Sports as political statement

The 2006 FIFA World Cup finally got underway in Munich, Germany last Friday with Germany beating Costa Rica, 4-2, and Ecuador sweeping Poland, 2- 0, before a crowd of 66,000.

Prior to the games, security was the major concern as nations mounted a truly global effort to counter threats of terrorism heightened by recent incidents in Iraq.

For the Germans, the 2006 World Cup is both a show of soccer prowess and economic power.

Only seven nations have won the World Cup since it started in Uruguay in 1930. Brazil has won the title four times: 1958 (Sweden), 1962 (Chile), 1970 (Mexico) and 1994 (United States). Germany, then represented by West Germany, has brought home the FIFA World Cup trophy that was known as the Jules Rimet Trophy (in honor of the FIFA president who organized the first tournament) from 1930 to 1970, three times: 1954 (Switzerland), 1974 (West Germany) and 1990 (Italy). The Germans have also captured runner-up honors four times (1966, 1982, 1986 and 2002, under a unified Germany), the most by any country.

Other countries that have won the coveted title are Italy, three times: 1934 and 1938 (both in Italy) and 1982 in Spain; Argentina, twice: 1978 (Argentina) and 1986 (Mexico); Uruguay, twice: 1930 (Uruguay) and 1950 (Brazil); England, once in 1966 (England) and France, once in 1998 (France). Since 1930, six host nations have won the championship.

The Germans hope to show the world that unified Germany is prosperous and an important member of the international community.

For the Germans, and most other countries, participation in international sports competitions, especially in the most popular sport in the world that is expected to have a cumulative television audience of close to 30 billion, has the character of a political statement. What happens on the football pitch is just as important as what transpires off it.

For most of the world too, football has ceased to be just a game. It has the capacity to stir extreme expressions of nationalism and to trigger man’s most violent instincts.

Pascal Boniface, in his article, "The subtle geopolitics of football," that appeared in the June 3, 2006 issue of the Taipei Times, asks: "Is there a relationship between football — and sports in general — and a spirit of nationalism and militarism?"

Boniface says that during the Middle Ages, sports were regularly forbidden in England because they came at the expense of military training. After France’s defeat by Bismarck’s Germany in the Franco-Prussian War, the Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin — who re-launched the Olympic games a few decades later — recommended a renewal of national emphasis on sport which, by this time was seen as a form of military preparation.

Baron de Coubertin, however, did not see sport as training for war but rather as an instrument of peace, much the way it was in ancient times. Wars among city-states during those times were temporarily stopped to give way to the Olympics that had also assumed a religious character. Coubertin had hoped that the Olympics would bring nations, through their youth, to the playing arenas rather than the battlefields.

Despite well meaning intentions of sportsmen and statesmen like Coubertin, sport has failed, on several occasions to be an instrument of peace. In fact, real war has broken out between nations over football. In 1969, tiny Latin American nations Honduras and El Salvador clashed after a qualification game for the World Cup.

Boniface says that football matches can, it seems, revive national rivalries and conjure ghosts of past wars. During the 2004 Asia Nations Cup final that pitted China against Japan, Chinese supporters wore 1930’s-style Japanese military uniforms to express their hostility to the Japanese team. Other Chinese fans brandished placards with the number "300,000" written on them, a reference to the number of Chinese murdered by the Japanese army in 1937.

Some say that a great part of the emotionalism is brought about by the crowd itself that indulges heavily in flag waving, collective cheering and the singing of national anthems, among others.

Johnny Romualdez, president of the Philippine Football Federation, confirms this phenomenon when he narrates his own experience as a spectator when the 2002 World Cup was held in Japan and South Korea. That unique and praiseworthy cooperative effort shown by the two bitter enemies of the past was a positive gesture that sports really should be.

Boniface says that the 2002 World Cup could have also helped accelerate reconciliation between the two Koreas — the performance of the South Korean players was even applauded in North Korea.

Romualdez says that watching the spectators in a World Cup Finals is, in itself, an experience. He says one get sucked easily into the action by simply watching the huge crowd collectively chanting non-stop for 90 minutes is itself a show within another show, which is the match itself.

The drama and excitement created by the so-called combatants and which gets the spectators all worked up is probably due to the fact that, in the end, the game in the field allows for what Boniface calls symbolically limited confrontations with no major political risks.

Sociologist Norbert Elias who was quoted by Boniface says, "The spectators of a football match can enjoy the mythical excitement of battles taking place in the stadium, and they know that neither the players nor they will suffer any harm." This statement of course assumes that there will be no hooliganism, the object of which is pure and simple destruction.

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The comments of representatives of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) regarding the absence of De La Salle University in the 69th season of the league were attempts, albeit inutile, to create excitement and drama. Maybe they could come up with something more imaginative to attract sponsors.