Nothing can be more ridiculous than the frequent high-minded declarations by sports officials that politics and sports should be kept separate. Athletes compete for their nations, under their national flags, and they carry the political luggage which their governments pile up upon them.
Hitler used the 1936 Olympics to show off the successes of national socialism and to demonstrate the superiority of the Aryan race. The Soviet Union, which borrowed freely from the Nazis, fielded formidable teams in a variety of sports, which was meant to show the world that socialism was superior to capitalism and therefore the way of the future for all humanity.
Hitler’s Thousand-Year Reich was in ruins nine years after the Berlin Olympics. The Soviet Empire crumbled nine years after the 1980 Moscow Olympics at which Brezhnev showcased his “mature socialism”.
East German leaders used the international achievements of their athletes to build a GDR national brand that would be separate from the Federal Republic of Germany. It was a project of major importance, requiring the creation of an entire athletic doping establishment.
Vladimir Putin’s Russia still carries on communist traditions even if their ideological content has been hollowed out. Putin may have learned a few doping tricks in Dresden, which the Russians used to score victories in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. But the international sports bureaucracy is no longer in Moscow’s pocket as much as it used to be during Soviet times; the scheme was uncovered and Russia at least got a slap on the wrist.
The scandal surrounding the design of Ukraine’s uniforms for the Euro 2020 soccer competition is another example of politics in sports. It is highly doubtful that putting an outline of a country on a soccer shirt is a controversial thing — and the notion that Crimea remains part of Ukraine is a fact that is unequivocally accepted by the international community. Yet UEFA caved in to pressure from Putin—certainly a political move.
When it comes to Crimea, UEFA decided to sit between two chairs. It didn’t allow Russia to absorb Crimean teams into the Russian soccer league but sanctioned a separate Crimea league as if it were an independent country. At least it didn’t admit Crimea the way it had admitted Kosovo — as a separate new nation.
England’s victory over Germany — the first major win over their rivals since the 1966 World Cup final — was described in purely soccer terms by all major British newspapers. But “respectable” — i.e., thoughtful and decent — media has been marginalized in the UK. As reported by The National (a pro-independence Scottish paper), a Tory peer tweeted: “Poor Germans. This wasn’t the Brexit narrative fed to them by their press.”
If England comes out on top in this year’s Euros (winning only the second major title in its history, one predating its European membership and the other following its departure), you can expect the average nationalist yob to see it as a vindication of Brexit and a finger in the eye of Brussels.
It will be a bit awkward because the current England team is not your father’s 1966 edition. “Pure” Englishmen on it are very few, as men of African, Caribbean and Irish parentage dominate. It is actually a product of British openness, not Little England.
It will also be awkward because the victory will be achieved within the confines of UEFA — a Europe-wide tyrannical bureaucracy which takes money from the UK and imposes a bunch of arbitrary dictatorial rules: who is and who isn’t eligible to play for England, how many subs England can make in a single match and for how long a red-carded player gets suspended.
And speaking of UEFA membership. Remember the misbegotten — and too quickly forgotten — the European Super League? It involved a dozen superclubs who wanted to create a separate pan-European league in which they would play each other and not share the money with a variety of paupers the way they do under the current fairly democratic system.
The league was greeted by a wave of protests. It was hated by the fans, the governments, the other clubs and the international soccer organizations. Its founders quickly backpedaled but it was a strategic retreat, not an admission of defeat. In late May it sued UEFA and FIFA in the European Union Court of Justice for anticompetitive behavior.
It is often said that soccer is the reflection of the world in miniature and the Super League was definitely the spawn of the modern world. Soccer is now the playground of the super-rich and in soccer as everywhere else the super-rich want to carve out a world where they do not have to mix with the hoi polloi. They also want to make even more money.
The Super League was modeled on American professional leagues which are owned by team owners. The UK in many ways has come to resemble the United States and it is no surprise that the vote for Brexit occurred in 2016, the same year America elected Donald Trump. It is also no surprise that six out of twelve founders of the Super League were English clubs.
There are two points to be made in this regard. First, a warning. English fans who so vehemently protested against the Super League should not kid themselves with the hope that they won the battle. Their football is no longer a working man’s game and, by and large, no one really cares about them. The money is in broadcasting and the real audiences for their North England clubs are in China, India, and elsewhere.
And second, a question. Soccer fans, those ordinary English guys, quickly recognized that they were being screwed when it came to their sport. How come they are yet to figure it out when it comes to Brexit?
