Topic: Role of sports in politics (Read 440 times)

Politics have role in all the matters of that country either its sports or any tournament or any other thing, politics will effect them.  Although it is said that politics unite people so is sports but its not true, sports bring people together of different nationalities, colors but politics is like a game or drama that people adopt for their benefit and their personal motives.

Politics and sports are interrelated, politics connects people together from different tribes. It's built on relationship just like sports that unite different race together. In sports people from every tribes in the world team up together to achieve a common goal.just as it's in politics. Sports unite politicians, through supporting same club or team. At times you see politicians that are not in good working relationship end up supporting the same club and watch their matches together. That's the beauty of sports. For example  the case of Ogoni a tribe in Nigeria, where Nigeria Government in 1995 killed an environmental activist through judicial suide, Nigeria was denied to participate in the Commonwealth games in 1995. That's one role sports play in politics, it's checkmate and correct the character of the political class. Some political leaders withdraw their inimical policy because of fear of their Nations not to participate in some sports activities.

Just like the case of Russia and Ukraine, Russia National team has been denied the ticket to participate in the Qatar world cup, because of their invasion in Ukraine.  They're many instances where sports play vital roles in politics of nations.

Sports has done more good to world peace and harmony than any other organisations.

Basically, exercise is useful for physical and spiritual fitness.
can also compete
but if in it there are still fanatics or racism, they forget what the purpose of sport is,

sport could unite, if only racism didn't exist,
maybe now it's starting to decrease.

There is politics in anything you do even in your religion or your family. Without politics things will not favoir some people. Poeple will always want politics to have their ways. Anywhere there is business or business interest there is politics. If you remove politics from football it will not be interesting again. Politics is a game and let those that knows how to play it play it well. But too much of everything is good.

The fans today in the Manchester derby has shown their support for Ukraine, demonstrating that they simply don't want war.
In hard times like this sports has been there always, during the racist abuse if Floyd, they all showed the signs on their jerseys and supported black's.
Sports is everything a game of love.

You are right this is controversial but also that Palestine is not recognized as a sovereign state and Ukraine is.   Ukraine was promised support when they gave up nuclear weapons for the good of the world overall and they received little but appeasement to a bullying larger neighbor.   At one point Israel occupied Egypt or 'invaded' if you like but they also withdrew from that area, many sympathize with their position where as nobody outside of his payroll believes Putin saying he is a liberator it is only bullying by a thug.
  This is not the first time, USA withdrew from the Olympics of 1980 I think it was because Russia had then invaded Afghanistan.  Again it was thought very dangerous they may continue to occupy other countries also, quite a few parallels there as they never gained any advantage by their actions.   Its not really a one off though many will disagree with the point of view and of course some people do support dictators because they benefit in doing so, it must seem very unfair.

No organization that doesn't have politics even for religious kingdom their is politics, is not for sports alone that is practicing the way of politics, i can say government kinds of dirt policies is affecting every were you feel is good, don't think what you see this time in sports is perfect

Sports could unite countries in one league but the fact is, it couldn't stop the war. Unfortunately, even athletes are now affected by what's happening to Russia and Ukraine. I hope that sports could fix political issues but currently, political issues are now breaking the unity in sports which affects innocent players. I hope that they would not involve sports in their political conflict because athletes deserve peace.

Sports can be a bridge to create opportunities to enable every individual to tap into the upbringing of team building and leadership endeavors. That being said, sports can bring influence and be an agent of so called socio-political change and development. Through sports, equality, inclusion, teamwork, sportsmanship and human values are being upheld, but not when FIFA have made a decisions that seems to be unfair to Russian teams because of political conflicts happening. As they say, everything is not inherently political but almost anything could be made political when freedom or restrictions are being dictated.

That is what should be applied now by FIFA. But unfortunately, the realization of FIFA's independence has been infiltrated by political elements. I also think that sanctions will be unfair to Russian players, especially in sports, which is something we already know that taking sides has disturbed the stability of FIFA itself. If there is a mixture of politics and sports, it is possible that FIFA law enforcement has shown inconsistency in applying the rules.

We truly want peace and not war.

That's what these sports organizations or clubs have seen to be the way for Russia to stop. I think after they ban and stop their participation to their events.

If, Russia stops the invasion and decided to have a truce, they will eventually going to lift the ban.

The reason so many authorities are banning Russians and not letting them compete is so that :
People raise their Voice
A government is formed by it's people and everyone knows that Putin is loosing ground, lot of people are already on the streets of Moscow but everyone is trying to get the influential people out in the open since they hold power, not just over more people in Russia itself but also some of them have strong political ties. It's not a valid point that sports people do not have political ties, they actually do! Sports are an essential part of any country like Russia. Even the Chess which Russians are so proud of have taken a step back. This will go on till the war stops, but it's definitely not really a great idea to make people suffer in the middle of all this.

The war pulled FIFA out from its hiding and double standard, hypocrisy and lies. It shows that FIFA is never neutral in every decisions it takes. You said you did not interfere in political matters except football but you ban a country in war because you taking side with Ukraine. I like the war for testing FIFA. This will give countries the boldness of challenging FIFA on political interference within countries and their soccer bodies the next time that comes up.

I think the motive behind the football sanctions is to cause internal conflict in Russia. The ban of Russian athletes will make the people angry at Putin and he will lose face before his subordinates. The war may continue for longer than we think. China is increasing their military spending by 7%. China and Russia have similar interest tho China has not spoken on the Russian-Ukriane war.

You're not wrong here, there's so much politics in sports and I agree that banning those athletes to play wont help to stop the war, better to hit the Russian government directly instead of blaming those innocent players who dedicate their life for the love of sports. This is very unfortunate to witness those athletes to suffer the consequences, this is not fair to them. Hoping that this wont last longer and hoping that many countries are still open for the Russian people, there's a lot of talented athletes from them.

If I am not wrong sports itself is a bloody political game, almost every sport had internal politics which denies and restricted from the actual skilled people from participation of games in the international arena. Anyway now the whole world is showing their support for Ukraine by banning Russian sportsmen but it is not going to help in anyway from my opinion.

You can't allow Russia a free flow of everything they want to prosecute the invasion on Ukraine. Russia in strength is far above Ukraine and so this is why sympathy is going towards Ukraine and sanctioning to Russia. I don't think it is unfair to sanction Russia to this length , Russia has to feel some pain too in the invasion and if Russia will feel the pain then it is the citizens that make up Russia. I know the rich in Russia are feeling the heat either they are now restricted to fly because of the ban. The invasion has to stop for peace to come.

People are getting greedy each day, the whole world are being eaten by political issues every single day, including sports. Government is the new power, that's why some leaders are taking this as an opportunity to make a move to do something good or bad even there are lives of innocent people at stake.

This world is already gone mad, nearing at its destruction. No wonder everything that's happening is so complicated for us to solve anymore. But let's just hope peace will always prevail against war. Enjoy betting and make profits.

Cheers!

Politics is everywhere it's a part of our lives there is politics in religion, in business, and sports whether its a democratic form of government or communism politics will interfere we cannot live without politics, there's politics everywhere, I'm not surprised that because of these power plays and politics, sportsmen and sports organizations suffer.

well at least they are still letting people to access internet  but i think sooner they will also limit the use of this because they dont wanna release what is happening inside their country.

sports  is one of the biggest place where everything can be take place, this can also be use by Russian to spy the world outside .

of course this can, but with the attitude of the Russian government? I'm afraid that sports will be enough to be a Medium for peace .

Yes, it is a complicated issue, in which, as often happens, the just end up paying for the sinners. I understand on the one hand what the alliance is doing, which is trying not to have a direct military confrontation with Russia to avoid a nuclear war and the potentially disastrous consequences it could have, and on the other hand trying to take as many measures as possible to weaken Putin on two fronts. The first is that of war, with the shipment of weapons. The second is to try to undermine his popularity in Russia with actions like this, which I am not sure will succeed, because maybe people in Russia see these measures as unfair.

This might be a bit out topic but they are already even go into certain extent on blocking out facebook.
https://www.vox.com/recode/22962274/russia-block-facebook-restrict-twitter-putin-censorship-ukraine
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-rferl-bbc-facebook-google-twitter-blocked/31735597.html
It would really make things even go more far more worst that we do expect.

We all want peace. But the reality is different from what we want. But it is a shame if these sports bodies impose sanctions on players from Russia without seeing that this is not the fault of the players but the Russian government acting arbitrarily. We can only hope that they can do justice and understand the situation and hopefully, sports bodies can lift the sanctions to players or teams.

Given the unfavorable situation, it doesn't matter if many tournaments are temporarily canceled, especially if there are tournaments to be held in Russia or Ukraine. If the sports bodies could do something like this, the players and the sports teams would understand and maybe the sports bodies would organize it somewhere else far from the conflict.

Maybe it would be better because sport could bring everyone together in a better atmosphere.

I'll like us to get something straight here, "MOST RUSSIANS AREN'T IN SUPPORT OF THIS WAR". You can tell by the series of protest that has been done by Russian nations across Russia for Putin to put an end to this war. Although, its for these citizens that Putin fights but, there would have been no war should NATO not have opened its arms to welcome a nation that resides at Russians borders, which part of it is Russian speaking into a body for which the comprising nations are mostly allies with America. A nation Russia won't want getting close to its borders.

It's the hight of word politics and those caught in this cross fire are the Russian Athletes, Billionaires and the Ukrainians themselves.  It feels so sad that this this happening but, I think the ban on Russian athletes is extreme.  They are crying with Ukrainians as the rest of the word too, owning a passport shouldn't sentence them as such.

You say that sports bodies are targeting individuals instead of organizations, that is a blatant lie. It is because Russian sports organizations are banned that Russian athletes cannot participate. The world has had enough of this mindless aggression, corruption and now invasion. It is unfortunate that the Russian people have to suffer for the actions of their leader, but the senile old man in charge has chosen a path of war and destruction - he wants to crush a free and democratic country just because he can. It does not help anyone and Russia was never in any danger from Ukraine, except showing that there is a better way to govern and live peacefully. It seems that Putin misunderstood how far the world is willing to go, he thought Ukraine would roll over quickly, but now he is pushing harder to murder Ukrainian civilians. I can understand the solidarity in sports and cutting off all cultural ties with this sick country.

I strongly agree. Sports and music are two main things which are used to promote peace. Sports is a very powerful tool to promote tolerance, respect and understanding and brings people across boarder, culture and religion together at the same place. And the same goes for music. But most of the time political authorities have a different agent and they kill the spirit of sports and music for their own interest - leaving the world in distress for what is going to happen next.

Well, that is considered as the collateral damage for the Russian government's aggression on waging war.
I myself thinks a lot of sanctions are completely unnecessary, especially in the world of sports. But because people are too mad that Putin is showing no sign of stopping. This could be the only way to stop him.
The only thing that would stop him is his own people when they feel suffocated because of all the sanctions imposed to them.
Individual international businesses, athletes, and other Russian who have made business internationally will be 100% affected on the sanctions.

I think the situation playing out in Russia and Ukraine are extreme cases. This is involving life and death and not just tussle or interference of government into football game or teams.
It is for the purpose of stopping Russia from killing innocent people. It is a unanimous decision for the good of humanity. So you don't have to interpret it in isolation from life, it war and it has to stop.

Sports and music (I'll add another one ) are universal things, despite all the differences that humans have and they can make everyone join to participate.
But unfortunately, we also know that some of these people have various interests that make sports don't work as they should.
Now we face the war between Russia and Ukraine where Russia is trying to pressure Ukraine.
It caused a lot of differences and debates among the political elite until finally, some sports organizations decided to impose sanctions on Russia.
Everything has changed if there is an interest behind something such as sport and will also likely impact other things.
So as long as there are interests from the political elite trying to intervene, that will not change.

There is nothing bad for FIFA and UEFA to sanction Russia too, Russian government has devastated lives in Ukraine, what has been done that is far worse than the sanction both the football organizations placed on Russian sportmen and women. It was not a surprise for me when I saw Russia has been banned from Paralympics and many more. What they are trying to do is to saction Russians in a way they will not be able to fund the war going on between Russia and Ukraine. Sanctions will inflict pain on individuals and not only the government.

That is true but recent times have shown us that sports cannot be separated from politics. Sports and politics are intertwined. Sports bodies are not acting independently. Russia is threatening to go to court of arbitration for sport against FIFA, UEFA bans.
Russia to appeal international bans  to CAS

In my opinion, sports should be completely separated from politics and wars. Most athletes are apolitical. If they were involved in political games, they would have no time for sports. I don't think it's quite right to think of athletes as a sort of bridge between nations in political matters.

I think sports can be used as a medium to broker peace between the two countries. The sports sanctions and ban on Russia athletes is creating more animosity. This is doing more harm than good in my opinion. There is no one side to war both sides suffer. I have been blessed to never experienced war. I cannot say I truly understand the dynamics of what is going on. My prayers are with the men who have to leave their families to go the war front, and the women and children who have to live in fear and agony.  

This is very much true and we are facing this situation for the last 2 to 3 decades. Pakistan and India who are neighboring countries have political issues and due to this, no sports teams visit each other country to play the matches. Even, both countries do not have bilateral series between them on the home ground or in neutral grounds. This very much proves that politics comes first and not sports. This is really sad indeed.

Due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, FIFA and UEFA firmly stated that they would sanction Russian football teams and clubs from Russia. FIFA and UEFA made a decision that was deemed unfair, the Russian national team and Russian clubs were suspended from all football competitions.
Sanctions from FIFA and UEFA seem to have a political scent, because previously FIFA had never sentenced the Israeli national team and Israeli clubs as a result of the Israeli attack on Palestine. FIFA decision is considered unfair by many parties, if politics must be separated from football, Then why only the Russian national team was banned? even though previously the State of Israel had also attacked Palestine.

In my opinion, racism, discrimination and other aggressions should be abandoned, so far as a form that is not commendable and disturbing, I agree with you, man. The impact of this war is moreover its impact on sports which are sports, this is a place to watch as entertainment instead it falters with events like this. this involves the country, my hope will be normal outside of the impact of the pandemic I may not know the basics but I hope all is well because sports, whether nba football or whatever are in the public interest and I can't wait for the match to be held, quite disappointed with what happened

It is really sad that innocent people have to suffer for the decisions of their crazy leaders. But how do we punish Putin? Can anybody or any group go to Putin's palace and arrest him? It is impossible to do. The result is that the pressure is directed at the entire country. That means the entire Russian people will have to suffer because of the irresponsible decision of their leader. This is with the hope that by being the receiving end of all these sanctions, the people will rise together and pressure their leader to stop what he's doing. This is following the basic principle that the leader is only as powerful as the people's agreement. The moment the people disagree with what the leader is doing, the leader would be helpless. But if the people are silent, then the leader would only continue what he's doing.

It isn't odd really, most sports competitions have teams participate in them cause they represent a certain country/region. I'm not sure if it's right to call it politics even, but the teams do indeed get the wrong end of the stick with how things are going right now. Sports organizations had to make a stand to support Ukraine, so they basically have no choice but to sanction sports teams that represent Russia, and well, I doubt teams are able to play with just them, being there, as their own team and not as a representative (afaik anw).  

I believe that politics always take over sports. If a country is at war or in conflict with another country, how can they keep the sports channel run in true spirit when they are in conflict at a government or political level. As we have seen in the past, politics comes first and the role of sports is secondary and that's what we have seen when fifa and other sporting bodies have announced to boycott russians.

Their was a huge connection between the sports and the politics.When the politics of certain country had poured the country people,the politicians starts to promote the sports to deviate the people minds to avoid of their vote bank politics.Mainly the under developing and developing country doing of this promotion of politics,which include the promotion of the football by the African and Asian countries over 3-4 decades.

Athletes can be used as propagandists, especially if they have a lot of followers at their backing. They can push for ideologies and even gain more followers on what their political affiliation is, and that's a huge impact. They are the 'voice' of a political ideology/party and some of their activities outside sports would certainly be for the promotion of the same political idea/party.

Although this is the case, there are still instances wherein athletes' push for discussions concerning politics were shut off. One good example is Lewis Hamilton. He was only taken seriously when he already cemented his status as a legendary F1 racer, which goes to show that if you're not that known in the sports scene, you'll only get set aside until you prove yourself.

The majority of Sports are government funded and regulated and they represent their countries sportsman may not be politicians but they represent their government it's not the individual that is targeting but what it represents the ban and boycott is not targeting a group or individual but the government it represents, sad to say sports is part of the politics of the world you cannot separate them even if the group or individual don't want to.

As days go and the war continous then sanctions and things involved getting worst as days go past ahead and it would affect several industries including sports and other ones too
which we might able to say that it shouldnt be included on such decisions but we know that there are regulatory bodies which imposes laws and decisions on time like these.
We cant do anything about it but to follow and if you do tend to oppose? you would just simply be ignored.

^ This, and I also agree and as you and see the most was affected are those who have in business like gambling industry and sports event has been canceled and postponed because of the war and some are rejected because they are Russian, it should be government vs government, there are no innocent people involved. The sanction against Russia has been spread and supported in many countries and it seems like the whole world now is gainst to Russia, is there a chance that the selfish leader in Russia will be put in jail and people will protest on this?

they are one of the collateral damages of putin's aggression to ukraine. the world reacts this way. and this is indeed a very unfortunate time for their athletes as sports organisations are cutting them off from the circuit. can they go back? maybe yes, maybe not. this will be up to their leader. to what extent he will go to war with ukraine? we dont know yet.
neighbouring countries are also observing and making a calculated move as putin has no signs of stopping but heading to much worse decisions...

  No citizen really has influence there, they would require to all revolt and lose lives to have any say.  It is unfortunate, the Paralympians can compete but not receive medals I think I heard which I suppose is some small compromise.   In 4 years they may no longer be at their top form to win any event, its unfortunate this halts years of work for them through no personal fault but war is never fair or beneficial.

Agree, the government can be sanctioned but not the country or everyone who lives in a country.

The conflict is only between two countries but it looks like it's now Russia against the world and even the Innocent people are deprive with their right to compete, this is just politics and actually it's not new to sports, so we have to accept the really while remain hopefully something would change for the betterment of the sports.

Sports and athletes should be more independent and not to fully controlled by the government, so its really a shame to those sporting events who already cancel the Russian players as if they have the options to stop the war, so we should not blame this to every Russian, we should blame this to their own government who controls them.

Politics in sports are there because there is a huge money in sports, someone really wants to take advantage of it and seriously if the politicians has a control over you, their source of money will be unlimited.

Sports authorities this time made an immediate plans and executed the same in no time. Russian players unable to participate in any of the sports activities is a big decision. It is unfair, because out of 100 sportsman maybe 5-10 support war. Majority doesn't want war. Yesterday in a tennis match in Dubai once after the game the player wrote "no war please" on the camera lens which has got shared worldwide. Another thing there arises a question why this isn't be done on Israel during the war.

There’s a good reason why sports exist, unfortunately it is being used in politics and honestly, there are so much politics on most of the sports especially in my country where athletes are being treated no fairly. Sports is a place where every country can showcase their talents, this is an event where you can find unity and peace, its just that many still want to take advantage of this.

These governing bodies are taking decisions from the powers that be..the people who decide who is the good guys and the bad guys. They cannot withstand the pressure put on them for political purposes. They want to define the narrative. When racism is the issue the spectrum is colored gray. I want to see this kind of strong decisions taken when racism is on the table.

what you say is true but the reality is that sports have been interfered with by politics. The latest news is that China, who has been supporting Russia for a long time, is back again with their support, they have banned all broadcasts of Premier League matches this week, when sports are interfered with by politics there I feel concerned, why does their ego make people affected, people need entertainment and sport is one of them!

As it turned out, not only cryptocurrencies are involved in politics, the true value of which is decentralization, but also sports. Such harsh sanctions against Russian athletes have never been seen in the history of sports and many consider this decision unfair.

I feel very sorry for the Russian Paralympians, who obviously do not have the ability to influence political life in Russia.

Sports is a vehicle for peace, unity and reconciliation. Sports can have that effect on the world. Sports regulatory bodies have always insisted that sports and polictics are distinct things and should not be mixed together. They now come out and do the opposite of what they have said. It's understandable that war is a unique situation.
So when these sports bodies direct their sanctions on Russia directly it is understandable but when they focus on the individuals who have little or no role to play in the policy decision of their government. These individuals are not politicians. They have no role for them to be collateral damage in this affair is unfair. Most of these players being ostracize for a crime they did not commit other than owning a passport.

Remember Lewis Hamilton had a difficult time pushing his campaign against racism and discrimination because they claim he had political coalition to it.  Players in the NBA were ostracize for taking the knee during the national anthem. Where was this kind of attention when Mesut Ozil protest against the persecution of Uighur Muslims. His own football Arsenal distanced themselves from the situation.  When  it comes to racism, sports regulatory bodies are strict not to involve in politics. If we go down that this path. I hope that going forward every "aggressor" will find himself where Russia is. I hope in the future sports bodies can remain consistent in the condemnation of things like discrimination, racism, and unprovoked aggression.

Sports can be used for many things. So far only one option has been explored! We want peace not war