Sports and politics: an unwanted marriage
Opinion > With my studs up!By Rafa XII
Thursday 28 February 2008 21:27 COT
Este artículo está disponible en ESPAÑOL
It is a cruel truth. It should not be this way, but it is like this. Along the history, and in crucial situations, politics interference in sports, besides of being inevitable, has brought more negative than positive elements for an activity that, by definition, is peaceful and looks for the harmony among human beings, in addition to provide a good physical shape, fame and recognition for those who practise it and entertainment for those to follow it as spectators.
The Olympic Games, Result and Victim of Politics
When Iphitos, a Greek king, consulted his oracle on which way would be to avoid wars and the plagues that whipped Greece, he advised him to re-establish the ancestral competitions in honour to Zeus. The Olympics were born and, with some exceptions, they took place regularly every four years between the 776 BC and 394 AD. By that time, it was the Roman Empire the one that ruled the western world, and instead of the gentle Hellenic contests, it institutionalized as its “sports” the ferocious fights to death among gladiators, and other extravagant shows that took place in the still standing Roman Colosseum.
It was necessary to wait until 1896 for the visionary spirit of baron Pierre De Coubertin, which was able to make the leaders of the time made an agreement on it was preferable to compete in a game field or in a track instead of a battlefield. Athens, Paris, Saint Louis, London and Stockholm were the places for the first five modern Olympics, sowing the seed of the fraternity among races and cultures and harvesting its fruits… But some people didn’t think the same way.
World War I not only impeded the celebration of the competitions that would be held in 1916, but rather settled the precedent by the renewal of the Olympics. Since 1920, winners and losers used their sport delegations as propaganda instruments. The spirits were becoming warmer and warmer in the games of Antwerp, Paris, Amsterdam and Los Angeles, in such a way that in Berlin, in 1936, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime took advantage of each one of the events to highlight the alleged superiority of the Aryan race, which three years later would led the humanity to the most awful killing since our ancestors got off the trees and began to walk in two paws.
The millions of dead people in World War II were not enough to make us learn the lesson. Since the competitions were restored, in 1948, Olympics became a perfect scenario for the Cold War and religious and racial conflicts. Thus, United States and its allies, on the one hand, and the Soviets, the countries of the Iron Curtain and those from South East Asia, on the other hand, transformed each edition of the Olympic Games into a face-to-face to match forces between capitalism and communism. Half of the delegations were not formed by sportsmen, but spies. In Mexico 68, American athletes were disqualified for making support expressions to the Black Panthers during the award ceremony. In Munich 72, Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and murdered eleven members of the Olympic team of Israel, and, in reprisal, the government of Golda Meir ordered a bloody operation of revenge that extended for years, and in which many guilty and innocent people died.
In 1976, Rumania’s dictator, Nicolae Ceauşescu, transformed the multiple gymnastics champion in the games of Montreal, Nadia Comaneci, in a symbol of the sports power inside the communist system, compared to the decadent western model. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and immediately, US President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would not participate in Moscow 1980. In 1983, Yuri Andropov, successor of Brezhnev, took revenge and declared that the Soviet sportsmen would not be in Los Angeles 1984. The ill Kremlin leader and former director of the terrible KGB, did not live to see it, but his boycott order was fulfilled. As if these shameful facts were not enough, during this whole time spare, South Africa was taken apart from the Olympic Games and of most of world competitions to maintain its hateful segregationist policy known as apartheid.
Football does not escape… EITHER
Of course the most popular sport in the world has been used as political instrument. Just remember Vittorio Pozzo and their eleven boys that, beneath the traditional “azzurra” Italian shirt, wore the black shirt that stood up for the Fascist party commanded by Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, master and lord of the totalitarian state established in Italy. In the final game against Czechoslovakia, not only the fans suffered as they saw that the Czechs scored the first goal, and then the 1-1 forced to an extra time. Also, the footballers and the coach knew that not getting the World Cup could be mean to be executed. Luckily for them, Italy won 2-1 and everybody was happy (and ALIVE…!). In favor of the Italian National team it is necessary to say that four years later confirmed the title beating 4-2 to Hungary in French lands, without the pressure of the Duce or the fear of being shot either. So far, Vittorio Pozzo has been the only coach who has won two FIFA World Cups.
Perhaps it is a coincidence, or perhaps it is not. Like in Olympics, the cases of interference of politics in football are related many times with dictatorial regimes. If above we mentioned Hitler, Ceauşescu and Soviet dinosaurs, and now the case of Mussolini with the Italian team, it is necessary to add another case: “Generalissimo” Francisco Franco and the Real Madrid of Spain. After the bloody civil war, the nationalists, in head of the “Commander”, were in charge of reconstructing the country and as a part of the symbols of that New Spain, according to them, it was convenient to have something that brought entertainment to desperate people… And nothing was better than football to cheer up the spirit of the Spaniards.
You can guess that, in spite of being Galician, Franco did not want to become powerful the teams of his homeland (Deportivo La Coruña, Compostela, Deportivo Lugo or Celta of Vigo) so that the thing was not so evident. So it would be less noticeable if they choose a team like the Real Madrid, which had been champion only twice. The rest is history. During Franco’s long government (1936-1975), Real Madrid, with Zamora, Di Stefano, Puskas and other stars that succeeded them along the years, won 14 local championships and six Generalissimo Cups, that added to the six King’s Cups and two President’s Cups from the years before the civil war, gave to the Real Madrid an impressive curriculum.
It can be thought that Franco’s regime favoured Real Madrid, -as it is said by fans of the Athletic of Madrid, Barcelona and the other teams-, but that argument languishes if they look the six Champions Leagues, the two Latin Cups and the Intercontinental Cup that the so called “meringue” team won in that time, playing inside and outside of Spain. As Pilate, we could say there was something of this and something of that. Maybe the Real Madrid was supported by the government, but it was also a very good team. And for the suspicious ones, after the restoration of the democracy, Real Madrid has won other three Champions Leagues, other two Intercontinental Cups, one Super Cup of Europe and two UEFA Cups. Besides, since 1975 it has won 14 local championships, four King’s Cups and seven Super Cups of Spain. Will there be some help beyond-the-grave from the Valley of the Dead (a military cemetery where Franco is buried) for these achievements?
And yes, the case of Argentina 1978 comes to our minds. The military government headed by General Jorge Videla was responsible for the organization of an event that palliated the difficult situation that the common people were going through. From the sport and economic point of view, the World Cups is always set so that the local team gets the highest possible position, and if it becomes champion, even better. What complicated the calendar of the “gauchos” was the defeat 0-1 against Italy in the first round, which sent Argentina’s team to the second place of its group, so it had to play in Rosario instead of Buenos Aires. Added to this, in the next stage Argentina got a tie 0-0 against Brazil, which scored three goals to the Peruvians. That scored forced Argentina to win Peru for four goals or more to go to the final match against the Netherlands.
We have been hearing versions for 30 years that there was or not something out of normal in that game. Argentina won 6-0, but few people remember that when the party was tied without goals, Peru had a shot in the pole and seconds after, Chumpitaz wasted a goal chance in the goalmouth of Fillol that made fifty thousand people at the “Gigante de Arroyito” held their breath. In the final match against the Netherlands (watch video), returning to the “Monumental of Núñez”, something similar happened: In the last play of the normal time, and with the scored tied 1-1, a shot of Rensenbrik hit against the right post of the Argentinean goalmouth. The ball bounced, a defender kicked it away, and the referee finished the regular game, leaving the suspense to 30 extra minutes in those Argentina won by 3-1. Had that Dutch goal scored, nobody would be speculating today on bribe to Ramón Chupete Quiroga (the Peruvian goalkeeper), neither of shipments of corn sent to Lima some weeks after the 1978 World Cup.
This article was published 28 February 2008 on equinoXio. Translated from Spanish by Rafa XII
Tags: Adolf Hitler, Argentina, Benito Mussolini, Black Panthers, FIFA World Cup, Francisco Franco, Germany, Golda Meir, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jorge Videla, Mexico, Munich, Netherlands, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Olympic Games, Palestina, Peru, politics, Real Madrid, Rumania, South Africa, sports, sports and politics, USSR, Vittorio Pozzo, Yuri Andropov
