Sports in times of war: for once FIFA is on site

Opinions have always been divided on the question of whether sport and politics should be strictly separated. The Olympic Movement knows this discussion all too well; its history is littered with boycotts, boycott threats and exclusions due to political disputes. Football – as the war in Ukraine and the World Cup in Qatar have shown – is increasingly unable to escape this demand.

As a society we are quite fickle in our attitude to this. In times of war and crisis, the call for sport to make a clear political statement regularly becomes louder. When things aren’t right, athletes are often told to be largely apolitical.

As early as 1936, the vote was anything but unanimous. At that time, people in many countries around the world demanded that their athletes stay away from the Nazi games in Berlin. But in the end, only Spain left its athletes at home. At the head of those who successfully opposed the boycott was a certain Avery Brundage, then chairman of the US National Olympic Committee. Decades later, the man was IOC president – ​​and as such he was repeatedly noticed for his racist mentality.

It was Brundage who denigrated the raised fists of African-American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics as a “mentally confused act of failed characters” in protest against racism. At his insistence, the two medalists were suspended from the U.S. team and expelled from the Olympic Village. Four years later, the top sports official again demonstrated his power when, after the Olympic attack in Munich, in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes and coaches, he dismissed all concerns and announced that the Games would go ahead: “The Games must go ahead. .»

Munich 1972 as dogma

Onwards, further and further, just don’t stop – that has become something of a sporting dogma since those sad days in September 1972. What happened on Monday in Brussels during the European Championship qualifier between Belgium and Sweden is all the more remarkable. When players and coaches from both teams were told at halftime that two Swedish fans had been shot by an assassin who appeared to be Islamist-motivated, they had only one decision: cancel the match. Not because of safety concerns, because according to those responsible on site there were no such concerns. No, just out of shock at what happened and out of sympathy for the victims.

The war in Israel and the Gaza Strip is now the latest source of conflict, in which sport is once again called upon to take a political position. And here – just like outside of sport – worlds come together. The Islamic on the one hand and the Jewish and Christian on the other. In recent days, football has seen high-profile players add fuel to the fire via social media by blaming Israel and uncritically spreading Islamic propaganda.

Some respond, others don’t

Clubs such as Nice and Mainz took immediate action and suspended their players Youcef Atal and Anwar El Ghazi respectively. For others, such as FC Bayern’s Tunisian star Noussair Mazraoui, the club is still waiting for a response. French world footballer Karim Benzema has nothing to fear despite his unmistakable anti-Israel post; After all, he has been playing for Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia since the summer. As a result, for many people, the exceptional footballer has probably ended up in the bottom drawer when it comes to his reputation, at least in Europe.

However, the tone has been set – for once – by the much-maligned FIFA, which spoke out a few days ago in an open letter from its president Gianni Infantino. Football stands in “absolute solidarity with the people of Israel and Palestine,” the Valais resident wrote. Although people do not mean terrorists, the statement is therefore probably in the spirit of the entire football world. And Infantino added a remarkable sentence: Football shows “that it is possible to bring people together in an environment of mutual respect and thus promote peace and reconciliation.” Football as a model for politics, so to speak. Sports couldn’t be more political.