressed, race relations progressed at a comparable rate. In Baseball for instance,

African-Americans were barred from participation in the National Association of Baseball

Players because of regional prejudice and unofficial color bans dating back to the 1890s. Due to

this segregation, blacks worked together to create the Negro Leagues. These leagues comprised

mostly all African-American teams. As a whole, the Negro Leagues overtime became one of the

largest and most successful enterprises run by African-Americans. Their birth and resilient

growth stood as a testament to the determination and drive of African-Americans to battle the

imposing racial segregation and social disadvantage. After years of playing in an association for

blacks, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by participating in the Dodger's organization. His

excellence at this level opened the gates for other African American's to be accepted into a less

segregated Major League Baseball, and in 1949 the Negro Leagues disbanded. Soon after

Robinson's inclusion into organized baseball, Roy Campanella, Joe Black and Don Newcombe,

4
and Larry Doby all joined Robinson as significant black players that helped foil the racial divide.

By 1952, 150 black players were in organized baseball.

So, in a nutshell, runs racism by stereotype in American sport. Blacks are wonderful

natural athletes; 'thoroughbred' and 'instinctive' are two stock giveaway euphemisms of the

commentators. Whites, on the other hand, are the hustlers. They're 'smart', the ones with brains.

Once there was even what is known as 'positional segregation' - the monopoly of white players in

football's so-called 'thinking' positions of quarterback and centre. That, he believes, is largely a

thing of the past, and there are now three first-choice black quarterbacks in the NFL. But it is still

not so on the administrative front. For proof, there is the cautionary tale of Gayle Sayers

Some significant policies aimed at reducing racism in Association Football include

Football against Racism in Europe, Show Racism The Red Card, Rasismul strică fotbalul in

Romania not all passed. Australian Football has a history of racism, including some significant

events, however the Australian Football League's racial vilification code has gone some way to

reducing racism in the sports.

5
 CHAPTER TWO

OLYMPICS AND SUPER POWER

Olympic game the biggest sporting event in the world comes up after every four years.

From its inception the completion which enjoyed global participation has been dominated by the

countries that a known to be the world supper power, united state of America, Britain, Germany,

Russia China etc.

One common future of a super power is that they never compromise there global position and

each of the super power main aim is to continue to be at a dominate position ahead of others. As

they compete among themselves, in the area of science and technology economic and political

development, each of these super power triad to be at advance positions. Sports particularly the

Olympics games provide an avenue where war is fought without weapons. There are several

reasons why the super power will continue to be at leading positions in the Olympics and indeed

other global tournament, such as the world cup world athletic championship and host of other

sport. Although the list may not be too restrictive, they include the following.

1. Strong desire to be at leading position

2. Level of technological advancement
3. Level of commitment and preparations
4. Political and Economic domination
5. High level of national pride and patriotism

STRONG DESIRE TO BE AT LEADING POSITION

Thus as earlier mentioned all the super power have strong desire to be seen at the leading

position America for example in recent time is portraying itself as the world police invading

and creating crisis in many nation Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon. This was made possible

due to it procession of nuclear weapons and heavy military might. This is a position that must be

6
maintained and sustained in every areas of human Endeavour, including sport. It is important to

note that sport provide an avenue for everyone to experience success and failure, this is why

super power knowing fully that many nation are preparing hard to defeat them at least in sport

are not relenting in their effort to ensure that they are not defeated particularly by the less

developed nations.

The situation of France China America Britain and the former Soviet Union would

further indicate how strong are these nations in their desire to maintain a leading position at the

Olympics games.

LEVEL OF TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT

There is a general belief that development in engineered by technological advancement. Thus the

super powers are presently at their high level of technological competition, this has been

translated in to field of sports. Technology has provided an ample of opportunities for

development of better facilities, equipment, techniques and tactics. This is a great advantage

over other nations who relay much of the super power for all their equipment and are by far

ahead of other nations.

LEVEL OF COMMITMENT AND PREPARATIONS

A nation may have all that it needed in terms of finance facilities and equipment, but this can

only be translated in to success through commitment the super power are so committed to ensure

success in the Olympics game, as a result their commitment and level of preparation is un

comparable with other nations. Their preparation for the next Olympic commence at the end of

the ongoing games

7
It is suffice to look at the level of preparation of some of these super powers

FRENCH

After seven days of competition and with just one more to go, French Olympic swimmers

have secured seven medals – including four gold – at the London Games. Their success is the

fruit of a meticulous plan spawned 16 years ago in Atlanta.Between the Atlanta Olympics in

1996 and in London Games, the difference in the French team's swimming performance is

glaring. Sixteen years ago, French swimmers brought no medals back from across the Atlantic.

But in 2012 they have claimed seven, including four golds during the eight days of competition.

Clearly it has been a team effort. But one man in particular, Claude Fauquet, has been credited

with France’s tide of recent victories. After witnessing the debacle in Atlanta, and as the national

swimming team’s technical director, Fauquet decided to overhaul the entire system and rebuild it

using a series of strict rules. The Fauquet Method, as his plan has been dubbed in France, focuses

on applying very high standards to raise the performance levels of potential Olympians quickly –

even if it means reducing the overall number of competitors.While his may seem like an obvious

plan of attack, Anne Riff, a coordinator at France’s swimming development centre in the

southern city of Montpellier, says the Fouquet Method faced an uphill battle against an archaic

system that dominated the sport in France for decades.

In the past French swimmers were pampered, and the bosses of regional swim clubs were

given a wide margin to pick whoever they thought should wear the Olympic uniform.“There are

now stringent rules applied to select swimmers for international competitions," Riff told

FRANCE 24. "[Fauquet] introduced stringent constraints on choosing who will represent

France." Swimmers consistently face times trials and must succeed in international competitions

8
to qualify for more important tournaments, with no more exceptions made to favourites. The

new, stiff standards meant that only nine French swimmers were sent to the World Swimming

Championships in Perth, Australia, in 1998. But the team brought home three medals, including a

gold in the 200-metre backstroke.

CHINA

Fourth in the standings in 1996, third in 2000 and second in 2004 – the trend in China's

final placing was only ever going to produce one result in 2008. So it is China who top the table

for the first time. Moreover, the huge financial investment, especially in sports that have

traditionally not been popular among the Chinese such as swimming and rowing, has paid off by

contributing to the first 50-gold haul since the Soviet Union broke up after Seoul in 1988. Even

at their last home Games, in Atlanta 12 years ago, the US managed a best return of just 44 golds.

In time, the Americans could come to be seen as a kind of intermediate superpower between the

end of Soviet supremacy and the start of the Chinese reign.

China confirm place as leading superpower after topping Olympic Games medal table

In the end it was not even close. China's determination to top the medal table at the Games in

their capital city was always likely to make difference. China confirms their place as world's

leading superpower. The questions here is that what are the secretes behind this success. In the

first place there are thousands of sports schools where future Olympians are already being

groomed. These kids are hand-picked from a population of more than a billion. They start at ages

5 and 6.Headmaster. China's many detractors these schools are called "Medal Factories."

Children are subjected to a grueling regimen of practice that becomes the sole obsession of their

lives. For many parents, the honor of having a potential Olympian is offset by the huge sacrifice.

In reality, many have to give up their children for the good of the nation's pursuit of gold.

9
 The father of weightlifting gold medalist Lin Qinfeng has said that he hasn't seen his son

in six years and that he wouldn't have recognized him on TV this week if the commentator hadn't

mentioned his name. Synchronized-diving gold medalist Wu Minxia had no chance to savor her

victory at these games. As soon she won the gold her family broke the news that her

grandparents had died a year ago. She was kept in the dark so she'd stay focused on victory here

in London. But the secret to China's success isn't just early, relentless and sometimes heartless

training. According to Gao Jiamei the secret to China's success is young athletes who train hard

and can endure hardship.

They have taken a page from the old communists of East Germany who used to win

buckets of medals. "The East Germans understood Olympic math," said USA Today sports

columnist and ABC News sports consultant Christine Brennan, "and the Chinese get that too.

Which is simply to say, that you take the sports where the medals are most plentiful, and that's

where you throw all your energy."

And so while the Chinese have done well in diving and gymnastics where their acrobatic

tradition gives them a natural affinity, they have also done staggeringly well in sports that most

countries overlook, the low-hanging fruit of the medal count. So far China's won seven medals in

shooting and seven in weightlifting. Seven of those 14 medals are gold. Its' all part of a very

focused national obsession to show the world that China is the superpower of sport.

Golden generation: gymnast He Kexin displays one of China's 51 gold medals Photo:

Reuters. It is, of course, gold that count. Including silver and bronze medals as well, the United

States finished with 10 more than China, 110 to 100. But, if you want to consider yourself a true

superpower, a mere place on the podium is not what you are after, and the official table reflects

that by ordering countries according to gold won. China led the medal table in eight sports,

10
compared to America's six. While those home successes were predictably in the disciplines they

love, such as badminton, table tennis, diving, gymnastics and shooting, the Chinese won at least

one medal in a remarkable 26 sports. That is two better than the Americans, and only one short of

the record set by the Soviet Union at the boycott-affected 1980 Games in Moscow. For those in

power in China, and not just in the national sporting authorities, it adds up to more than

justifying the estimated £20 billion spent in pursuing their aim of becoming the best.

GREAT BRITAIN

There was a wonderful moment towards the end of Five Live Sport's London 2012

special last week when co-host Steve Parry got a bit carried away with the excitement of it all

and declared that Britain had become an "Olympic superpower". Britain place fourth in the

competition.The question here is does superpower status really go down as far as fourth place in

the table?" there were only two superpowers after all the medals were dished out in 1945.

Britain's tally was 68 medals, 26 of them gold: a significant improvement on the fine AYOF

debut they made in 2007, when they went home with 14 gold in their 48-medal haul, and more

than enough to suggest there is more to come from our Olympians in 2012 and beyond

Great Britain is the only nation with an improvement that comes remotely close to

China's, with 10 more gold than in 2004 and 17 extra medals in all. The Chinese and British were

locked at five gold medals apiece at the last Olympics in Asia 20 years ago.

UNITED STATE OF AMERICA

For the United States, there is no need to use sport or anything else to brand the country

as an advanced nation. Sport plays a different role in America’s outreach: it conveys and

confirms the United States’ central image that it is a land of opportunity; a meritocracy in which

any individual through talent and hard work can excel and be rewarded. In this the major role is

11
played by the United States’ robust professional sports industry stays true to this value. In 1947,

seven years before Brown v. Board of Education mandated the desegregation of American

schools. Jackie Robinson broke the color line in major league baseball. Since then, American

professional sports have had little room for favoritism in selecting players. It is not a field for

discrimination or reverse discrimination. Teams and their fans want to win. Major American

sports such as baseball and basketball hire from a world-wide pool of talent. The demigods of the

widely televised American leagues are admired in the United States and elsewhere without

regard to race or national origin. In Beijing in 2008, the most admired and pursued athletes were

Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Yao Ming, in that order. The endorsement that Yao Ming’s

enormous talent received by his playing in the NBA built his reputation everywhere, including in

China. The same is true for Pau Gasol, the Lakers’ center from Spain, and Dirk Nowitzki, the

Mavericks’ forward from Germany. Even David Beckham, at the top of his football career, felt

the pull of American professional sports when he signed with the Los Angeles Galaxy of

American Major League Soccer in 2007. The acclaim American celebrities receive from abroad,

both in the United States and elsewhere, testifies to the openness of American society and the

opportunities to succeed..

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DOMINATION

He who play the piper they say detect the tune the world super power had dominated the

global political and economy in a way that the gap between the developed and the

underdeveloped nation continue to widened. Therefore while the posses all the economic

strength needed for effective sports development it them implies that they are in better position to

dominate the Olympics game since they are better prepared,

REGIONAL NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND BOYCOTTS

12
 “Sport is a language every one of us can speak,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

said, and its power as a tool in a country’s public diplomacy arsenal is being increasingly

recognised. Mixing sport and diplomacy can help meet various foreign policy objectives: to

bring about regime change, open the door for dialogue when it is closed to politics and effective

channel through which to conduct international relations.

Throughout the world sport competitions at national regional and global level is being

managed by organizations, these organization are established for common goals and purposes for

the organizers of sport, the sport federations—like FIFA and FINA, for example—their entire

activity is an exercise in international travel and politics. Their associations are yet another arena

of interaction among cross-border elites. They form a society (organizations) that transcends

nationality at the same time that they dicker and maneuver for national advantage. Among their

most contentious issues is the perennial need to locate a city to host the world championships of

the sport. The placement of the Olympic Games is the most sought such designation and is

arguably the most contested and fascinating competition in the Olympics. FIFA’s World Cup is a

close second. However, every sport from Tae Kwan Do to Equestrian needs to find a home for its

finals. The host cities and their nations see these events as prime opportunities to reach

international audiences to polish their brands. In 1936, Germany effectively used the Olympic

Games in Berlin to assuage criticism and mislead a global public about the nature of its regime.

The impact on Barcelona’s reputation as a beautiful city from its successful staging of the 1992

Olympic Games was significant and lasting. In 2008, China spent $40 billion in pursuit of a new

image as a first world power.

The International Olympic Committee is not shy in enticing cities to bid on hosting the

Games in order to enhance their brands both by rebuilding portions of the city to prepare for the

13
Games and by capturing the extraordinary television coverage that the Games offer. The FIFA

World Cup has assumed a similar role. Other than a natural disaster or war, there is no greater

opportunity to have the whole world focus relentlessly on a country on television, in print

journalism, and online for a period of at least three weeks.

In 1966, the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa (SCSA) was organized in Bamako; The

Supreme Council for Sport in Africa (SCSA) was established on 14 December 1966 and served

as a specialized agency of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) for the coordination of the

Africa Sports Movement and to utilize Sport in the struggle against colonialism and apartheid on

the continent. Invariably, the SCSA was essentially a political organization which furthered the

aims and objectives of the OAU through. boycotts in sport is seen as tool for a particular,

national or regional organization to shown from attending competition as a way to register

protest against certain action which the nation feel it has not been treated fairly. Notable

examples of sports and politics colliding can be seen at work in the Olympics boycotts of the

1970s and 1980s, the Football War between Honduras and El Salvador, and Ping Pong

Diplomacy between the US and China in the 1970s. South Africa was banned since the

beginning of the African games in the 1965 All-Africa Games till the 1995 All-Africa Games

because Apartheid when it was invited for the first time to compete the games. However,

Morocco participated to the game from the first edition to 1978 All-Africa Games. It was banned

to the games from the 1987 All-Africa Games till now because political problem in Western

Sahara.

Noting that the SCSA was primarily established to advance the achievement of the

political objectives of the OAU, it was therefore more focused on holding meetings and

campaigns against apartheid and colonial regimes participating in international sporting events.

14
Sport development and development through sports were not principal focus areas. The OAU

was able to meet its objectives of liberating the entire continent from apartheid and colonial.

When South Africa was allowed to participate at the 1968 Games in Mexico, Tanzania was part

of the strong reaction against the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision, and

withdrew from the Olympics in protest. They resubmitted their application once South Africa

was again barred. Tanzania then turned their sights on excluding Rhodesia from the 1972

Olympic Games in Munich. While Rhodesia had participated in the 1964 Games under the Union

Jack, the Universal Declaration of Independence (UDI) came the following year and led to a UN

resolution, which allowed Mexico to legally bar Rhodesia from participating. When Rhodesia

sought to participate in Munich under ‘1964 conditions’ the IOC reacted positively as this was

viewed by some African nations as a repudiation of the UDI. Tanzania protested Rhodesia’s

inclusion and again removed their athletes from participating. Other African nations joined

Tanzania, and when the UN Secretary General intervened and alerted the German government

that Rhodesia’s participation would violate the UN resolution, the IOC reversed its position and

barred Rhodesian involvement. With it’s success in building coalitions and solidarity with other

nations in organizing sports boycotts, Tanzania took the lead of the black African boycott of the

Montreal Games in 1976 in protest of New Zealand’s continued sporting relationship with

apartheid South Africa.

Not all cities and countries get a branding boost by hosting major events. The event has

to be seen to have gone well. Munich’s reputation has yet to recover from the debacle of the

1972 Olympic Games in which the Israeli athletes were massacred. Athens sent a message of

economic distress, political infighting, and lack of preparation in its 2004 performance of the

Games. The subsequent economic problems of Greece have only added to that impression. Still,

15
as with China, South Africa, Brazil for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games and Qatar

for the 2018 World Cup, the major sporting events have become the key validation that a country

has entered the league of major, advanced nations.

For the United States, there is no need to use sport or anything else to brand the country

as an advanced nation. Sport plays a different role in America’s outreach: it conveys and

confirms the United States’ central image that it is a land of opportunity; a meritocracy in which

any individual through talent and hard work can excel and be rewarded. In this the major role is

played by the United States’ robust professional sports industry stays true to this value. In 1947,

seven years before Brown v. Board of Education mandated the desegregation of American

schools, Jackie Robinson broke the color line in major league baseball. Since then, American

professional sports have had little room for favoritism in selecting players. It is not a field for

discrimination or reverse discrimination. Teams and their fans want to win. Major American

sports such as baseball and basketball hire from a world-wide pool of talent. The demigods of the

widely televised American leagues are admired in the United States and elsewhere without

regard to race or national origin. In Beijing in 2008, the most admired and pursued athletes were

Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Yao Ming, in that order. The endorsement that Yao Ming’s

enormous talent received by his playing in the NBA built his reputation everywhere, including in

China. The same is true for Pau Gasol, the Lakers’ center from Spain, and Dirk Nowitzki, the

Mavericks’ forward from Germany. Even David Beckham, at the top of his football career, felt

the pull of American professional sports when he signed with the Los Angeles Galaxy of

American Major League Soccer in 2007. The acclaim American celebrities receive from abroad,

both in the United States and elsewhere, testifies to the openness of American society and the

opportunities to succeed.

16
17
 CHAPTER THREE

SPORT DIPLOMACY AND FOREIGN POLICY

Introduction

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to

unite people in a way that little else does. Sport can awaken hope where there was previously

only despair. Sport speaks to people in a language they can understand.” Nelson Mandela.

Sporting events like the Olympics, the World Cup, the European Championship, the Africa Cup

of Nations, and the Super Bowl are some of the most-watched events across the world Steve J

(2000) define Sports diplomacy as simply using the common bond of sports to bridge ever-

present gaps between nations and cultures. It introduces young athletes to each other without the

economic, political, and military issues that burden traditional diplomacy.

Few things are as widely followed, understood and propagated on a mass scale as modern

sports are, argues “Gaming the World: How Sports Are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture,”

authors Andrei Markovits and Lars Rensmann. While the rules, sanctions, size of field, numbers

of players etc., may differ from one sport to another, they are the same in every country. From

New York to London, Nairobi to Tehran, Beijing to Buenos Aires, a goal is a goal, a touchdown a

touchdown, and the meaning of a red card or the loosing of a wicket, can all be universally

understood.

“Sport is a language every one of us can speak,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

said, and its power as a tool in a country’s public diplomacy arsenal is being increasingly

recognized. Mixing sport and diplomacy can help meet various foreign policy objectives: to

bring about regime change, open the door for dialogue when it is closed to politics and to arouse

a sense of national pride. This mixture however, is by no means “new.” In South Africa under

18
apartheid, sport diplomacy efforts took shape in the form of boycotts and the move by the

International Olympic Committee to withdraw the country’s 1964 Summer Olympics invitation,

contributing to the disintegration of the apartheid regime. Perhaps the most notable example of

sport diplomacy was “The ping heard round the world,” in 1971. With the entrance of the first

group of Americans into China for a series of ping-pong matches since the takeover of

Communism in 1949, lines of communication were opened between the two countries. And, let

us not forget Canada’s “hockey diplomacy” to help restore the country’s national pride.

Spurring the idea for this post, two more recent examples can also be seen. In an effort by

the US State Department to use sport diplomacy, two veteran baseball players, Barry Larkin and

Joe Logan, will travel to South Korea for a week on February 13, 2011 where they will meet

North Korean defectors, hold baseball clinics, visit local schools and discuss the importance of

diversity. Secondly, Gerard DeGroot’s article, “Sports and Politics- Sometimes a Good Mix,”

highlights the power of the World Cup to open the mind and help foster international harmony.

With

FIFA’s December 2010 announcement of the winning bids, the 2018 World Cup going to

Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar, “Through this, the people of Russia and Qatar have

been told that they belong to a world community based on harmony, not antagonism. By the

same token, the rest of the world has been given the opportunity (through watching or attending

the World Cup) to discover the realities of Russia and Qatar beyond stereotypes. If football opens

the world just a tiny bit, that should be cause for celebration.”

But before we get carried away and celebrate too prematurely, surely we have to ask if

sports diplomacy actually works in helping to achieve foreign policy objectives? Does the

fostering of dialogue and understanding that sport can create have the capacity to bring about

19
sustainable, long-term changes? It seems some balance is called for or we risk an “imbalanced

approach,” focusing too much on the capacity of sport to bring about change, at the cost of

neglecting deeper institutional and structural issues

Sport as a tool of diplomacy came of age in the post-World War I world when it caught

the attention of politicians and governments as a channel through which to conduct international

relations. From Nazi Germany to Communist Russia, from capitalistic United States to apartheid

South Africa, sports have personified the ideologies of political policies in the 20th century. As

we enter the 21st century, sports are no longer framed in the East vs West, Authoritarian vs

Democracy battles lines that made for compelling stories in the past century. Instead, sports are

becoming an essential part of the toolbox of a country’s public diplomacy. Sport events that host

numerous foreign visitors have impacts on a country’s relationship with foreign publics on scales

that public diplomats could only hope to reach through their own strategies and projects. The fact

that sport reaches such a wide audience is part of the broad public appeal, but also the reason

why organizations and governments seek to attach themselves to popular figures, teams, and

events that enhance their standing in the eyes of others.

Developed nations have used sports has a representation of their might and power for

nearly 100 years. Triumphs at Olympic Games, holding the title as fastest man, or victories over

rivals on the football pitch were all used for propaganda purposes in the last century to

strengthen a nation’s image. But what of the developing nations? Is there a role for sports as a

tool of public diplomacy? Can sports be used as a development tool, to encourage foreign

investment and good governance? This paper seeks the answers to these pressing questions

because sports competitions continue despite the lack of resources and infrastructure that many

other developmental programs require for their success. For example, football diplomacy only

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requires that a round object and two sticks at opposite ends of a field to be conducted. Sports

Diplomacy does not require investments in education, the building of roads, or the training of

nurses. While all those pieces are required for development, sport is played in countries all over

the world despite poor education, lack of paved roads, and underfunded healthcare systems.

Thus, Sports Diplomacy could be conducted straight away with little need for new funding.

Notable examples of sports and politics colliding can be seen at work in the Olympics

boycotts of the 1970s and 1980s, the Football War between Honduras and El Salvador, and Ping

Pong Diplomacy between the US and China in the 1970s. However, first we must understand

how sports diplomacy can be used to carry out the foreign policy of a country. How is the tool

used and what lessons can be drawn from its successful use? Findings for these answers will

come from the focus of this paper. The following work will examine how sports diplomacy was

used in Southern Africa during apartheid in South Africa and how it contributed to the

dismantling of the apartheid regime. The Republic of South Africa currently sits at a unique

crossroads in world affairs. Claiming to be a representative of the South but with strong

industrial ties to the North, it can be a development bridge for the African continent, attracting

investment through its brand. Acting as a gateway for the African continent, South Africa can be

the representative for the African South as it seeks to accomplish foreign policy goals related to

good governance and development. Understanding how South Africa can move forward with a

sports public diplomacy strategy, we must examine its past and the first hand experience South

Africans have with negative and positive Sports Diplomacy.

SPORTS DIPLOMACY: A BRIEF HISTORY

A reading of the historiography of Sports Diplomacy generally finds agreement that

sports and its usage in foreign policy originally stemmed from a nation building effort by

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individual countries to foster a sense of nation through competition against the ‘other’. However,

it was not until after the First World War, when national competitions came to be seen as the

“arena of ‘revenge’”.

Pierre Arnaud contributes greatly to the historiography by presenting two ways of

government interaction with sport and three ways for sports diplomacy to be used. He outlines an

‘engaged’ government, one that forms a ‘sports policy’ and actively uses it in the action taken by

the foreign ministry. It would also give directives to national federations that are members in

international sporting associations. Conversely, Arnaud shows the other form of engagement

with sport would occur only in ‘extraordinary circumstances’ where a political crisis deems an

escalation of pressure or retaliation against an opposing force. These events are numerous

following 1919, and the first use where sports policy is demanded by public opinion occurs at

meetings between the two warring sides of the Great War and thus force governments to act.

With international sporting events making for attractive (and provocative) stories for newspapers

to cover in the post-war years, the national character came to be seen on the line when rival

countries met in the arena. Thus the fusion of sports and foreign policy began. Since then, sports

have been used in political crisis between two states as a tool to meet a state’s foreign policy

objectives.

The first method is the use of sporting victories and triumphs as propaganda. Through the

reinforcement of a positive image of “respect…, strength, and vitality” political regimes could

gain legitimacy from athletic success. Second, the boycott, banning, or freezing of sports

competitions between national teams could be used as a way of reprisal against an policy or

regime that the sending country wished to impact. This action used the receiving country’s public

to pressure their government to change the offending domestic or foreign policy.

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 This can be seen as a preliminary level of the political foreign policy apparatus,

obviously coming before economic and political sanctions, but we will see that used in concert

negative sports diplomacy gains importance as a tool in foreign policy. Finally, popular

discontent expressed in disorder and/or violence at a sporting event can showcase the ‘anti’

feelings, whether nationalistic or xenophobic, and can stem from political or sporting motives.

We will see the three uses of sport as described by Arnaud, propaganda, exclusion, and

retaliation, be prominent during apartheid in South Africa and central to some organizations and

countries dealings with the pariah state.

SPORTS DIPLOMACY USAGES

One deployment of sports diplomacy that is prominent in the history of the 20th century

is the Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union in 1972. This came to be the

prominent feature of Canada’s ‘hockey diplomacy’, as coined by Macintosh and Hawes in their

review of Canadian public diplomacy through the use of sports. The development of hockey

diplomacy was due to the downfall of the preeminence of Canadian hockey on the global stage.

While the Canadian Government’s Department of External Affairs was little concerned with the

national team’s wins and losses in international play, it was the way Canada was losing that

brought government involvement.

Public concern about the state of hockey began with the Canadian’s finish of second at

the World Hockey Championship in 1954, behind the Soviet Union. When Canadian

ambassadors began to write reports to the Department of External Affairs that relations with

Nordic and Eastern European countries were deteriorating due to the “‘brutish’ and

‘reprehensible’ conduct of many Canadian hockey players”, External Affairs took note, but had

no plan of action.

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 Due to the link between hockey and Canada in many of these countries, the actions taken

by the national team when they played these countries impacted the public perception these

countries held about Canada and Canadians as a whole. When the Canadian Government finally

became involved, the formation of Hockey Canada was the result. A non-profit organization, not

directly linked with the government, Hockey Canada was charged with developing and managing

the national hockey team of Canada.

As diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union warmed, the idea of a sports exchange was

discussed during meetings between the two governments. The bond that both countries shared

due to hockey was seen as a way to strengthen mutual ties, and thus sustain the foundations

created through economic and political protocols. The 1972 Canada-Soviet Hockey Series,

referred to in popular culture as the Summit Series, was the result of these discussions. The

announcement was greeted with joy in Canada, and the media proclaimed that the series was a

way for Canada to regain its mantel as the dominant force in international hockey. Thus the

reputation of the nation was on the line in this sporting event.

When Canada won the series with a goal in the last minute of play in the eighth and final

game, held in Moscow, the Series immediately entered Canadian sports lore, and to this day is

still regarded as a landmark in Canadian cultural history. However, the lessons for public

diplomats today are of greater significance. Before this time, the link between sport and foreign

relations was little understood, as seen by External Affair’s belated response to their

ambassador’s warnings about the tarnishing of the nation’s brand. The series fully exposed the

enormous potential in sports diplomacy, not just in North America, but also in the Scandinavian

countries who had watched the Summit Series with interest. The series had also captured the

interest and passion of Canadians and the media. Sport began to be seen as a novel tool for

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diplomacy. However, the next two decades saw sport be used to make overt political statements

in the form of boycotts and threats of boycotts. Hockey diplomacy as cultural exchange was thus

ahead of its time in terms of being part of the public diplomacy tool box, and sport was to

become more intertwined with politics in other nations over the next 20 years.

In terms of government changes, the Summit Series led to the creation of a desk officer in

External Affairs at the International Sports Relations desk, to “formalize the department’s

bureaucratic involvement in sport”. However, the usage of sport in Canadian diplomacy was

concentrated on preventing boycotts of the Montreal Olympics (unsuccessfully) and of the

Commonwealth Games in Edmonton (successfully). It was not until 1987 when the Secretary of

State for External Affairs announced that sport would be a greater part of Canada’s branding

abroad and a larger part in the country’s foreign relations.

NEGATIVE SPORTS DIPLOMACY

Much like the Internet, sport diplomacy can be used both as a force for “good” as well as

for “bad”. It can incite positive change and open the door for dialogue but at the same time it can

reaffirm boundaries and identities, further solidifying divisions. The question that presents itself

is, do the benefits outweigh the dangers in mixing diplomacy and sport? In the final analysis,

simply because a tool can be used for “bad” it should not completely rule out its use. A self-

evident conclusion- yes, but perhaps this gives something to those who are fond of using the

cliché, politics (and now diplomacy) and sport don’t mix, something to think about.

There are reasonable number of negative sports diplomacy of the 20th Century that attracted

wide scale coverage in the form of the Olympic Games boycotts. For example;

1. In 1976 by black African countries to rebuke New Zealand’s continued sporting ties with

South Africa

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 2. In 1980 by Western aligned countries protesting the Soviet Union’s invasion of

Afghanistan

3. In 1984 by the Soviet bloc in retaliation

Despite the media attention paid to these boycotts, for the United States, its first experience

with sports diplomacy was a smaller scale event that former US President Nixon called “the

week that changed the world”. This week became the most famous use of sports diplomacy,

which came in the form of a visit by a ping pong team to a Cold War rival.Following an

invitation from the Chinese ping pong team at a Japanese tournament, the American ping pong

team became the first Americans invited to China since the communist takeover in 1949. In the

spring of 1972, with international media (including five Americans) reporting their every move

and interaction while in China, there was a notable thaw in relations between the two countries.

On the day the Americans were received at a banquet in the Great Hall of the People and toasted

by the Chinese Premier Chou En-lai, the United States announced that the 20-year trade embargo

with China would be removed. The Premier was quoted as saying, “Never before in history has a

sport been used so effectively as a tool of international diplomacy.”

USAGE OF MEGA SPORTING EVENTS FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

While the modern Olympics served as a way to bring world nations together through

international sport competition, the Berlin Olympics served as a blueprint for propaganda usage

of future sporting events. The build up to the games caused greatly controversy once Hitler came

to power as the Weimar Republic with Brüning as Chancellor had been in power when the games

were awarded. The Germans then went on to use the games as a publicity show for National

Socialism. Despite all the doubts and accusations of discrimination in the lead up to the games,

when visiting dignitaries were entertained at the Berlin opera held at the Pergamon Museum,

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with a exemplary collection of Hellenistic art, and followed by wining and dining by Joseph

Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, they took away a “vague impression that National Socialism

was not as dreadful as they had thought”. Though Jesse Owens subsequently stole the spotlight

and seemingly the storyline of the superiority of the Ayran race, the treatment given by the

German media and propaganda offices of Owens’ success was surprisingly unbiased and was in

fact a deliberate policy of the Ministry of Propaganda to not offend black athletes at the game.

German historian, Hans Joachim Teichler, notes that there was a suspension, temporarily, of core

ideology of National Socialism. Ironically, Owens was profiled extensively in the Ministry’s film

chronicling the games despite protests from Goebbels, while in the most liberal newspaper in the

American South no photographs of Owens or other black athletes were published. Thus, the great

extent that Nazi Germany went to suppress their discriminatory ideology was directly for public

diplomacy, or propaganda.

More recently at the beginning of the millennium, Japan and South Korea hosted the

FIFA World Cup in 2002. Victor Cha explains that the desire to host sporting events has long

been viewed as the validation of the development of Asian countries. This began with Japan’s

announcement of itself as a world player with the 1964 Olympics and South Korea following suit

24 years later with it’s own Olympiad. China continued this in 2008 with it’s extravagant hosting

of the Olympic Games. The FIFA World Cup was co-hosted between Japan and Korea despite a

vigorous and often terse campaign by each country to be the sole host. FIFA compromised in it’s

awarding of co-hosting responsibilities to both nations to avoid straining relations with the losing

country. Cha concludes that the outcome of the FIFA World Cup on Japanese-Korean relations

was null, but that luster had been added to the games due to both countries already being at a

level of modernity that allowed them to show off their democratic, tech-savvy, and globalized

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societies. The perception of Japanese-Korean cooperation to host a success tournament

overshadowed the lack of real change in the diplomatic relationships between the two countries.

Mega sporting events as a tool of a nation’s public diplomacy are not just the purview of

sporting associations and the desire to host is beginning to grow in popularity as nations see that

the ideological battles of the Cold War fought through megaevents can now be used in the 21st

century to promote a country’s brand and thus encourage further engagement, often in the form

of economic benefits, through participation and hosting of mega sporting events.

AFRICAN SPORTS DIPLOMACY

Of the many images of African sport there are many instances of brand creation through

sporting figures and achievements, but the instance of traditional diplomacy using sports does

immediately spring to mind when thinking of Africa. However, Tanzania provides us an excellent

case to examine as the newly liberated country used sport in policy implementation. Both

domestically and externally, the socialist state that the ruling power sought to create in the East

African nation used sport to unify its population and target objectives abroad. Tanzania used

many measures to support other liberation movements on the continent, through economic

sanctions, aid to liberation movements and even direct military involvement. The use of

international organizations such as the United Nations and Organization of African Unity also

played a part in Tanzania’s goal of political liberation in southern Africa, notably in apartheid

South Africa and Rhodesia.

The use of sport internationally as a policy tool originates in local diplomacy first

between Tanganyika and Zanzibar before the union between the two that formed Tanzania. Two

sports clubs had developed in parallel to one another in the inter-war years, one in Dar es Salaam

and the other on the islands of Zanzibar. It was during these formative years that exchanges

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between the two clubs began to take place. It was these cultural exchanges that involved initially

football teams from each club and eventually these exchanges evolved into annual broad-sport

festivals between the islands and the mainland. As these ties developed, politicians came to

handle these exchanges to ensure their continuation when funding became a hinderance. As the

links between ruling parties and their respective sports clubs developed, the exchanges through

sports came to represent the strengthening ties between the two liberation movements of each

country. Governments sought to “create a temporary sense of togetherness and… [these]

governments … see this as an important reason for supporting sport.”

Though Tanzania was a new participant on the world stage in 1964, and thus played no

part in excluding South Africa from the Tokyo Games, when South Africa was allowed to

participate at the 1968 Games in Mexico, Tanzania was part of the strong reaction against the

International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision, and withdrew from the Olympics in protest.

They resubmitted their application once South Africa was again barred. Tanzania then turned

their sights on excluding Rhodesia from the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. While Rhodesia

had participated in the 1964 Games under the Union Jack, the Universal Declaration of

Independence (UDI) came the following year and led to a UN resolution, which allowed Mexico

to legally bar Rhodesia from participating. When Rhodesia sought to participate in Munich under

‘1964 conditions’ the IOC reacted positively as this was viewed by some African nations as a

repudiation of the UDI. Tanzania protested Rhodesia’s inclusion and again removed their athletes

from participating. Other African nations joined Tanzania, and when the UN Secretary General

intervened and alerted the German government that Rhodesia’s participation would violate the

UN resolution, the IOC reversed its position and barred Rhodesian involvement. With it’s

success in building coalitions and solidarity with other nations in organizing sports boycotts,

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Tanzania took the lead of the black African boycott of the Montreal Games in 1976 in protest of

New Zealand’s continued sporting relationship with apartheid South Africa.

Not only was Tanzania effective in using sport as a negative diplomatic tool, it also used

sport positively, to foster and promote African unity among the newly independent nations on the

continent. Regional and continental competitions such as the East and Central Africa Challenge

Cup, the All Africa Cup of Nations, and the All Africa Games saw Tanzania as one of the most

prominent supporters of these tournaments, and helped create the belief that these competitions

brought Africans together in harmony. Not surprisingly, political policies that brought

disagreement between nations often led to the interruption of sporting ties and when sporting

competitions led to confrontations on the pitch, this could also translate to the cooling of

relations (like what was seen between Scandinavian countries and Canada). A fight which

erupted during a football match between Tanzania and Mozambique to celebrate the Lusophone

country’s independence, led to sporting and political links deteriorating despite close political

ties before the match. Thus, the inherent competitive nature of sport can backfire on politicians

who seek to use sports as policy implementation. However, the success that Tanzania had in

using sport in its Front Line policy against Rhodesia and South Africa should serve as examples

of how the negative use of sport can impact policy. We will see later in the paper that the loss of

sporting links for South Africans played a significant part in the pressure brought down on the

Apartheid regime.

APARTHEID AND SPORT

Apartheid South Africa is a well researched entity and how apartheid reached into every

aspect of life is generally accepted as one of the most penetrative political policies of the 20th

century. The Dönges Declaration, by Minister of the Interior Dr. TE Dönges, spelled out sport

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policy under apartheid: it was to be conducted in accordance with the principle of ‘separate

development’, meaning apartheid. Internally, sport as it fit into South African culture and the

struggle can be divided into two reasons for importance. First, the state used sport to promote

superficial change in South Africa to the rest of the world. Second, the struggle for equal rights

incorporated sport as a central theme because of it’s predominant place in South African culture.

To understand how sport and apartheid functioned, we must briefly examine the two opposing

forces in the country and their respective popular sports: for blacks, football, for whites, rugby.

The emergence of football post World War II as the “leviathan of black sport” meant that

the liberation movement would be inevitably linked to football in South Africa. The political

mobilization and mounting government repression as a response began as football took hold

across the country. The diffusion of soccer around Southern Africa meant that the social meetings

that took place at matches could be used by the liberation movements to convey ideas. This

social gathering took on new meaning when football was the last refuge of mass gathering during

institutionalized apartheid. The flow of ideas back and forth between sport and struggle politics

can be seen in the proliferation of local sporting clubs in response to the nationalist polices

promoted by black liberation groups. Non-racial sport associations arose at the same time as non-

racial anti-apartheid movements began. The earliest prominent crossover between black football

organizations and politics was the appointment of Albert Luthuli, the former head of the the

Natal Inter-Race Soccer Board to the head of the ANC in 1952. Luthuli saw the possibilities

soccer gave in terms of political and community mobilization. In Luthuli’s autobiography he

writes, “I think what has attracted me as much as the game has been the opportunity to meet all

sorts of people, from the loftiest to the most disreputable”. Though there is no evidence to

connect the two, in the same year that Luthuli joined the ANC, 1944, the first football match with

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political implications took place and was used to raise funds for the ANC.

The community connections that football could create in response to apartheid are best

seen in the example of the community of Mangaung in Bloemfontein in the 1960s. After the

community was denied use of the sporting grounds for the local soccer association, the

community decided to stage their matches on open field that they cleared and leveled for their

use. In response, the city council sent their bulldozers to the site to foul the pitch after the end of

each week. Every Saturday morning the community would come together to clean and level the

pitch so it was ready for that day’s matches.

The links that soccer created to the outside world are also of interest, because the first

international visit by a delegation to address apartheid related issues was the 1956 FIFA

commission of inquiry. Their findings that the representation of South Africans in the national

football association was not all inclusive led to the eventual suspension of South African soccer

from FIFA in 1961, the first international sanction of the apartheid regime.

With the first international rugby tour by South Africa in 1906, white South Africa had

their international representative: the Springboks. The name was given to the South African team

during the tests in England that year and so was born the most visible face of Afrikanerdom. The

study of sport development, both soccer and rugby take up numerous books and scholarly

articles on South Africa. The reason behind this interest is because unlike other white settler

populations of the British Empire such as Australia and North America, white Europeans did not

come to be the majority population in South Africa. Thus surrounded by the black masses, white

South Africans attached themselves to those traditions of culture that represented their society.

Though white British settler populations were generally ‘sports mad’, South Africa stood out

with their subsequent success on the rugby pitch. With rugby playing a vital part in the

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construction of male identity, and as a result, national identity, rugby has a special significance in

the cultural of South Africa.

For an understanding of what sporting sanctions meant for white South Africa, a

comprehension of the importance of sport is needed. Some scholars call rugby ‘the Chosen Sport

of a Chosen People’, which is an adapt description not only because of the religious-like support

it engendered among Afrikaners, but also the importance the sport played in society. The overt

skills required to be a good rugby player, strength and determination, were synonymous with the

history of the Afrikaner and The Great Trek from the Cape to the interior that Afrikanerdom had

undertaken in the 1830s. The link between sporting superiority and white South African culture

spread to the social relationship between blacks and white, where rugby represented the

dominance of the white minority.

The connection between Afrikaners and rugby meant that the suspension from FIFA in

1961 and the exclusion from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics had little impact on white South Africa. It

was explained away as a communist plot engineered by developing nations and the Eastern

European bloc. In fact, rugby links between England and New Zealand continued to the end of

the decade until the anti-apartheid movement targeted both countries with protests. South Africa

even changed sporting policy under a new Prime Minister in order to sustain these traditional

links in the 1970s, when it was announced that South Africa would have only one team from the

Republic be its representative abroad per IOC requirements (before this South Africa had white,

black, coloured, and Indian ‘national teams’). The policy also stated that South Africa would not

dictate the ethnic make up of foreign teams visiting South Africa. This would not win IOC re-

admittance and cricket links were also severed by 1970. The white minority’s importance of

using sport to show the world that change was underway is significant in that it shows us what

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the Afrikaner government and its citizens valued as the national brand.

However, the facade put up by Pretoria did not fool anyone. The United Kingdom’s

Prime Minister at the time summed it up when responding to South Africa banning of the tour by

the English cricket team because it contained a coloured person (ironically a coloured from

South Africa, Basil D’Oliveira). Harold Wilson described the new sentiment: “Once the South

Africans had said that they were not taking a player [d’Oliveira] we wanted to send, I would

have rather thought that put them beyond the pale of civilized cricket”.

The last tour by the Springboks in Australia took place in 1971, but it was the infamous

tour of New Zealand in 1981, the first to be broadcast in South Africa, where demonstrations on

unseen levels took place. This led to the full isolation of rugby South Africa, and sport in totality,

but more importantly it brought home images of the anti-apartheid movement to white South

Africans in stark detail. The fact that South Africa had now been cut off by its traditional, white,

allies caused ramifications and eventually a change in policy. Deep divisions in the ruling

National Party (NP) had begun to surface with the first change in sporting policy in 1967. It

caused the government to call early elections in 1970 to head off the right wing part of the NP

that had seceded in protest. The next significant fissure in the NP coincidentally occurs after the

New Zealand tour when the state president, PW Botha, proposed a Tricameral parliament to give

representation to Coloureds and Indians.

While it would be too simple and narrow-minded to say that sporting, and in particular

rugby, incidents caused the change in NP policy, the coincidence of the timing of two majors

policy changes in Apartheid framework cannot be overlooked. It would be justified to say that

sporting policy was impacted by rugby’s links and their deterioration abroad, but the fact that

rugby was seen as the last bastion of ‘civilization’ by conservative white South Africa made it

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very difficult to implement changes that would bring about reintegration. This place in limbo

realistically had only one solution: the dismantling of apartheid.

SPORTS DIPLOMACY IN THE ANTI-APARTHEID MOVEMENT

The fact that both the South African government and Anti-Apartheid protesters targeted

rugby as the link to the world that South Africa would be most sensitive to losing, shows how

important sporting relationships were to the regime, the white citizens of South Africa, and the

liberation movement outside of the country. While each type of sanction had its own supporters,

economic measures were given top billing as the reason for the dismantling of the apartheid

state. Sport analysts show that those who supported harsher economic sanctions concluded in

1989 that “to be politically effective, sanctions would need to cut world-wide purchases from

South Africa by at least one quarter” in order to get the desired change in policy. These scholars

point out that this finding came just months before the process of the negotiated settlement began

with the release of Nelson Mandela in February of 1990. Black and Nauright, writing about the

effects of sport on apartheid, conclude that despite the relatively stable security and high standard

of living most white South Africans enjoyed, the world had underestimated the strong-willed

attitude South Africans would show in the face of cultural (sporting) and economic isolation.

This was a likelier explanation for the ‘earlier’ change in policy.

The longing of South Africans to be accepted as part of the world community is an

underestimated factor in the fall of apartheid. Further evidence that sporting diplomacy played a

part in South Africa’s foreign policy is the appointment of one of the Republic’s most experience

diplomats to the post of Consul-General in New Zealand. Despite New Zealand having little

strategic or economic importance in South Africa’s international relations, the sporting link was

such that the National Party obviously deemed it of enough importance to send one of its most

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senior diplomats to the island nation to try to maintain the rugby link.

The fact that rugby had been the first and last linkage to the world by white South

Africans should stand as reasonable evidence that the sport boycott, negative sports diplomacy,

had a recognizable impact. This is reinforced by evidence in the 1992 referendum where the

government used the return of sports relations to secure a ‘yes’ vote on continuing the

constitutional talks with the ANC about the transfer to majority rule. Black and Nauright point

out that the head of New Zealand rugby was in South Africa immediately preceding the vote to

discuss dates for a tour of South Africa later that year. Externally, sport diplomacy came to be

used to large effect by the anti-apartheid movement. When suspension from FIFA and the IOC

had little effect, it was the boycotts and protests that followed the Springboks during the overseas

tours of 1970 that started the critical part of South Africa’s isolation. This is because it was also

in 1970 that the United Nations, the Commonwealth, and the Supreme Council for Sport in

Africa all issued condemnations of the racist policies of the National Party and of apartheid

sport.

The convergence of anti-apartheid political policies and sporting isolation took literal

form in the agreement signed by Commonwealth leaders at Gleneagles, Scotland in 1977. The

Gleneagles Agreement declared that sporting contact by their associations and sportsmen would

cease and the agreement became one of the pillars of the international opposition to apartheid in

South Africa. This spelled out in clear regard that South Africa’s traditional white capitalist

allies, the Commonwealth in particular, were rejecting South African sports as an ‘abomination’

due to its apartheid policies. As outlined before, when rugby ties were finally cut off with New

Zealand, South Africa’s isolation in world sport was finally comprehensive.

THE RETURN OF INTERNATIONAL SPORT

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 When FW de Klerk committed his government to negotiation with the banned African

National Congress and released Nelson Mandela, he put in motion events that eventually led to

majority rule being established in South Africa, and thus reintegration with the international

sporting community. Sports Diplomacy comes to play an important part in welcoming the new

South Africa into existence and how South Africa reintroduced itself to the world. Sports played

a part in the celebration of the inauguration of Nelson Mandela with South Africa hosting a

match in Johannesburg against Zambia, a key ally of the ANC’s during apartheid. The hosting of

two mega sporting events, the Rugby World Cup and the African Cup of Nations allowed South

Africa to use Sports Diplomacy to promote itself as a vibrant, integrated culture, a rainbow

nation, and as a new democracy.

The story of Nelson Mandela trotting out in front of 50,000 white South Africans at Ellis

Park while wearing a green Springbok jersey is a well known story, but what went under

appreciated in the Hollywood movie was the political maneuvers that Mandela and the South

African Rugby Union (SARU) undertook to ensure that the event was in fact a nation-building

moment. To this day the event is recognized by South Africans as the moment the rainbow nation

was born in the hearts and minds of both black and white South Africans. What is less known are

the behind the scenes moves by SARU to make sure that the correct pieces were in place to allow

a nation-building and public display of unity shown to the world possible. The choosing of an

outsider, a Rhodesian immigrant turned sports reporter, as the CEO of SARU, the selection of a

coach who was a former Springbok and widely thought of as one of the most perceptive rugby

players in terms of understanding the motives behind the boycott, and the picking of a captain

who was media accessible and articulate were all strategic moves made by SARU to make sure

that the event broadcast the face of ‘new rugby’.

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 This broad ranging public relations preparation came on the back of racist behavior being

outwardly shown at South Africa’s first game back on the international scene in 1992. There was

fear that the Rugby World Cup would show a South Africa that had not progressed socially and

racially. Finally, a piece of the preparation that Clint Eastwood got terribly wrong in his film

Invictus, the teaching of the new national anthem was of such importance to the coach, Morne de

Plessis, that he hired an African language instructor from the University of Stellenbosch to teach

the players the correct way to pronounce the Xhosa and Zulu parts of the national anthem. In

John Carlin’s Playing the Enemy, he writes that during one of these sessions, some of the

Springboks actually broke down in tears when they learned what the song actually meant, and

that their singing of the new anthem in turn brought tears to their instructor. The Africanization

of the team, a multi-faceted strategy, was a concerted effort to represent the new South Africa of

which Africans were now truly apart of. While the World Cup allowed South Africa to present a

new, unified face to the world, it could not have achieved this rebranding of the Springboks and

of South Africa had the team not triumphed in spectacular fashion that day at Ellis Park. The

carefully created ‘new’ Springboks were able to successfully coalesce support from both blacks

and whites for a variety of reasons, but it was the presentation of this new unity that made for

good public diplomacy.

Black South Africa had their moment to reach out to Afrikaners and whites, to

incorporate the ‘other’ into ‘their’ sport with the hosting of the 1996 African Cup of Nations

(ACN). While it has not garnered the same accolades as the Rugby World Cup, the ACN saw a

mixing of black and white on the sporting field that the Springboks have yet to attain. There was

no need for pressure to be exerted on the national team, who earned the name Bafana Bafana at

this tournament, to be racially inclusive as the coach and the captain were white South Africans,

38
while the man who scored the brace to win the Cup for South Africa, Mark Williams, was

coloured. The scenes at Soccer City, located in Soweto across the Rand from Ellis Park, were

very similar to the winning day in 1995, but with an even more diverse racial make up. The

standard that the ‘white’ sport had set put pressure on Bafana Bafana, but when Williams

delivered the winning goals against Tunisia, it earned him the nickname ‘Nation Builder’.

CONCLUSION

This case study of Sports Diplomacy and how it played a part in South Africa’s

dismantling of apartheid shows that sports has a vital role to play in public diplomacy strategies.

The effects of both the successful hosting of the Rugby World Cup in 1995, and the African Cup

of Nations in 1996, both mega sporting events in their own right, led to FIFA granting South

Africa the World Cup for 2010. No doubt there are many factors of the campaign that led to the

Republic gaining the right to stage the football World Cup that were not covered in this analysis.

While that analysis will be for another paper, we can see how sport’s impact on global

perceptions and internal policies suggest that South Africa’s World Cup will serve as it’s

crowning achievement since the advent of majority rule in 1994.

During apartheid, those South Africans that sought to compete abroad often did so under

false names and passports, and on occasion intentionally lost, or placed lower, in competitions so

as not to draw attention to themselves or their citizenship. Black South Africans often used sport

as a way to emigrate or carve out a place of stability in the chaos that was apartheid. Sport in

South Africa came to be a divisive social fracture that kept the multiple races and cultures that

make up South Africa apart for nearly a century. Sport was used by the apartheid regime to

explain that there was no segregation as blacks simply liked ‘their’ soccer and Afrikaner’s

preferred ‘their’ rugby. Through the international sports boycott, South Africa was isolated

39
culturally from their traditional allies, which brought home the realities of the world’s perception

of the apartheid regime to ordinary white South Africans. Not being able compete in the sport of

their religion, rugby, took a mental toll on South Africans that played a larger part in the victory

of the anti-apartheid movement thane it is often credited.

The pictures that were beamed to the world during the Rugby World Cup have been

argued as one of the key moments in shaping the world’s impression of the new South Africa.

This re-attracted the world in terms of engagement, not just on sporting levels, but political and

economic as well. With this view it is not unreasonable to say that the public diplomacy created

by staging the Rugby World Cup contributed significantly to the return of foreign investment in

South Africa and strengthening of trade and other economic links that had been destroyed

through the policies of apartheid and the subsequent boycotts and embargoes. Further study is

needed to directly ascertain the public diplomacy effects of hosting sporting events and how it

impacts economic growth, but the recently finished soccer World Cup makes this an ongoing and

exciting research field.

The impact of mega sporting events such as the rugby and soccer tournaments that South

African hosted in 1995 and 1996 shaped perception of the Republic in the eyes of the world that

little else could. We have seen that mega sporting events focus the world’s attention like little

else, and that a country’s performance as host often has dramatic ramifications in effecting the

nation’s brand abroad. It was only because South Africa was able to project a brand of

reconciliation and unity that it was able to gain re-acceptance into the international sporting

community and later be chosen to host the event that brings together people from around the

world for an entire month in celebration: the FIFA World Cup.

With the power to unite, awaken hope and inspire change, the mixture of sport and

40
diplomacy is certainly an area we will be seeing more of in the future. We just have to keep in

mind that sport diplomacy should in no way be seen as a quick-fix measure. When sport is mixed

in with other facets of diplomacy and concrete foreign policy changes, perhaps the positive

vision articulated by Nelson Mandela can be further actualized

41
 CHAPTER FOUR

ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE (IOC)

Introduction

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) (French: Comité international olympique,

CIO) is an international non-profit, non-governmental organisation based in Lausanne,

Switzerland, created by Pierre, Baron de Coubertin, on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as

its first president. Today its membership consists of 100 active members, 33 honorary members,

and 1 honour member. The IOC is the supreme authority of the worldwide modern Olympic

movement.

The IOC organises the modern Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games, held in

summer and winter, every four years. The first Summer Olympics organised by the IOC was held

in Athens, Greece, in 1896; the first Winter Olympics was in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Until

1992, both Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same year. After that year, however,

the IOC shifted the Winter Olympics to the even years between Summer Games, to help space

the planning of the two events from one another, and improve the financial balance of the IOC,

which receives greater income on Olympic years. The first Summer Youth Olympics were in

Singapore in 2010 and the first Winter Youth Olympics were held in Innsbruck in 2012.

HISTORY

The headquarters of the International Olympic Committee is in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The committee was established by Pierre de Coubertin, on 23 June 1894. The committee was

housed at the Mont-Repos villa in Lausanne, Switzerland.

MISSION

Further information: Olympic Charterm The stated mission of the IOC is to promote

42
Olympic throughout the world and to lead the Olympic Movement.

THE IOC'S ROLE IS

1. To encourage and support the promotion of ethics in sport as well as education of youth

through sport and to dedicate its efforts to ensuring that, in sport, the spirit of fair play

prevails and violence is banned;

2. To encourage and support the organisation, development and coordination of sport and

sports competitions;
3. To ensure the regular celebration of the Olympic Games;
4. To cooperate with the competent public or private organisations and authorities in the

endeavour to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace;
5. To take action in order to strengthen the unity and to protect the independence of the

Olympic Movement;
6. To act against any form of discrimination affecting the Olympic Movement;
7. To encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all

structures with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women;
8. To lead the fight against doping in sport;
9. To encourage and support measures protecting the health of athletes;
10. To oppose any political or commercial abuse of sport and athletes;
11. To encourage and support the efforts of sports organisations and public authorities in

order to provide social and professional future of athletes;

12. To encourage and support the development of sport for all;
13. To encourage and support a responsible concern for environmental issues, to promote

sustainable development in sport and to require that the Olympic Games are held

accordingly;
14. To promote a positive legacy from the Olympic Games to the host cities and host

countries;
15. To encourage and support initiatives blending sport with culture and education;
16. To encourage and support the activities of the International Olympic Academy (IOA) and

other institutions which dedicate themselves to Olympic education.

THE IOC SESSION

The IOC Session is the general meeting of the members of the IOC, held once a year in

43
which each member has one vote. It is the IOC’s supreme organ and its decisions are final.

Extraordinary Sessions may be convened by the President or upon the written request of at least

one third of the members. Among others, the powers of the Session are:

1. To adopt or amend the Olympic Charter.

2. To elect the members of the IOC, the Honorary President and the honorary members.
3. To elect the President, the Vice-Presidents and all other members of the IOC Executive

Board.
4. To elect the host city of the Olympic Games.

THE IOC EXECUTIVE BOARD

The IOC Executive Board consists of the President, four Vice-Presidents, and ten other

members. All members of the IOC Executive Board are elected by the Session, in a secret ballot,

by a majority of the votes cast. The IOC Executive Board assumes the general overall

responsibility for the administration of the IOC and the management of its affairs.

The IOC Session elects, by secret ballot, the IOC President from among its members for

a term of eight years renewable once for a term of four years. The current IOC President,

Thomas Bach, was elected for an eight-year term on 10 September 2013. Bach will be eligible

for re-election to one additional four-year term in 2021.

HONOURS

In addition to the Olympic medals for competitors, the IOC awards a number of other

honours:

The IOC President's Trophy is the highest sports award given to athletes who have

excelled in their sport and had an extraordinary career and created a lasting impact on their sport.

1. The Pierre de Coubertin medal is awarded to athletes who demonstrate a special spirit of

sportsmanship in Olympic events

44
 2. The Olympic Cup is awarded to institutions or associations with a record of merit and

integrity in actively developing the Olympic Movement

3. The Olympic Order is awarded to individuals for particularly distinguished contributions

to the Olympic Movement, and superseded the Olympic Certificate.

IOC MEMBERS

Further information: List of members of the International Olympic Committee

The first IOC, at the 1896 Athens Games: For most of its existence, the IOC was controlled by

members who were selected by other members. Countries that had hosted the Games were

allowed two members. When named, they did not become the representatives of their respective

countries to the IOC, but rather the opposite, IOC members in their respective countries.

For a long time, members of royalty have been members of co-option, such as Prince Albert II of

Monaco,[2] as have former athletes. In addition King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands (then

crown prince) has served as a member since 1998 These last 10 years, the composition has

evolved, in order to get a better representation of the sports world. Members’ seats have been

allocated specifically to athletes, International Federations leaders, and National Olympic

Committees leaders. There are currently 100 members of the IOC, 33 honorary members, and 1

honour member. The total number of IOC members may not exceed 115. Each member of

the IOC is elected for a term of eight years and may be re-elected for one or several further

terms.

1. A majority of members whose memberships are not linked to any specific function or

office; their total number may not exceed 70; there may be no more than one such

member national of any given country;

2. Active athletes, the total number of whom may not exceed 15, elected for eight years by

their peers during the Olympic Games;

3. Presidents or persons holding an executive or senior leadership position within IFs,

45
 associations of IFs, or other organisations recognised by the IOC, the total number of

whom may not exceed 15;

4. Presidents or persons holding an executive or senior leadership position within NOCs, or

continental associations of NOCs, the total number of whom may not exceed 15; there

may be no more than one such member national of any given country within the IOC.

CESSATION OF MEMBERSHIP

The membership of IOC members ceases in the following circumstances:[4]

1. Resignation: any IOC member may cease their membership at any time by delivering his

written resignation to the President.

2. Non re-election: any IOC member ceases to be a member without further formality if

they are not re-elected.

3. Age limit: any IOC member ceases to be a member at the end of the calendar year during

which they reach the age of 80.

4. Failure to attend Sessions or take active part in IOC work for two consecutive years.
5. Transfer of domicile or of main center of interests to a country other than the country

which was theirs at the time of their election.

6. Members elected as active athletes cease to be a member upon ceasing to be a member of

the IOC Athletes' Commission.

7. Presidents and individuals holding an executive or senior leadership position within

NOCs, world or continental associations of NOCs, IFs or associations of IFs, or other

organisations recognised by the IOC cease to be a member upon ceasing to exercise the

function they were exercising at the time of their election.

8. Expulsion: an IOC member may be expelled by decision of the Session if such member

has betrayed their oath or if the Session considers that such member has neglected or

knowingly jeopardised the interests of the IOC or acted in a way which is unworthy of

the IOC.

INTERNATIONAL FEDERATIONS RECOGNISED BY IOC

46
 1. There are currently 68 sport federations recognised by IOC.[5] These are:
 The 28 members of Association of Summer Olympic International Federations

(ASOIF)[6]
 The 7 members of Association of International Olympic Winter Sports

Federations (AIOWF)[7]
 The 35 members of Association of IOC Recognised International Sports

Federations (ARISF)
 And 2 of the members of SportAccord (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile

and International Softball Federation)

Olympic marketing

In the early 1980s, the Olympics were highly dependent on revenues from a single source

– its contracts with US television companies for the broadcasts of the Olympic Games. Upon his

election as President of the IOC in 1980, Juan Antonio Samaranch recognised this vulnerability

and in consultation with Horst Dassler, a leading member of the Adidas family, the decision to

launch a global marketing programme for the IOC was made. Samaranch appointed Canadian

IOC member Richard Pound to lead the initiative as Chairman of the "New Sources of Finance

Commission".

In 1982 the IOC drafted ISL Marketing a Swiss sports marketing company, to develop a

global marketing programme for the Olympic Movement. ISL successfully developed the

programme but was replaced by Meridian Management, a company partly owned by the IOC in

the early 1990s.

In 1989, one of the staff members at ISL Marketing, Michael Payne, moved to the IOC

and became the organisation's first marketing director. However ISL and subsequently Meridian,

continued in the established role as the IOC's sales and marketing agents until 2002.[9][10] In

2002 the IOC terminated the relationship with Meridian and took its marketing programme in-

47
house under the Direction of Timo Lumme, the IOC's managing director of IOC Television and

Marketing Services.[9] During his 17 years with the IOC,[9] in collaboration with ISL Marketing

and subsequently Meridian Management, Payne made major contributions to the creation of a

multi-billion dollar sponsorship marketing programme for the organisation which, along with

improvements in TV marketing and improved financial management, helped to restore the IOC's

financial viability.

REVENUE

The Olympic Movement generates revenue through five major programmes. The

International Olympic Committee (IOC) manages broadcast partnerships and The Olympic

Partner (TOP) worldwide sponsorship programme. The Organising Committees for the Olympic

Games (OCOGs) manage domestic sponsorship, ticketing and licensing programmes within the

host country under the direction of the IOC. The Olympic Movement generated a total of more

than US$4 billion, €2.5 billion in revenue during the Olympic quadrennium from 2001 to 2004.

REVENUE DISTRIBUTION

The IOC distributes some of Olympic marketing revenue to organisations throughout the

Olympic Movement to support the staging of the Olympic Games and to promote the worldwide

development of sport. The IOC retains approximately 10% of Olympic marketing revenue for the

operational and administrative costs of governing the Olympic Movement.

The Organising Committees for the Olympic Games; (OCOGs). The IOC provides The Olympic

Partner (TOP) programme contributions and Olympic broadcast revenue to the OCOGs to

support the staging of the Olympic Games and Olympic Winter Games:

a. TOP Programme Revenue to OCOGs; the two OCOGs of each Olympic

quadrennium generally share approximately 50% of TOP programme revenue and

48
 value-in-kind contributions, with approximately 30% provided to the summer

OCOG and 20% provided to the winter OCOG.

b. Broadcast Revenue to OCOGs; the IOC contributes 49% of the Olympic

broadcast revenue for each Games to the OCOG. During the 2001–2004 Olympic

quadrennium, the Salt Lake 2002 Organizing Committee received US$443

million, €395 million in broadcast revenue from the IOC, and the Athens 2004

Organizing Committee received US$732 million, €690 million.

c. Domestic Programme Revenue to OCOGs; the OCOGs generate substantial

revenue from the domestic marketing programmes that they manage within the

host country, including domestic sponsorship, ticketing and licensing.

NATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEES (NOCS)

The NOCs receive financial support for the training and development of Olympic teams,

Olympic athletes and Olympic hopefuls. The IOC distributes TOP programme revenue to each of

the NOCs throughout the world. The IOC also contributes Olympic broadcast revenue to

Olympic Solidarity, an IOC organisation that provides financial support to NOCs with the

greatest need.

The continued success of the TOP programme and Olympic broadcast agreements has

enabled the IOC to provide increased support for the NOCs with each Olympic quadrennium.

The IOC provided approximately US$318.5 million to NOCs for the 2001–2004 quadrennium.

International Olympic Sports Federations (IFs)

The IOC is now the largest single revenue source for the majority of IFs, with its

contributions of Olympic broadcast revenue that assist the IFs in the development of their

respective sports worldwide. The IOC provides financial support from Olympic broadcast

49
revenue to the 28 IFs of Olympic summer sports and the seven IFs of Olympic winter sports after

the completion of the Olympic Games and the Olympic Winter Games, respectively.

The continually increasing value of Olympic broadcast partnership has enabled the IOC

to deliver substantially increased financial support to the IFs with each successive Games. The

seven winter sports IFs shared US$85.8 million, €75 million in Salt Lake 2002 broadcast

revenue. The contribution to the 28 summer sports IFs from Athens 2004 broadcast revenue has

not yet been determined, but the contribution is expected to mark a significant increase over the

US$190 million, €150 million that the IOC provided to the summer IFs following Sydney 2000.

OTHER ORGANISATIONS

The IOC contributes Olympic marketing revenue to the programmes of various

recognised international sports organisations, including the International Paralympic Committee,

and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

SALT LAKE BID SCANDAL

A scandal broke on 10 December 1998, when Swiss IOC member Marc Hodler, head of

the coordination committee overseeing the organisation of the 2002 games, announced that

several members of the IOC had taken bribes. Soon four independent investigations were

underway: by the IOC, the USOC, the SLOC, and the United States Department of Justice.

Before any of the investigations could even get under way both Welch and Johnson

resigned their posts as the head of the SLOC. Many others soon followed. The Department of

Justice filed charges against the two: fifteen charges of bribery and fraud. Johnson and Welch

were eventually acquitted of all criminal charges in December 2003.

As a result of the investigation ten members of the IOC were expelled and another ten

were sanctioned.[15] This was the first expulsion or sanction for corruption in the more than a

50
century the IOC had existed. Although nothing strictly illegal had been done, it was felt that the

acceptance of the gifts was morally dubious. Stricter rules were adopted for future bids and

ceilings were put into place as to how much IOC members could accept from bid cities.

Additionally new term and age limits were put into place for IOC membership, and fifteen

former Olympic athletes were added to the committee.

OTHER CONTROVERSIES: BETWEEN 2006–2013

In 2006, a report ordered by the Nagano region's governor said the Japanese city provided

millions of dollars in an "illegitimate and excessive level of hospitality" to IOC members,

including $4.4 million spent on entertainment alone.

International groups attempted to pressure the IOC to reject Beijing's bid in protest of the

state of human rights in the People's Republic of China. One Chinese dissident who expressed

similar sentiments was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for calling on the IOC to do

just that at the same time that IOC inspectors were touring the city.

Amnesty International expressed concern in 2006 regarding the Olympic Games to be

held in China in 2008, likewise expressing concerns over the human rights situation. The second

principle in the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, Olympic Charter states that The goal of

Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to

promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity. Amnesty

International considers the policies and practices of the People's Republic as failing to meet that

principle, and urged the IOC to press China to immediately enact human rights reform

In August 2008, the IOC issued DMCA take down notices on Tibetan Protest videos of

the Beijing Olympics hosted on YouTube.[20] YouTube and the Electronic Frontier Foundation

(EFF) both pushed back against the IOC, which then withdrew their complaint.

51
 In 2010, the International Olympic Committee was nominated for the Public Eye Awards.

This award seeks to present "shame-on-you-awards to the nastiest corporate players of the year".

Before the start of the 2012 Olympic Games, the IOC decided not to hold a minute of silence to

honor the 11 Israeli Olympians who were killed 40 years prior in the Munich Massacre. Jacques

Rogge, the then-IOC President, said it would be "inappropriate" to do so. Speaking of the

decision, Israeli Olympian Shaul Ladany, who had survived the Munich Massacre, commented:

"I do not understand. I do not understand, and I do not accept it".

In February 2013, the IOC did not include wrestling as one of its core Olympic sports for

the Summer Olympic program for the 2020 Olympics. This decision was poorly received by the

sporting and wrestling community. Wrestling will still be part of the program at the 2016

Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro T IOC his decision was later overturned, and wrestling will

be a part of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

a. Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations (AIOWF)

b. Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations (ARISF)
c. Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF)
d. International Academy of Sport Science and Technology (AISTS)
e. International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (ICSD)
f. International Paralympic Committee
g. SportAccord

52
 CHAPTER FIVE

ISSUES IN NIGERIA OLYMPIC COMMITTEE

Introduction

The Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) is the National Olympic Committee for Nigeria,

responsible for co-ordinating and supporting Nigerian competitors in the Olympic Games. It is

also the body responsible for Nigeria's representation at the Commonwealth Games. This Body

links Nigeria and other Sports Federations with the International Olympic Committee. Among

the prominent executive members are Engr. Habu Gumel and the Secretary General is Banji

Oladapo, whilst Major General Henry Adefope (rtd) is an executive member of the International

Olympic Committee (IOC).

The NOC is affiliated with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and is a member

of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) and the Association of National

Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA). There are 29 Olympic Sports Federation under the

Nigeria Olympic Committee and all are affiliated to their various International Federations. The

NOC is an autonomous non-governmental organization.. Affiliated organisations in Nigeria

include:

1. Nigeria Amateur Boxing Federation

2. Nigeria Amateur Wrestling Federation
3. Nigeria Athletics Federation
4. Nigeria Baseball & Softball Federation
5. Nigeria Cycling Federation
6. Nigeria Fencing Federation
7. Nigeria Football Federation
8. Nigeria Gymnastics Federation
9. Nigeria Hockey Federation
10. Nigeria Rugby Football Federation
11. Nigeria Table Tennis Association
12. Nigeria Taekwondo Federation

53
 13. Nigeria Tennis Federation
14. Nigeria Weightlifting Federation
15. Nigerian Roller Sports Federation

LEADERSHIP

The President of the NOC as of 2011 was Sani Ndanusa who had been Minister of Sports

from 17 December 2008 to 17 March 2010. Ndanusa first said he aspired to become NOC

President when he was Minister of Sports, but in November 2009 the NOC screening committee

disqualified him on the basis that documents he had submitted were allegedly "forged, altered

and not dated" To be eligible for NOC President a candidate has to have served for four years in

an executive position in an international sports federation. The NOC said that Ndanusa had not

yet served for four years as Vice-President of the Confederation of African Tennis, and alleged

that his election as President of the Nigeria Tennis Federation was invalid since he did not attend

Ndanusa responded by suspending the incumbent NOC President Habu Gumel from his

post as President of the Nigeria Volley Ball Federation and setting up a commission of inquiry

into the allegations.[2] He was elected in September 2010 to replace former president Habu

Gumel, and Tunde Popola was elected as Secretary General with 21 votes against two votes for

the incumbent Banji Oladapo. At first, the IOC declared that the election was invalid since the

outgoing President and Secretary General of the NOC had not been present.[2] A second election

was held at which Ndanusa was the only candidate and the IOC accepted the result.[4]

ACTIVITIES

Due to a growing number of court cases related to sports in Nigeria, in January 2011 the

NOC began the process to establish a local branch of the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Engineer

Sani Ndanusa said "We are highly disturbed by the number of court cases in Nigerian sports. If

we do not check this ugly incident, Nigerian sports will slide into the valley".

54
 On 5 July 2011, the NOC again delayed inauguration of the new board of the Nigeria

Rugby Football Federation (NRFF) when key members of the NRFF board failed to show up.[6]

On 14 July 2011 the NOC finally brought together the feuding parties of NRFF, inaugurating a

new board. The NOC Scribe, Honourable Tunde Popoola wiped away tears at the ceremony.[7]

Nigeria performed poorly at the September 2011 All Africa Games in Maputo,

Mozambique, coming third after South Africa and Egypt. However NOC 1st vice-chairman

Jonathan Nnaji said this was due to an arbitrary selection of events by the organiser, excluding

sports such as weightlifting, wrestling and power lifting in which Nigeria traditionally excels. He

said the results should not be taken as indicating how well the country would perform in the

Olympics.[8] In October 2011, the Super Eagles, Nigeria's national football team, was ousted

from the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations to be held in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Sani Ndanusa,

President of the NOC, called for earlier and more intense training to ensure success in future

competitions.

2012 OLYMPICS

In January 2011 the NOC announced that it had chosen Loughborough University as

training camps for Team Nigeria prior to the London 2012 Olympic Games, a location that

would also be used by the Japanese athletes.[10] In June 2011 the NOC signed a deal for its team

to train at the University of Surrey.[11] Speaking at the contract signing ceremony, Ndanusa said

Nigeria was ready to confront the World. He said "In the past Olympics, we've been participating

but come 2012, we’ll compete with other Nations".

In July 2011 Youdees Integrated Services Limited (YISL) was appointed Official Partners

of the NOC to manage the 2012 Olympic Games commercial promotions scheme. The marketing

consultants were to re-position the organisation and raise funds for the 2012 Games in London.

55
[13] That month a partnership between the Bank of Industry and the Nigeria Olympic Committee

was announced. The goal was to exploit all the business opportunities that would be available

before, during and after the 2012 London Olympics. The Bank's CEO, Evelyn Oputu, said "The

project will provide jobs, expose investment opportunities and create the new image that we

want for Nigeria".[14]

In August 2011 the NOC said it had a budget of $220,000 with the goal of obtaining 11

gold medals at the 2012 Olympic Games. The NOC said that 11 athletes would each receive

$4,000 every three months in the lead up to the games, and these payments had started the

previous month. The athletes were not named, but were drawn from athletics, weightlifting,

canoeing and taekwando.[15]

ISSUES IN SUPREME COUNCIL FOR SPORT IN AFRICA (SCSA)

The Supreme Council for Sport in Africa (SCSA) was established on 14 December 1966 and

served as a specialized agency of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) for the coordination

of the Africa Sports Movement and to utilize Sport in the struggle against colonialism and

apartheid on the continent. Invariably, the SCSA was essentially a political organization which

furthered the aims and objectives of the OAU through Sport.

The Supreme Council for Sport in Africa is responsible for organizing the All-Africa Games,

sometimes called the African Games or the Pan African Games, are a continental multi-sport

event held every four years. All of the competing nations are from the African continent. The

first Games were held in 1965 in Brazzaville, Congo. The International Olympic Committee

granted official recognition as a continental multi-sport event, along with the Asian Games The

Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) will take over the

56
organization of the games after a meeting of the African Union (AU) Conference of Sports

Ministers recommended the dissolution of the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa

The core functions of the SCSA, according to its Constitution, are:

1. Enabling and implementing ways and means likely to foster development of African

Sport

2. Fostering the development of African Sport

3. Cooperating with international organizations and institutions specialized in training of

4. Sports administrators

5. Coordinating the organization of the All Africa Games

6. Directing, coordinating and supporting the activities of the SCSA Sport Development

Zones.

The Structures of the SCSA as enumerated in its Constitution are: General Assembly,

Executive Committee, Presidency, Secretariat General, Specialized Commissions, Sports

Development Zones, and All Africa Games. The SCSA mandate and structures were designed to

facilitate the successful liberation objectives of the continent during colonialism. Indeed, the

OAU through the active involvement of the SCSA was able to use sport as a campaign tool to

boycott international sporting activities in order to send a clear message to the outside world that

Africa would not engage in sports with colonizers and apartheid regimes.

Noting that the SCSA was primarily established to advance the achievement of the

political objectives of the OAU, it was therefore more focused on holding meetings and

57
campaigns against apartheid and colonial regimes participating in international sporting events.

Sport development and development through sports were not principal focus areas. The OAU

was able to meet its objectives of liberating the entire continent from apartheid and colonialism.

The post colonial challenges required a different organization to meet the needs of

independent states. This resulted in the transformation of the OAU into the AU with a mandate to

integrate the continent and promote development and growth. Many of the agencies that

operated under the OAU were absorbed into the AU and were subsequently fashioned to meet

the new mandate of the organization.

While progress was noted in many areas following the transition to the AU, the SCSA

remained largely operative within the structure and context of the OAU. It has not been sensitive

enough to changes in Sports development and governance taking place throughout the world.

The majority of member countries started to ask what value was accrued from being members of

the SCSA. Invariably many started failing on meeting their annual subscriptions.

1. Attendance at SCSA meetings also declined and nearly all SCSA Zones, except

one, became very inactive. This was mainly due to the following

2. Lack of leadership and guidance from the SCSA Head office

3. Absence of dedicated sports development programmes

4. Focus of communication from the SCSA solely concerning subscriptions by

Member States without offering development programmes

5. The only visible SCSA programme, The All Africa Games, was organized by

AASC, ANOCA and COJA with the SCSA treated as an outsider.

58
 With regard to the organization of the All Africa Games, the governing instruments of the

SCSA do not provide the following:

1. Organizations which should be included in committees involved in the preparations

and hosting of the All Africa Games

2. Responsibilities of the host country contained in a host Manual

3. Responsibilities of participating countries contained in participating country manuals

4. Regulations for the media, both print and electronic, to organize and manage their

work in conjunction with the SCS

5. Regulations on time lines for technical committees and other structures required in

the preparation for the Games, regarding technical rules, transport, accommodation,

accreditation, volunteers, catering, and other plans

6. Provisions for how the Games should be marketed in the host country as opposed to

regionally and internationally

7. Provisions for the organization of sport activities in accordance with AU recognized

regional groupings.

SUPREME COUNCIL FOR SPORT IN AFRIC AND PROBLEM OF THE AFRICAN

GAMES

Modern Olympics founder Pierre de Coubertin conceived the Pan African Games as early as

1920. The colonial powers who ruled Africa at the time were wary of the idea, suspecting the

unifying aspect of sport among African people would cause them to assert their independence.

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Attempts were made to host the games in Algiers, Algeria in 1925 and Alexandria, Egypt in

1928, but despite considerable preparations taken by coordinators, the efforts failed. The

International Olympic Committee's (IOC) first African member, Greek-born Egyptian sprinter

Angelo Bolanaki, donated funds to erect a stadium, but still the Games were set back for another

three decades.

In the early 1960s, French-speaking countries of Africa organized the Friendship Games.

The Games were organized by Madagascar (1960) and then Côte d'Ivoire (1961). The third

games were set for Senegal in 1963. Before they were completed, African Ministers of Youth and

Sport met in Paris in 1962; as a few English-speaking countries were already participating, they

rechristened the Games as the Pan African Games. The Games were granted official recognition

by the IOC as being on par with other continental Games such as the Asian Games and the Pan

American Games.

In July 1965, the first games were held in Brazzaville, Congo, now called the All-Africa

Games. From 30 countries, around 2,500 athletes competed. Egypt topped the medal count for

the first Games.In 1966, the SCSA (Supreme Council for Sport in Africa) was organized in

Bamako; it manages the All-Africa Games. The second edition were awarded to Mali in 1969,

but a military coup forced the cancellation of the Games. Lagos, Nigeria stepped in as host for

the Games in 1971. Those Games were finally held in 1973 due to the Biafra War, which had just

ended in Nigeria.

In 1977, the 3rd Games were scheduled to take place in Algeria but due to technical

reasons had to be postponed for a year and were held in 1978. Continuing the pattern, the next

Games were scheduled to take place in Kenya in 1983, but were pushed back to 1985 and finally

took place in Nairobi in 1987.The four-year Olympic rhythm has not missed a beat since, and the

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Games have been organized in Cairo, Harare, Johannesburg, and Abuja. In 2007, Algiers once

again hosted, becoming the first repeat host. The 2011 edition of the All-Africa Games was held

in Maputo, Mozambique in September 2011. Brazzaville will host the 2015 edition in honor of

the Games' 50th anniversary.

All 53 members affiliated to the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa

(ANOCA) are eligible to take part in the Games. In history, the 53 National Olympic

Committees (NOCs) have sent competitors to the Games. South Africa was banned since the

beginning of the games in the 1965 All-Africa Games till the 1995 All-Africa Games because

Apartheid when it was invited for the first time to compete the games. However, Morocco

participated to the game from the first edition to 1978 All-Africa Games. It was banned to the

games from the 1987 All-Africa Games till now because political problem in Western Sahara.

Sports

DESOLATION OF SUPREME COUNCIL FOR SPORT IN AFRIC

The lack of clear governing instruments resulted in confusion and tension in the way the

Games are organized and how they are supposed to be hosted. This has been the prevailing

situation before the decision to create the new African Sport Architecture. The decision of

dissolving the SCSA, taken at the 2nd Conference of the ministers in charge of sports, in Accra,

Ghana, has entered into its implementation phase. The latter raises a set of problems, among

which the status of its staff, the form of the new architecture to take over, and on a strategic

strand, the new orientation of the missions assigned to this new structure. As the country hosting

the headquarters of the SCSA, Cameroon is willing to give its position on the elaboration of the

new strategies which accompany this sensitive operation.

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 It is worth recalling that, since the establishment of the SCSA in 1966 and event during

hard times, Cameroon steadily supported this institution through various forms. Regular

consultations were conducted with the SCSA and the Cameroonian ministry in charge of

sports, to accompany the realization of the objectives assigned for African sport. For

reinvigorating this cooperation, Cameroon has recently given a new building for the

headquarters of the organization, in order to mark its attachment to what it committed for

since 1966. Therefore, it is natural that the dissolution of the SCASA could result in a feeling

of frustration to our country.

In any case, this decision taken by the Conference of ministers in 2007 in Accra and

confirmed two years later in Abuja will be accompanied by Cameroon. Regarding in

peculiar the new architecture of the organ to manage the African sport, Cameroon adheres to

the conclusions of the report related to the integration of the SCSA’s functions in the AU

Commission, notably in its items 13, 14 and 15. In this regard, Cameroon is formulating two

proposals:

1. That the African sport be managed by a specific structure, relatively autonomous within

the AUC Department of Social Affairs, in the form of a Directorate General of Sports

2. That the new structure had its headquarters in Yaoundé in the current building hosting

the headquarters of the SCSA.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS RELEVANT TO THE DISSOLUTION OF SCSA

The SCSA and the AUC agreed to the full implementation of the Decision of the

Executive Council EX/CL 543 (XVI) adopted at the Sixteenth Ordinary Session of the Executive

Council in January 2010 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the dissolution of the SCSA.

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Subsequently, the SCSA Secretariat General through its Report, dated July 2010, to the African

Union Commission on the Implementation of the Resolution related to the Dissolution of the

SCSA and the Preparation for the 10th All Africa Games, reaffirmed its commitment to

implement the decision on dissolution by the AU Executive Council. Whilst the SCSA is

statutorily responsible for dissolving itself through the provisions of its Constitution, the AU

Policy Organs mandated the AU Commission to assist in the process, which would entail

monitoring and supervisory activities during the transitional period to ensure that the timeline for

final dissolution of four (4) months after the 10th All Africa Games be respected and adhered to

strictly. In this regard, the SCSA is specifically required to:

1. prepare for its winding down four (4) months after the 2011 All Africa Games

2. Start reducing its staff members, particularly non essential support staff; Recast its

budget to reflect the dissolution process including payment of separation packages for

staff

3. Implement the austerity measures recommended by the AUC and approved by the

SCSA Executive Committee; v. Cooperate with the AUC in implementing what has

been recommended in the document with the title “A Critical Path for Attaining the

Dissolution of SCSA by 31stDecember 2011”.

The First meeting of the Bureau of the Third Session of the African Union Conference of

Ministers of Sport (CAMS 3) of 12 May 2010, Abuja, Nigeria, made recommendations which

were to be implemented by the SCSA. The recommendations were also adopted by the meeting

of the SCSA Executive Committee, the same day. It was agreed that an Administrator from the

AU Commission be appointed to:

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 1. Co- sign authority for all operational expenses of the SCSA alongside the SCSA

Secretary General

2. Open a separate bank account for SCSA into which earmarked funds shall be paid for the

liquidation of liabilities. This account was to be co-signed by an accountant of the AU

Commission. The deposit from the Republic of Mozambique for hosting the 2011 All

Africa Games should have been deposited into this account

3. Report directly to both CAMS 3 Chairperson and the AU Commission on all income and

expenditure of SCSA for the period 1 June 2010 to 31 December 2011; 52. It is however

noted that the SCSA General Secretariat has not cooperated with the AUC to effect the

transitional measures especially those relating to austerity measures leading up to its

dissolution.

Within the transitional process which has started, Cameroon encourages the AU to devote

a special attention at all the challenges related to the liabilities of the SCSA, so that they are

on the shoulders of all the members states, represented by the Ministers in charge of Sports

and that the rights of the former employees of the SCSA are cleared in accordance with the

legal framework in force

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