Major sporting events and human rights: limitations and opportunities
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Sport is war minus the shooting.
George Orwell, 1945
Sport has the power to inspire. It has
the power to unite people in a way
that little else does.
Nelson Mandela, 2000
Major sporting events and human rights:
limitations and opportunities
Sigmund Loland
Professor
Department of Sport and Social Sciences
Norwegian School of Sports Sciences
1
Contents
Summary 3
Introduction 5
PART 1: The distinctive features of sport and major sporting events 6
Play/ Games/ Sport: internal and external values/ The Great Sports Myth/ Value for
the individual/ Value for society/ Sport as a moral laboratory/ Conflict of values/
The Olympic idea/ An ideal society in miniature/ Ambitious goals/ IOC as template/
Major sporting events/ Football is fantastic entertainment/ Football actualises
identity/ Football actualises existential issues/ A leadership challenge
PART II: Sports politics, sanctions and boycotts 12
Sports politics/ Overlap: grey areas/ Sanctions and boycotts/ The purpose of imposing
a boycott/ Sports boycotts: different forms/ Binary boycott/ Triangular boycott/
Boycotts involving four or more parties/ Qatar?/ Do boycotts work?/ Unintended
consequences/ Symbolic value: signalling/ Boycotts in extreme situations/ Assessment
of objectives and impacts
Part III: The new sports diplomacy – actors and initiatives 20
Objectives/ Types/ Traditional sports diplomacy/ The new sports diplomacy/
Network diplomacy/ Challenges/ Shrewdness and competence/ Actors and initiatives/
Individuals, teams and backroom staff/ Supporters/ International sports organisations/
States and governments/ NGOs/ Multinational commercial enterprises/ Intergovernmental
and supranational organisations/ Sport’s international compliance and judicial bodies/
Activist groups
Conclusion 31
References 33
2Summary
Discussion surrounding the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar has become a matter of values and
actualises the issue of the opportunities and limitations sport has to promote human dignity and
human rights. This report is intended to provide an academic foundation for the NFF’s discussions
and decisions.
In Part 1 of the report, I discuss the distinctive features of football and sport and sport’s potential as
a vehicle for the communication of moral values. I refer to theories of play and culture and to the
intrinsic values of sport. These values are realized in the experiential qualities inherent in the activity
itself. Taking part in sport in meaningful ways requires cooperation, not only with regard to jointly
agreed rules and norms but also to honest effort and fair play. In cooperation lie opportunities for
developing respect and fellowship, as well as respect for human dignity and human rights.
Sport is ambiguous and does not, of necessity, develop moral values. Psychologists point to the
motivational climate: a one-sidedly result-oriented climate undermines sport’s value potential and
leads to an emphasis on conflict and anti-social behaviour. Social scientists point to the cynical use of
sports as a political tool to boost one’s own or harm other’s reputation. Realising sport’s values
requires insight into and respect for the distinctive features of sport. This underpins sport’s efforts to
protect and develop its values.
I point to the idea of sport as a humanitarian force. The idea was conceived towards the end of the
19th century as the foundation for the Olympic movement. The idea is that international sporting
events can contribute to mutual understanding between peoples and peace. International sporting
organisations, like FIFA, are inspired by Olympism when legitimising their activities.
Major sporting events, like the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, attract billions of spectators.
These events have extensive entertainment qualities in addition to being important spheres for the
construction of collective identity and for general and even existential questions of who we are, of
what characterise ‘us’ in relation to ‘them’. Major sporting events can be effective arenas for ethical
messages and can promote respect for human dignity and human rights. What is needed?
Part II of the report gives some answers. Here, I address sports politics, sanctions, and boycotts. I
distinguish between politics in sport (distribution of power and resources within the sports
movement) and politics and sport (distribution of power and resources at the interface between
sport and the world around it). Politics relating to major tournaments falls mainly in the latter
category.
Traditionally, sport has been used as a political tool by states. I provide a number of examples of
when states have wished to promote their own political objectives and when they have attempted to
punish others. I discuss radical tools like boycotts, including the boycott of the Olympic Games in
Moscow in 1980 and in Los Angeles in 1984, as well as the long-lasting boycott of the apartheid
regime in South Africa.
Boycott is an issue under discussion with regard to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. I review
general research findings concerning goal-achievement in political and economic boycotts, whose
efficacy rate is estimated at around 30 percent, and list the characteristics needed for success:
• Broad, multilateral support from both government authorities and other actors – multilateral
boycotts, preferably initiated by the UN Security Council.
• The boycotted party is dependent in some way on the boycotting parties, primarily politically
3and economically, or, with respect to sport, in relation to the benefit deriving from inclusion
in a sporting community.
• With respect to human rights, it is more effective to bind an actor to commitments than to
try and reduce rights violations.
• The goals of a boycott should be limited and clear-cut. It is easier to apply a sanction in order
to free a political prisoner than to achieve system change.
• It is easier to achieve objectives in democratic than in authoritarian or theocratic regimes.
I provide examples of boycotts having unintended consequences, such as costs to an innocent third
party (often the civilian population, and in sport: athletes) and strengthened resistance to the
boycotting party on the part of the boycotted. Strict sanctions like boycotts must rest on a thorough
assessment of the potential consequences.
I provide an example from Norwegian history, where a boycott was mounted on moral grounds: the
Norwegian sports strike during WW2. The boycott was initiated primarily by actors who would
themselves have been active in the events. This was a boycott in an extreme situation, where the
possibility of dialogue and negotiation is blocked.
In Part III, I proceed with political initiatives in sport that do not involve abandoning communication
and dialogue, with the emphasis on sports diplomacy. Typical goals are to strengthen a reputation,
create a platform for dialogue, build trust, and contribute to reconciliation and integration. I
distinguish between traditional sports diplomacy led by states and a ‘new’, network-based diplomacy
involving far more actors. The new diplomacy is flexible, fluid, innovative, transparent, and activist.
I examine important actors in sport’s network diplomacy and provide examples of various tools to
promote human dignity and human rights at large sporting events. The actors I discuss are:
• Well-known individuals/athletes alone or in conjunction with other actors
• In football, particularly: supporters
• International sports organisations
• States and government authorities
• NGOs: human rights, environment, equality, peace, health, urban development
• Multinational commercial enterprises
• Supranational/intergovernmental organisations such as the EU and FN
• Sports’ own compliance and judicial institutions such as WADA and CAS
• Activist groups
A successful international sporting event requires a high level of diplomatic competence. I discuss
challenges in international organisations’ encounters with other powerful actors.
I conclude by underlining the following: Competent sports politics rests on rights-based ethics and a
well-reasoned ethical platform, combined with thorough consequence and impact assessments and
the wise choice of actions that can best realise political objectives.
4Introduction
In this report, I discuss the opportunities and limitations of sport, in particular football, when it
comes to promoting values such as human dignity and human rights in connection with major
sporting events. The report, originally written in Norwegian, is prepared at the behest of a
Commission established by the governing board of the Norwegian Football Association (NFF). The
aim is to provide a research-based background for decisions regarding both the forthcoming 2022
FIFA World Cup in Qatar and other major sporting events in the future.
The report is written within a limited framework of time and resources. The ambition is not an in-
depth and complete overview of research in these areas, but rather, with the help of selected
perspectives and examples and an easily accessible format, to point at some core issues.1
In Part I: The distinctive features of sport and major sporting events, I provide a general description
of the values and influence of sport (and football), with particular emphasis on major events. This is
linked to the following points in the Commission’s mandate: To assess 1) Sport’s independent role in
efforts to promote human rights (sport, including sporting events, has an intrinsic value in the
work for human rights), and 2) Sport as a useful tool in the effort to promote human rights (sport’s
visibility is primary/the sport itself is secondary).
In Part II: Sports politics, sanctions and boycotts, I give an overview of political conditions and
tensions relating to major events and examine tools to promote value-based messages. This is linked
to the points in the Commission’s mandate that require an assessment of the historic experience of
the various initiatives and the most important lessons learned from them.
In Part III: The new sports diplomacy: actors and initiatives, I discuss the development of network
diplomacy and all the players involved in it. This corresponds to the point in the Commission’s
mandate: Which actors are involved in the different initiatives and what roles do they play?
As requested in the mandate, I discuss both major sporting events and other international contexts.
I also make assessments relating to the following point in the Commission’s mandate: Which tools to
promote human dignity and human rights are relevant with respect to international sporting
events? Here, I restrict myself to the present situation and the discussions concerning the 2022 FIFA
World Cup.
I do not discuss the terms human dignity and human rights separately, but apply the understanding
laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the UN definitions based on the
premise that every person has inherent dignity and value and is entitled to fundamental rights
irrespective of gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, nationality or place of domicile, and FIFA’s
own Human Rights Policy.2
1 Thanks to the NFF Commission and good colleagues for their input on this report. The contents are naturally
wholly my responsibility.
2 See https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/1a876c66a3f0498d/original/kr05dqyhwr1uhqy2lh6r-pdf.pdf (24.6.2021)
5PART 1: The distinctive features of sport and major sporting events
What characterises football? In ordinary language we refer to ‘playing’ football and to ‘the game’ of
football. What do these terms refer to, and what is the connection between play, games, and sport?
Play
If we adopt the classic definition elaborated by the Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga in his
book Homo Ludens (1949), play is:
• a voluntary, ordered activity
• that is limited in time and space by rules, and
• where the activity exists for its own sake.
Most people will have heard football sceptics express the view that the game is a meaningless
activity, where 22 people run around after a ball in a field. What is the point? At the other end of the
scale, we find people who are devoted to the sport. Examples include the English football legend Bill
Shankly, who asserted: “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s
much more serious than that.”
Why do we play? Huizinga talks about play as “non-serious seriousness”. Participants engage fully in
it, but without the rules having any meaning outside of the game itself. Play has intrinsic value, that
is, values inherent in the game itself: experience-related values, such as excitement about the
outcome, joy and disappointment, a sense of fellowship and opposition, and of mastery and failure.
For Huizinga, play is a crucial aspect of human culture. In a bold hypothesis, he asserts that all
culture, art, politics, science, legal systems, even war, are related to play. Play exceeds the bounds of
the everyday, it provides multifaceted and powerful experiences, and it can challenge in creative
ways our notions of who we are and where we belong. Play has an existential side. Through play, we
explore ourselves and our relationships with others.
There are many different types of play. We can distinguish between spontaneous and non-regulated
play, like children playing tag and changing the rules as they go along, and regulated forms of play,
such as organised sport from grassroots to elite level.
Games
The Canadian philosopher Bernard Suits (1978) takes Huizinga’s insights a step further. He argues
that all games, including all branches of sport, are characterised by a special logic. All games have
rules that prohibit the most effective method for achieving the game’s objectives.
To play a game, says Suits, means voluntarily accepting unnecessary obstacles to achieving a goal.
The football team wants to get the ball over the goal-line, but is not allowed to use their hands,
cannot go offside and cannot resort to violence. A hurdler must run the fastest from A to B but
accepts that she must jump over the hurdles placed in the middle of the track.
Like Huizinga, Suits says that games are an expression of a universal, playful human attitude. All
people at all times, even in difficult circumstances like war and conflict, have felt the need to step
outside the everyday and engage in activities which only have value in and of themselves. Football
was played in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during WW2, and by prisoners on Robben
Island during South Africa’s apartheid regime. Football is played during conflicts, in refugee camps
and in places plagued by want and war every single day (Goksøyr 2014).
In other words, we are not talking about play as a superficial activity, but as activities in which people
6engage fully and completely and in which they find meaning and value. What kind of meaning and
value are found? And what are the potential values of play, games, and sport in the larger scheme of
things, for example, in the promotion of human dignity and human rights?
Sport: internal and external values
Philosopher Alastair MacIntyre (2007) discusses the values in what he calls social practices which are
defined as coherent, complex, cooperative human activities in a social setting and with well-
established standards of excellence. Examples can be a craft, research, or games like chess and
football. In the analyses of such practices, MacIntyre draws a line between internal and external
goods, or values.
To realise internal values in football, participants must abide by football’s standards for the quality of
the game’s physical, technical and tactical requirements. At its best, football involves intense
interaction, outstanding technical skills and tactical flow in a contest between evenly matched teams.
The realisation of the relevant standards of excellence constitutes football’s internal values: the
special experiential qualities that lie in good football, both for active participants, backroom staff and
supporters.
Understanding sport in this way has an interesting consequence. To be realised, sport requires a
minimum of cooperation. An initial agreement concerns rules. It is impossible to compete without a
shared understanding of the framework for the activity. Competitors must be able to perform on
similar terms. Sport must be fair. Moreover, sporting games are tests and comparisons of specific
abilities and skills. Another agreement lies in doing one’s best, in honest endeavour, in giving the
game one’s best efforts. Good sport is created when participants engage fully in it, in an open and
embodied dialogue about the limits to endeavour (Loland and McNamee, 2000). Fair play is not
merely about greeting opposing players and referees with courtesy, but is the very foundation that
gives a competition meaning (Loland, 2002).
This is precisely where the possibility for developing qualities and values that are meaningful outside
the sport lie: external goods or values. Depending on the historic, social, and cultural context, sport
has been accorded many external ideal values: physical training of young men to become good
soldiers, the development of moral virtues and character, the development of local, regional, and
national identities, the strengthening of civil society and grassroots democracy, the improvement of
public health, and the strengthening of human dignity and human rights (Donnelly, 2008; Kid, 2008;
Hasselgård, 2015).
External values are important for the sports organisations in justifying their activities and their
existence. They are of interest, too, to the systems surrounding sport, such as political interests,
government authorities and commercial enterprises. And, upon closer inspection, we see that this is
not simply a matter of ideal values. Sport also has problematic sides to it.
The Great Sports Myth
Sociologist Jay Coakley (2015) criticises what he calls the Great Sports Myth (GSM). The myth rests on
the idea that sport is inherently pure, moral and apolitical, and that everyone who takes part in it is
of necessity positively influenced by these qualities.
According to Coakley, the GSM is surprisingly tenacious and shines through the mission statements
of the majority of sports organisations and national sports policies. At the same time, most
reasonably enlightened people will take the GSM with a substantial pinch of salt.
7Criticism of sport has a long history. Some, like author Alfie Kohn (1992), see competition as the root
of all social evil. Competitive sport destroys self-esteem, fellowship and hinders social development.
Others, like the Marxist-leaning critic Bero Rigauer (1969), see professional sport as a clear
expression of capitalism’s destructive force. The market’s mechanisms create few winners and many
losers, and power and money corrupt. Still others, like Tomlinson (2018), recognise the value of
sport, but forcefully assert that sports organisations, particularly the international associations, and
especially the IOC and FIFA, corrupt its values.
A broader review of the research provides a more nuanced picture. Sport is not uniformly valuable,
but it does have a special value-related potential.
Value for the individual
Psychological research takes as its starting point the distinctive features of sport. Sports
psychologists refer to motivational climates. In mastery-oriented climates, internal values are
realized. Sporting games can offer powerful and valuable experiences of joy and disappointment,
fellowship and opposition, fairness and injustice, mastery and failure. With competent facilitation,
sport can contribute to individual growth and progress (Ntoumanis and Standage, 2009). In result-
oriented and cynical motivational climates or with incompetent facilitation, on the other hand, sport
can promote anti-social behaviour, with a lack of respect for rules and fellow human beings (Shields
and Bredemaier, 2014).
Value for society
Sport, at least organised as a voluntary activity and part of what we call civil society, can be an
important arena for inclusion and integration, and for the development of democratic attitudes and
practices (Murray, 2018). At the same time, social science research shows how sport can be an
effective tool for indoctrination and totalitarian thinking and has been used effectively and
destructively by oppressive political regimes (Girginov, 2004).
Sport as a moral laboratory
In other words: From the point of view of values, sport is ambiguous. Sport has a value-related
potential. Morgan (1994) talks about sport’s gratuitous logic, by which he means that the branches
of sport are games that exist primarily because of the activities’ intrinsic value. Sport invites
agreement and shared rules and honest endeavour. And due to sport’s direct and embodied
language and whole-hearted engagement, it has power.
But that power can also be destructive. Those in charge can refuse the invitation. Sport can be a
weapon in a cynical battle for prestige and profit. McFee (2004) points to sport as a moral laboratory.
We can set up “the sporting experiment” in many ways and get many different outcomes.
Conflict of values
How are we to respond to the tensions between internal and external values? What do we do when
they are in conflict?
MacIntyre (2007) sees such tensions as a characteristic of social practices. His diagnosis is clear.
Internal values are under constant threat from external values. Traditional craftsmanship is
threatened by commercialisation and banalisation, voluntary organisations by politicisation and the
constant pursuit of money and resources. The criticism of competitive sport is familiar. When
everything boils down to victory or prestige and profit, the role of internal standards of excellence,
like skills and fair play, is diminished. Football provides many examples of the sport’s qualities being
put under pressure by powerful external interests (Gammelsæter, 2019).
8The cure is also clear. Internal values are primary, external values are secondary. Institutions that do
not nurture sport’s internal values responsibly can easily corrupt their practice. The day
craftsmanship abandons quality standards in favour of a quick profit, it loses its value and
sustainability. The day football organisations cease to defend the game’s distinctive features, the
possibility for external values starts to gradually wither away.
The Olympic idea
The international sports movement is characterised by global ambitions. Organisations such as the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fédération International de Football Association
(FIFA) seek to expand their activities across the globe. At the same time, the organisations justify
their scope as a form of universalism. In their mission statements, we find phrases about universal
ethical principles and universal human rights. Where do these ideas come from?
International competitive sport came into being in the latter part of the 19th century. An important
event was the formation of the IOC in 1894. The French baron Pierre de Coubertin gathered a group
of prestigious men at the Sorbonne University in Paris, and established a movement that, in his view,
would cultivate the ideal citizen and the ideal society.
An ideal society in miniature
Competitive sport, developed at English boarding schools through the 19th century and spread to all
corners of the world via British colonialism, formed the movement’s core. For Coubertin,
competition, with clear rules applicable to all and where the best emerged the victor, was the
future’s ideal society in miniature. Here, you were rewarded according to your performance, and not
according to your status or condition. Sport was an ideal meritocracy. Furthermore, sport allowed a
person to show the best version of themselves. To train, to prepare and to compete cultivated the
individual. The Olympian was the ideal for the person of the future, physically, socially and morally
(MacAloon, 1984; Loland, 1995).
The aristocrat Coubertin also had social policy goals. Class conflict was intensifying in many European
countries, and, as many of his class, Coubertin feared revolution. The latter part of the 19th century
also saw the emergence of a growing, and in some cases aggressive, nationalism, something
Coubertin himself had experienced in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, when Prussian forces had
actually seized Paris.
Coubertin sympathised with the growth of an “impartial” and humanistic internationalism, which
found expression in the International Red Cross, founded in 1864, the invention of the language
Esperanto, which was meant to become a shared tool for communication in a new and peaceful
world, and the international peace movement that had its headquarters in Coubertin’s home city of
Paris (Hoberman, 1995).
Ambitious goals
The Olympic movement was supposed not only to offer an international sporting event, but also to
tone down class conflict and international tensions and contribute to peace. Olympic Games were
not supposed to be an arena for politics, but for “universal fundamental ethical principles”, as it says
in the Olympic Charter.3
These ideas manifested themselves in many ways. In the beginning, participants represented only
themselves (and humanity) and not nations. National medal tallies are still not official IOC material,
3https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Document%20Library/OlympicOrg/General/EN-Olympic-
Charter.pdf?_ga=2.238493895.654889682.1624969149-944960750.1619972600 (24.6.2021)
9and to this day, IOC members represent the Olympic movements in their home countries; they are
not national representatives on the IOC (the principle of reverse representation).
IOC as template
The Olympic movement has formed a template, at least in part, for other international sports
organisations, particularly with regard to the idea that the sport is a politically impartial zone, with an
ethical content of great value for the individual and society (Black and Peacock, 2013). FIFA was
founded in Paris in 1904, and was initially sports-oriented, although it eventually adopted the
Olympic rhetoric on the game’s universal value and the significance of international peace and
harmony.
Examples are manifold. In 2021, with 211 affiliated associations, and after 117 years of immense
growth and progress but also of turbulence and numerous scandals, current FIFA President Gianni
Infantino is clear: “FIFA’s vision is to make football truly global, diverse and inclusive, for the benefit
of the entire world.”4 The vision is followed up with ambitious social impact initiatives and
programmes “…working with governments, global and regional development agencies, human rights
groups, international and local non-profit organisations and former players to promote a fairer, more
equal society through football.”5
Major sporting events
In our context, the values manifested in major championships are of particular interest. Let me look
more closely at the ethical potential of an event like the football World Cup. Why has this become an
interesting arena for the communication of values of various sorts?
An obvious answer is the immense interest it generates. According to FIFA, over 1.1 billion people
watched the World Cup final between France and Croatia in 2018. In both countries, almost 90 per
cent of registered television sets were turned on. The question is why a football World Cup is so
popular. Let me point to three characteristics of the fascination with elite sports (Loland, 2011).
Football is high-quality entertainment
Good matches offer tension and uncertainty at all levels. Will the feint succeed? Will the attack end
in a goal? Who is in the lead at half-time? Who will win the match? Who will go forward in the
tournament? Who will win the final? Excitement is combined with strong, experiential qualities: joy
and disappointment, laughter and tears, frustration and fellowship, and humour and seriousness.
Football has the distinctive qualities of play, both on the pitch and in the stands. A further quality is
inclusiveness. A contest between the two teams is direct, embodied and concrete. The plot is easy to
understand.
At the same time, football is a complex game. Experienced football fans never tire of analysing and
discussing it. Football combines simplicity for the beginner and complexity for the expert. Moreover,
unlike other types of entertainment, where a script has been prepared beforehand (films, plays,
music), live football offers real uncertainty and tension – in the moment. It is about people putting in
their maximum efforts to win.
Football actualises identity
A football team represents a community: locally, regionally, nationally. Football offers an opportunity
to unite around a shared project, relatively independently of many other differences in a diverse
population (age and gender, socioeconomic background, ethnicity, political affiliation). Inside the
4 https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa (24.6.2021)
5 https://www.fifa.com/social-impact (24.6.2021)
10ground, people stand shoulder to shoulder to support their team. In many ways, a football World
Cup is a celebration of national identity and (imprecise) national stereotypes: the well-oiled German
machine, the playfulness of the Brazilians, the Scandinavians’ reliance on physicality and tactical
systems. The sport offers a clear fellowship in a complex social structure, as well as an informal test
of our fellowship in relation to “the other”. Goksøyr (2014) talks about a harmless form of
nationalism: 2x45 minutes nationalism.
Football’s supporter culture constitutes a special force when it comes to the construction of
identities (Hognestad and Hjelseth, 2012; Garcia and Zheng, 2017; Giulianotti, 2010). Loyal and
enthusiastic spectators have been part of football since the very beginning in the mid-1800s. The
legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly had another saying. He was critical of the bureaucratisation
of the game in the 1960s, and asserted forcefully: “At a football club, there’s a holy trinity – the
players, the managers and the supporters.” Directors were only needed to sign the payslips (Goksøyr,
2014). Posterity shows that Shankly hit the mark with regard to supporters, but probably
underestimated the directors. I will return to the supporters as an actor in sports politics in Part III.
It is also worth noting that identity processes in sport in general, and football in particular, can go
beyond positive patriotism. Some supporters are associated with aggressive nationalism mixed with
racism. The Swedish philosopher Torbjörn Tännsjö (1998) goes even further in his radical thesis on
our fascination with elite-level sports: It cultivates contempt for weakness and is fascist at its core.
Tännsjö has been criticised and rebutted, but puts his finger on a possibility. Elite-level sports can
exert destructive, normative impact in society.
Football actualises existential issues
Football can also offer tangible and almost corporeal answers to existential questions, often in the
form of personal narratives: Pele’s and Maradona’s road from the slums to the pinnacle of success,
women’s football celebrities like Marta and Hegeberg in their struggle for recognition, Haaland’s
trajectory from boys’ club player on the windswept southwest coast of Norway to one of the world’s
most sought-after strikers. And the narratives do not only foster idolisation. Football actualises
human liberty and opportunity, but also human error and falls from grace.
A leadership challenge
Elite-level sports are an area of ethical and moral tension. Extracting sport’s value potential demands
good leadership, which builds on competence and respect for sport’s distinctive features. This is the
fundamental idea behind the use of sport in ethics and development work, and to promote human
dignity and human rights. In the following, I will discuss how sports politics and sports diplomacy that
can promote, but also obstruct, the realisation of sport’s values.
11PART II: Sports politics, sanctions and boycotts
Major sporting events involve a great many actors with diverse interests, from the sport itself, from
politics, voluntary and charitable organisations, business enterprises, supporters and activist groups
of many kinds. The histories of sporting events involve cooperation and conflict (Horne, 2016;
Kilcline, 2017). Sport is politics.
But sport is politics in a special way. In the following, I will say more about forms of sports politics
and point in particular to the growth of what is often called the new sports diplomacy.
Sports politics
Houlihan (2014) distinguishes between politics in sport and politics and sport.
Politics in sport is about sports organisations’ goals and guidelines for the sport, and the distribution
of power and resources internally. The organisations must find answers to questions such as: What
goals and ambitions are relevant for us? How shall positions and resources be distributed within the
organisation? What should be the relative weighting of our focus on the elite level, recruitment and
grassroots participation? How should we position ourselves in relation to other sports organisations
nationally and internationally?
Politics and sport is about sport in collaboration with or opposition to external political systems
locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Examples can be sport used to promote democracy,
human dignity and human rights, like the highly symbolic Rugby World Cup in South Africa in 1995,
which took place in the name of reconciliation after the abolition of apartheid; or activities like those
where NFF is involved in the expansion of grassroots sport, improving living conditions and
strengthening civil society in vulnerable parts of the world. Problematic examples include
sportswashing – the cynical use of sport to overshadow and “clear” organisers of violating
international law and committing human rights abuses (Chadwick, 2018).
Overlap: grey areas
These two categories simplify the picture somewhat. International organisations like the IOC and
FIFA distribute not only power and resources internally in the sporting community but interact to a
large extent with state and non-state actors. Sometimes, the political dimension is particularly
evident, not least where the organisations award major events. For example, the IOC awarded the
Summer Olympics to Rome in 1960, Tokyo in 1964 and Munich in 1972. The awards were clear
expressions of an attempt to reconcile the world after WW2. And the award of the FIFA World Cup in
2002 to both Japan and South Korea was an exercise in cooperation between two nations with a long
history of conflict.
International sports organisations also engage in politics when they decide to include or not include
national committees and associations. The contentious relations between China and Taiwan regularly
lead to diplomatic crises. With respect to the Olympic Games, though, they have reached an
agreement. Taiwan takes part under the name Chinese Taipei and marches in under an Olympic flag.
A challenge of major political format during the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang in 2018 was to
include participants from both the Korean states, North and South. Whether these symbolic acts
have any lasting political impact is another question. The likelihood of them contributing to a de-
escalation of tension is probably higher than the opposite.
This report is intended to discuss the normative conflicts surrounding the FIFA World Cup in Qatar,
with the emphasis on labour rights abuses. Among other things, NFF must address the issue of
sanctions and boycotts.
12Sanctions and boycotts
Sanctions that dramatically reduce interaction, and boycotts that cut off all interaction in a field can
be powerful weapons in sports politics. Let me first discuss sanctions and boycotts in general politics
and then take a specific look at sports boycotts.
Sanctions or complete boycotts of states often spring from some demand for compliance with
international law, for example, demands to respect human rights. Boycotts are a clear signal from
one party to another that their behaviour and practices are so unacceptable that interaction is
precluded (Gomez, 2018).
In international politics, the application of political and economic sanctions is not unusual. For
example, the UN Security Council has passed 30 resolutions imposing sanctions on 24 different
countries since 1966. Since 2000, the USA alone has imposed sanctions and boycotts on 25 countries
and alleged terrorist organisations (Peksen, 2019). The EU is currently involved in around 30
sanctions, some of which are in the nature of a boycott.6
The purpose of imposing a boycott
Sanctions and boycotts involve denying one party access to a good. For example, economic boycotts
deny access to aid or a market. Boycotts can also shut parties out of prestigious arenas for
international interaction, such as the complete refusal since 1970 to allow the apartheid regime in
South Africa to participate in any Olympic sporting events.
Sanctions and boycotts are implemented for the purpose of forcing the boycotted party to
implement real changes, and/or to change their reputation (Gomez, 2018; Peksen, 2019). In other
words, the objective may be to change a behaviour, such as strengthening workers’ rights in Qatar,
or to take a stand without any realistic expectation of achieving change (signalling). “We do not
accept the Qatar regime’s labour policies.” The point then is to weaken the reputation of the
sanctioned party and/or enhance the reputation of the sanctioning party, both at home and in front
of an international audience. By sanctioning, parties intend to demonstrate their values and who
they are.
Typical examples of such signalling include sports boycotts, such as when western democracies,
including Norway, boycotted the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980 to protest against the USSR’s
invasion of Afghanistan, and the East Block’s tit-for-tat boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.
Sports boycotts: different forms
There are some examples of sports boycotts forming part of a larger and broader regime of
sanctions. Examples include the UN-initiated sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa
from the early 1960s, and the boycott of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) in 1992. There are
further examples of purely sporting boycotts, particularly in the Cold War period. Olympic boycott
actions in Montreal (1976), Moscow (1980) and Los Angeles (1984) are the most well-known.
The possibility of such boycotts exists today, too. During the UEFA European Football Championship
in 2012, England, Sweden and Germany, among others, refused to play matches in Ukraine due to
the imprisonment of the opposition leader Yulia Timoshenko. Boycott actions have been discussed in
relation to Olympic Games in Beijing (2008 and 2022), Sochi (2014), and the FIFA World Cup in Russia
(2018) and now in Qatar (2022). However, coordination of boycott actions seems far more complex
in the multiplicity of actors that constitute sports politics today. I will come back to the actors under
my discussion of sports diplomacy in Part III.
6
https://www.sanctionsmap.eu/#/main. (2.5.2021)
13But first, Gomez (2018) provides a detailed typology of sports boycotts, explained in more detail
below.
Binary boycott
The first type is the binary, or two-fold boycott. Part A boycotts Part B to harm Part B.
Part A Part B
Fig. 1. Modified from Gomez (2018).
Familiar boycotts are clear examples: Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984 were battles between
two states with associated blocs, the USA vs. the USSR, the Western Bloc vs. the Eastern Bloc. The
battle lines were clear-cut, but the consequences rather less so. The World Athletics Championships
competition was launched in 1983 as an attempt to establish an alternative for the best athletes in
this period. The USSR established the so-called Friendship Games as an alternative Olympics, with
participants from 49 nations, primarily in the Eastern Bloc.
Triangular boycott
Another type of boycott is triangular. Part A wants to harm Part B by boycotting Part C.
Part A Part B Part C
Fig. 2. Modified from Gomez (2018).
A typical example is the boycott of the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956. Various political tensions
and conflicts, such as the USSR’s aggression in Poland and Hungary, the so-called Suez Crisis which
pitted France and Britain against Egypt, and Israel’s expansion into the Sinai Peninsula, led to a
number of boycott actions. Egypt (A), along with Lebanon and Iraq, boycotted the Olympics in
Melbourne (C) to harm Israel, Britain and France (B). Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland
14boycotted the Games because they did not want to compete against Soviet Russians. China
boycotted the Games in protest against the delegation from Taiwan. This type of boycott also has
another name: the ricochet boycott. Multiple events throw a confusion of consequences in many
directions.
Boycotts involving four or more parties
A third type of boycott involves four or more parties. Part A boycotts Part B due to the behaviour of
Part C towards Part D.
Part A Part B Part C Part D
Fig. 3. Modified from Gomez (2018).
An example is the boycott by African nations (A) of the Olympic Games in Montreal (C) in 1976. The
boycott came about because New Zealand (C) had played international rugby matches against South
Africa (D), at that time an apartheid regime, thereby breaching an international sports embargo.
Qatar?
What type of boycott are being discussed with regard to Qatar? The models above and the examples
given concern conflicts and solidarity between states and ideological blocs. In recent decades,
international organisations like the IOC and FIFA have increasingly been held to account for their
leadership and resource management. As such, the Qatar issue fits into the modified form of the
triangular model. Part A (NFF) boycotts Part B (the 2022 World Cup in Qatar) to impact both Part B
(the 2022 World Cup in Qatar/Qatar’s lack of labour rights) and also Part C (FIFA, or FIFA’s award of
the World Cup to Qatar).
The Qatar discussion shows that modern sports diplomacy, to a greater extent than traditional, state-
driven diplomacy, is a complex and dynamic affair, involving many actors.
Do boycotts work?
The million-dollar question is whether sports boycotts actually work. And if they do, under what
circumstances. Political and economic boycott actions are generally controversial. Most international
sanctions are economic but are often justified with reference to violations of international law and
human rights abuses.
Meta-studies of various types of political and economic sanctions and boycotts show an average level
of efficacy, understood as realization of sanction and boycott goals, varying from down towards 5 per
cent to upwards of 37 per cent.7 In a broad review of international sanctions and boycotts in the
7 There is ample literature on political and economic sanctions, boycotts and their efficacy. For example, see
15period 1950 to 2016, Felbermayr et al (2020) point to an average success rate of 30 per cent. I have
included two excerpts from this review. The first (see below) shows the yearly policy outcome
registered for declared policy objectives.
The second excerpt shows the average success rate (the outcomes across the declared policy
objectives in sanctions) of the different types of sanction.
Hufbauer et al (2009); Portela (2014); Morgan, Bapat and Kobayashi (2014); Biersteker et al (2018) and Peksen
(2019).
16According to this overview, sanctions relating to terrorism are largely ineffective, with less than 10
per cent success rate. Sanctions relating to democracy are slightly more successful, with full
realisation of policy objectives in over 50 per cent of cases. Sanctions relating to human rights lie
between these two categories, at well below 30 per cent.
There is a relatively high degree of consensus in the literature regarding some key success criteria:
• Broad, multilateral support from both government authorities and other actors – multilateral
boycotts, preferably initiated by the UN Security Council. Sanctions should also be followed
up with diplomatic initiatives and attempts at negotiation, and sometimes the threat of
force.
• The boycotted party is dependent in some way on the boycotting parties, primarily politically
and economically. Or in sport: dependent on participating in international sport, with the
prestige and goodwill that brings. The paradox is that boycotts often take place between
parties that have no close relations (Drezner’s paradox).
• With respect to human rights, it is more effective to bind an actor to commitments than to
try and reduce rights violations.
• The goals of a boycott should be limited and clear-cut. It is easier to apply a sanction in order
to free a political prisoner than to achieve systemic and political change.
It also seems easier to achieve objectives in democratic than in authoritarian or theocratic
regimes.
If the objective of the boycott is real policy change, it is also important to have sympathisers inside
the system that is being boycotted. During the UN-initiated sanctions against South Africa,
collaboration with domestic anti-apartheid groups was important. The sanctions were crowned with
success when Nelson Mandela was elected South Africa’s president in 1994 and a new non-racist
constitution was adopted in 1995. The South-African victory in subsequent Rugby World Cup in 1995,
with the Springboks team made up of both black and white players, is one of the strongest images of
17sport’s power as a unifying and reconciling force.
Gomez (2018) underlines that the first criterion, concerning broad, multilateral support and a united
front, is the most important.
In a situation with many actors engaged in sports politics, the challenge is obvious. When discussing a
boycott of the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, there were many issues: a totalitarian regime and
suppression of human rights, the lack of environmental policies, the Chinese authorities’ behaviour
towards Tibet, the treatment of minorities, etc. Proposals for a joint boycott fell apart because there
were too many and too divergent interests and views on both goals and methods (Murray, 2018).
Unintended consequences
The Norwegian peace studies pioneer, Johan Galtung was one of the first to study how sanctions and
boycott actions could have unintended and counterproductive consequences (Galtung, 1967). One
horrendous example is the suffering of the Iraqi civilian population under the years long boycott of
Saddam Hussein’s regime (Sponeck, 2006). The boycott of North Korea through the entire post-war
period has produced few results other than the suffering of an innocent third party – the civilian
population, and probably North Korean athletes. And a counterproductive consequence is that North
Korea has developed trade with other partners and a black-market economy in arms and narcotics.
Galtung studied the economic boycott of the Rhodesian apartheid regime in the 1960s and found an
effect that can be called “rallying around the flag”. Due to external pressure, the country’s power
elite formed a united front in support of its own regime. The intention of the boycott was to break
apartheid. The result was that the regime was strengthened, though it is worth noting that this was a
short-term effect. The regime fell collapsed years later.
Sanctions against Russia on the grounds of systematic doping in sport seem to have produced many
of the same reactions. This is clearly evident in the threats against Russian whistle-blowers. State-
controlled and sympathetic media frame sanctions as prejudiced and malicious and build up
counterreactions. The politics of boycotts are therefore challenging.
Symbolic value: signalling
A boycott does not always have quantifiable objectives and impacts. As previously mentioned, the
symbolic value can be the objective. A boycott is a clear expression that one party views the
behaviour and practices of one or more other parties as unacceptable. Every boycott action that
attracts attention, has an impact on the parties’ reputations.
However, as in the discussion above, the symbolic value of a boycott can have unintended
consequences. The UN’s boycott of Yugoslavia in 1992 led to the national team being ejected from
the European Football Championships and replaced by Denmark, which went on to win the entire
competition. This outcome gave rise to a certain level of sympathy with the boycotted party.
It can also be debated whether the very discussion of a boycott can send an equally clear signal as a
boycott itself (Hovi, Huseby and Sprinz, 2005). The international discussion about labour rights and
the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, led by the well-reputed newspaper The Guardian, clearly impacts the
reputations of both Qatar and FIFA, and could create change.
Boycotts in extreme situations
Boycotts also have another measure of success. Regardless of the boycott’s implications, an actor
may boycott a political regime, or a sporting event, quite simply because it is perceived as the only
politically and morally correct action.
18We have two clear examples of such boycotts from Norwegian history. The sports strike in Norway
during Nazi occupation in WW2, and the Workers’ Sports Association’s boycott of the Berlin Olympic
Games in 1936 (Goksøyr, 2002 and 2017). The sports strike meant that the vast majority of
Norwegian sportsmen and women refused to take part in Nazified sports from November 1940. The
Workers’ Sports Association (AIF) was a powerful force in Norway during the interwar period.
Potential Olympic athletes among the AIF’s members boycotted the Berlin Olympics in 1936 due to
Germany’s Nazi regime. The international labour movement organised an alternative event in
Barcelona which was eventually held in Amsterdam due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
These boycotts, and the sports strike in particular, are powerful narratives for posterity. The
Norwegian politician and sports official Rolf Hofmo called the strike the greatest Norwegian sporting
achievement in history. The sports strike had two characteristics:
• Faced with totalitarian Nazism, all possibility of dialogue had broken down. This was a
boycott in an extreme situation.
• The sports strike was primarily the result of a collective action by leaders/coaches/athletes
and was not organised by groups that were not themselves active in sport.
Chan (2018) has analysed the rhetoric of US politicians concerning sanctions based on human rights
and finds that moral arguments are given more weight than impact assessments. Chan problematises
the situation since inadequate analyses easily result in unintended consequences and occasionally
counterproductive outcomes.
The moral justification for boycotting Qatar is an expression of a clear ethical commitment. From a
human rights point of view, workers’ conditions in Qatar are censurable. Seen from a sports politics
and reputational point of view, FIFA’s award of the tournament is deeply problematic, to put it
mildly.
At the same time, a responsible organisation like NFF must choose its weapons on the basis of a
thorough assessment of objectives and consequences.
Assessment of objectives and impacts
The first task is to clarify objectives. Are the potential actions intended to signal values and express
opposition to Qatar’s treatment of guest workers? Are they further intended to signal discontent
with FIFA’s award of the tournament, and also FIFA’s policies more broadly, or with FIFA’s
management of football in general? Are potential actions intended to be something more than just
signals, in other words tools for real change? Is the most important objective to strengthen the rights
of guest workers in Qatar? Is the objective also to change FIFA’s method of awarding championships,
perhaps also to change FIFA as an organisation?
The next task is to clarify which tools will serve the objective best. Efficacy assessments are crucial for
responsible politics. In some situations, a full boycott can be the only alternative. In other situations,
there may be other actions which can better serve the objectives. These range from lighter sanctions
and protests to dialogue. Potential unintended consequences are also an important consideration.
For example, signalling may not be perceived in the way intended, or sanctions intended to force
change may not do so, or that the effect is counterproductive, and change goes in the wrong
direction.
Research on sanctions and their efficacy provides an important basis for such assessments.
19Part III: The new sports diplomacy – actors and initiatives
The 21st century has so far been characterised by clear undercurrents of anti-globalism,
protectionism and polarisation in nation states that have traditionally not been riven by tension. The
Covid-19 pandemic has reinforced some of these tensions. Sports organisations, government
authorities, non-government organisations (NGOs) and other actors are looking with greater interest
at sport as an arena for diplomacy (Murray, 2018).
Diplomacy is an alternative to confrontation and the use of force and armed conflict. Broadly
defined, diplomacy covers all international relations that are not in the nature of armed conflict and
open warfare. In this connection, I define sports diplomacy as the area for dialogue and negotiation
that has sports as its framework. Both diplomacy in general and sports diplomacy belong to the
political sphere of ‘soft power’ (Murray, 2018; Merkel, 2016).
Objectives
Diplomatic objectives come in many different guises. One type is about promoting one’s own
interests (one’s own international reputation, for example), or concluding favourable resource-
related agreements with other partners. Another objective, which can really also be linked to
enlightened self-interest, is about strengthening universal values: peace and security, human rights,
environmental protection.
Nygård and Gates (2013) provide the following list of objectives for sports diplomacy:
• Strengthening one’s reputation through sport (Qatar is working hard to secure major
sporting events).
• Creating a platform for dialogue (the most famous example is perhaps the “ping-pong
diplomacy” of the 1970s that facilitated the first rapprochement between China and the USA.
• Building trust (such as the football matches between Israeli and Palestinian teams at the
Norway Cup youth football tournament).
• Contributing to peace and reconciliation (exemplified by both major events and grassroots
activities in post-apartheid South Africa (Cornelissen, 2011)).
Types
Murray (2018) points to three types of sports diplomacy.
• Traditional sports diplomacy defined by state use of international sport as a diplomatic tool.
There are many examples, some have already been discussed above. States want to build
their reputations with good sporting results and create platforms for dialogue through
encounters at major events.
• The new sports diplomacy. This is a post-Cold War development, i.e., since the fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989. This kind of diplomacy is network-based, flexible and diverse. It is
engaged in by multiple actors, and amateurs rather than professional diplomats. In addition
to activities during major sporting events, it also encompasses a number of grassroots
activities intended to promote health, socioeconomic development, multicultural
understanding and dialogue, environmental protection and human rights (Hasselgaard, 2015;
Garamvölgyi et al., 2020).
• Sports diplomacy among non-state actors. The major sports associations, such as FIFA and
the IOC, are at the heart of this activity, along with NGOs and with intergovernmental and
supranational organisations such as the UN and EU. Powerful commercial actors, such as
sponsors and media companies, are also involved.
20Murray (2018) points to a fourth kind which is not really a form of diplomacy but rather anti-
diplomacy. Sport is struggling with numerous challenges that represent the opposite of openness and
dialogue and the use of soft power. These include doping, match-fixing, violence, corruption, and
even terrorism.
In the following, I will primarily discuss traditional sports diplomacy and the so-called new sports
diplomacy, this latter being the most relevant in relation to the discussion on the 2022 FIFA World
Cup in Qatar.
Traditional sports diplomacy
In this type of diplomacy, the interaction between government authorities and sport’s
representatives is intended to open the way for broader political objectives. Sport is a diplomatic
door-opener, particularly for states and governments.
Sportswashing means the efforts of problematic political regimes to enhance their international
image with the help of mega sporting events (Chadwick, 2018). The Berlin Olympics in 1936 is a
powerful example of sport as political propaganda. Russia invested record amounts in the Sochi
Olympics in 2014, at the same time as the Russian sport system breached the anti-doping rules, new
Russian laws challenged the rights of LGBT people, and there were preparations to invade the
Crimean Peninsula.
More often, however, states’ use of mega-events for political purposes is unproblematic and
constructive. There is relatively widespread agreement, at least in the eyes of Norwegians, that the
Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in 1994 strengthened Norway’s reputation as an environmentally
conscious and powerful winter sports nation. A more recent example is the 2006 FIFA World Cup in
Germany, one of whose objectives was to strengthen the country’s international reputation (Grix,
2012). And indeed, the world did get to see a playful and smiling Germany.
The “ping-pong diplomacy” of 1971–1972 is a classic example of sport being used to open a platform
for dialogue. The USA sent table-tennis players to the People’s Republic of China as a first step in
rapprochement between two opposing political poles. The diplomatic moves continued with
basketball matches and led to Richard Nixon being the first US president to visit the People’s
Republic of China, where he held talks with Chairman Mao Zedong.
Cricket matches between India and Pakistan, in 2002 during the Kashmir conflict and after the terror
attack in Mumbai 2018, or the so-called baseball diplomacy between the USA and Cuba in the 1970s,
or the football diplomacy between Turkey and Armenia, are other examples of rapprochement,
dialogue and attempts to achieve reconciliation (Murray, 2018). Indeed, baseball diplomacy was
revitalised to a certain extent in 2016. After political talks with Cuban dissidents, Barack Obama met
Cuba’s president Raul Castro informally at a baseball stadium in Havana.
The new sports diplomacy
In recent decades, power relations in sports diplomacy have changed. Merkel (2016) describes three
phases. In the first phase, the post-war period, states competed and sought status and recognition
through sporting achievements. In the next phase, during the Cold War, sport became purely a tool
for exerting pressure, partly through the use of boycott actions. In the third and current phase,
following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the picture has become more complex. Among other
things, more attention is being paid to sport’s distinctive features and sport’s potential for promoting
universal values, such as human rights.
In the so-called new sports diplomacy, the role of the state has changed. In an open and democratic
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