“Focus on football,” they told Pep Guardiola when he sympathised with the slaughtered. “Not his duty…we are not politicians,” Mauricio Pochettino reacted when asked about Timothy Weah’s comment that World Cup tickets were too pricey for most. “We are not politicians,” said the US men’s team head coach, adding that Weah’s job is “playing football.”
Closer home, and with everything about Sunday’s World T20 match between India and Pakistan in Colombo still up in the air, ANI quoted Congress MP Shashi Tharoor as saying that he doesn’t like politics in sport. “Let politicians do their politics somewhere else.”
An antediluvian idea
Tharoor, Pochettino and the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester and Region, who were angry at Guardiola’s ability to empathise, are entitled to their opinion but keeping sport and politics apart is antediluvian. Without it South Africa would not have faced international isolation, Olympics would not have been boycotted, Russia would not have been kept away and India and Pakistan would not have played only in cricket World Cup and that too on neutral venues.
Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych wearing a helmet with portraits of compatriots killed in the war with Russia at the Winter Olympics showed how they mix all the time. (He was banned by the International Olympic Committee for refusing to change it). But the point is best illustrated by a conversation between Bob Hawke, a former prime minister but then chief executive of Australian Council of Trade Unions, and Don Bradman about why Australia should not play South Africa.
Bradman told Hawke that politics and sport should be like opposite coloured bishops in chess. Hawke agreed but said it was the South African government that had brought politics into sport by deciding that no person who is not white will be allowed to represent the country in sport. Bradman, Tim Wigmore recalls in “Test Cricket, A History”, looked at Hawke for 30 seconds and said: “I’ve got no answer to that Bob.”
Also at the Winter Olympics, journalists with Italian public broadcaster RAI decided to go on strike protesting against the gaffes by the organisation’s head while commentating on the opening ceremony. The San Siro was called the Olympic Stadium, the Spanish athletes were “always very hot” and the Chinese “naturally” had phones in their hands. The strike call comes in the light of what AFP says: “Nominations for top positions at Italy’s public broadcaster are often seen as political and (Paolo) Petrecca has been accused in the past of bias towards Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.”
This happened a little over two months after FIFA gave Donald Trump its first FIFA Peace Prize. “Football stands for peace, unity and togetherness, and we recognise @potus’s exceptional and extraordinary actions to promote peace and unity around the world. I thank you President Trump for all that you do and you can always count on my support, and on the support of the entire football community, to help make peace and prosperity all over the world,” said FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
Make what you will of that but the award was presented at the World Cup draw where coincidentally or otherwise, USA allowed officials from Iran to be present not long after it was said they would miss skip the event.
Help from the government
This Saturday, after trials and tribulations, the 12th season of Indian Super League (ISL) will start. One that wouldn’t have happened had the sports ministry not intervened. One that wouldn’t have had 14 teams had the union sports minister not announced that all of them would be taking part. One that needed a request from the sports ministry to state governments to “waive”, “subsidise” or offer at “concessional” rate, stadiums, practice facilities and ancillaries associated with hosting matches to clubs. One where clubs have asked the sports ministry for a concession on uplink fees and “associated broadcast related charges”.
While preparation for the season was in full swing, one team wanted to be the ISL’s 15th member at the last-minute. Caring a fig for the logistical nightmare it could create or the fact that All India Football Federation (AIFF) would lose face at the Asian Football Confederation, the team had reportedly tried to get influential politicians in their corner as a way of pressuring football’s apex body. The proposal was shot down by the AIFF’s executive committee.
Sport and politics will always meet. This week was proof.
