EVEN IF YOU haven't read Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, you will know that events on a sports field often mirror those off it. Hornby's personal relationships dipped up and down in tandem with the fortunes of his beloved Arsenal. The boom-bust Irish economy has been book-ended by Italia '90 and, fingers crossed, South Africa 2010. Latest events in Iran provide yet another example of the trend, writes JOE HUMPHREYS
In the run-up to last week's elections, some young Iranians were citing as proof of their country's misrule by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the slump in form by Iran's football team. "For the last four years our national team has kept being beaten," a supporter of Mir Hussein Mousavi told the Observernewspaper.
“Under [the more liberal Mohammad] Khatami we did really well. But when there is no trust in politics footballers don’t play with trust either. If Mousavi becomes president, Iranian soccer will improve along with everything else.”
Some members of the national soccer team appeared to agree last week when they wore wristbands in Mousavi’s protest colour of green during Iran’s crucial World Cup qualifier against South Korea. It was a brave act, and it resonated with many young Iranians who watched the game.
The players are expected to face some sanction, and it would be no surprise if sporting rather than Iranian government officials came down on them heaviest. Why? Because governing bodies in sport appreciate political gestures on the pitch about as much as Joan Burton likes to be interrupted by Mary Coughlan in the Dáil.
There are some valid reasons for being circumspect of political activism in sport. Few could object to athletes wearing charity ribbons, or even “Jesus Loves You” T-shirts. But what if a Premier League player was to lift his jersey after scoring a goal to reveal the slogan: “No to homo-sexuality”.
And, yes, we can tolerate Rio Ferdinand yapping on about “giving something back to the kids” but, as writer Michael Steinberger says: “If David Beckham and Posh Spice wade into the debate over Britain and the euro, forgive me if I fall down with laughter.”
THERE ARE, INDEED,valid reasons for objecting to political gestures in sport, but sporting authorities such as football world governing body Fifa have more practical considerations in mind. These are chiefly: (1) bums, (2) seats and (3) maintaining good relations with despotic regimes such as North Korea (which, incidentally, has qualified for the 2010 World Cup – unlike Iran).
Whatever the code, sporting bodies are quick to penalise players doing anything which remotely appears to be political. Two Zimbabwean cricketers who wore black armbands at the 2003 Cricket World Cup to signal the “death of democracy” in their homeland were dismissed from their team. The International Cricket Council not only stood over that decision but, four years later, threatened a heavy fine against Australia when it mooted a boycott of Robert Mugabe- controlled Zimbabwe. Such vigilance on behalf of sporting authorities occasionally turns to farce. Earlier this year, Chelsea player Salomon Kalou was investigated by the English Football Association for performing a crossed-arms salute after he scored a goal. Was the Ivory Coast footballer expressing sympathy for an imprisoned compatriot, anti-corruption campaigner and human rights activist Antoine Assale Tiemoko? If only.
Pressed by the FA to explained to his actions, an indignant Kalou said he had been paying a tribute to the WWE wrestler John Cena. “I don’t even know this guy [Tiemoko],” the €70,000-a-week forward blasted. “That has nothing to do with football. Why should I celebrate for him? It was crossed arms, not wrists, [the celebration was] about my strength.”
Should sport and politics mix? It is an age-old, and also a somewhat redundant, question. When Aristotle told Athenians, “Man is by nature a political animal”, he was probably observing the shenanigans of the original organising committee of the Olympic Games.
Bodies like Fifa and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are conflicted. On the one hand they loathe extraneous interventions – even vacuous ones like Kalou’s, on the other they proclaim sport to be a positive influence on the world.
In advance of the Beijing Games, the IOC predicted that China’s hosting of the event would lead to its “opening up” as a country. The jury is still out on that one, with human rights organisations citing a spike in abuses before and after the games.
Although a direct comparison can't be made, the Berlin Gamesprovides a depressing backdrop. Olympic historians like us to remember the 1936 Olympics for Jessie Owens. But military historians say the main effect of the games was to soften Hilter's image internationally, and to give Nazi Germany a morale boost. "Had the Games been boycotted," writes Guy Walters, author of Berlin Games, "then Hitler would not have had the nerve to enter the [post-first World War] demilitarised zone" in 1936.
Another occasion typically cited by sporting evangelists is the 1995 Rugby World Cup when blacks and whites in South Africa united to celebrate the Springbok’s post-apartheid victory in the tournament. The story is retold in John Carlin’s acclaimed Playing the Enemy – soon to be released as a movie under the title The Human Factor by Clint Eastwood, with Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon Springbok captain François Pienaar.
It’s all very moving. But listening to some rugby fans you’d think it was 80 minutes of play rather than 27 years of struggle which brought about the Rainbow Nation. The same sort of people will tell you that Ireland wasn’t really at peace until we beat England at Croke Park in the Six Nations.
If, however, sport was an effective vehicle for change it throws up an interesting dilemma. Are we morally compelled to lose to countries that need victory more than we do? If winning a World Cup would genuinely help Rwanda overcome its history of ethnic strife, then it just seems wrong for the likes of Italy, for example, to go and thrash them in competition.
PERHAPS IT IS ANissue for US president Barack Obama to consider. For years, state department policy aimed at spreading democracy and prosperity throughout the world may have been undermined inadvertently by America's propensity to be do damn good at sports.
The exception here, of course, is soccer. The US football team famously lost 2-1 to Iran during the 1998 World Cup in a performance that led to mass street celebrations in Tehran. In a message to his team after the final whistle, Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei proclaimed: “Tonight, again, the strong and arrogant opponent felt the bitter taste of defeat at your hands.” Were the two sides to meet again, under a more progressive regime in Iran, then American capitulation would perhaps be welcome. Defeat for the country formerly dubbed the “Great Satan” by Iranian political leaders would at the very least spur on the kind of Mousavi fan cited above.
Such a result, in Obama-speak, might be called an exercise in soft power.
Joe Humphreys is author of
Foul Play: What’s Wrong with Sport
(Icon Books, 2008)
