Politics and Sports: At What Point Is Too Far?

There is talk in the various political forums that dot the internet as well as the BBC's Have Your Say that many would like to see a boycott of the World Cup in South Africa in two years time because of the support that Thabo Mbeki, the president of the country, has towards Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.

Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF Party allegedly won the presidential runoff election on June 27th after a campaign of intimidation and violence towards those who supported the opposition. Many governments around the world saw the election as undemocratic and the Mugabe government as illegitimate.

As well, many would like to see the upcoming Olympics in Beijing boycotted because of the human rights violations they have, their policy towards Tibet, their involvement in Darfur and other things.

The Olympics and other international sporting events have been traditionally seen as a place of competing without any political talk or political action happening. However, it is also seen as a place to get an international audience because of the power that the media has, which leads to political activism trying to get in the way.

Politics and sports, more specifically the Olympics, is not a new phenomenon. In 1980, the US led a boycott of 62 countries of that year's games in Moscow, while Russia returned the favour four years later by having 14 countries of the Soviet Bloc boycott the games in Los Angeles.

Of course, that was the Cold War and is considered to be history now. We tend to believe that we are better than that, but are we?

If people want to boycott the World Cup in 2010 because of how a politician feels towards another country, then we are no better than we were almost 30 years ago.

The way I see it, the grounds for boycotting an international sporting event for political reasons would have to be something that happens domestically, not bilaterally. If we continued to boycott events because of the host's policy towards another independent nation, then we might as well have boycotted the 2002 Winter Olympics in the Salt Lake City because of their foreign policy towards the Middle East.

A country's policy towards another, just because they are not necessarily in line with the rest of the world should not cease a sports event from happening. I've always seen sporting events as being free from politics. Sports are about competition and having fun, not to bring up the demons of the past.

The one match that reminds me most of camaraderie even through political tension was the Iran vs. USA soccer match at the 1998 World Cup in Lyon, France. Iran and the USA do not have a good relationship, but in the pre-match photo, the teams posed hand in hand for a group picture and it was a very clean game played, with Iran winning 2-1.

This match was truly an example of not allowing politics to get in the way of sport and it would be nice if everyone could take a hint from this.

Politics and sports do not mix nor should they ever mix. Let the politicians do their politicking behind closed doors and let the people enjoy some sport.