Sport and Society – a qualitatively powerful combination
Over the past several centuries much has been spoken and written about the value of sport. More recently we have been inundated with individuals and organisations bringing sport in the fight against crime, against discrimination, against racism, against climate change, for the protection of nature, for health, gender equality, mental well-being, peace, social solidarity, and unity at all levels of society. There now seems that the global community is in agreement that sport is integral to the human condition in virtually every respect.
Many have turned to the powerful comments made by Nelson Mandela, during his presidency of South Africa and the success of the national team in the Rugby World Cup, about the power of sport to change lives and by extension, societies.
Here in St Vincent and the Grenadines, we have witnessed efforts made to create institutions relating to sport, the most notable being ‘Sport Against Crime’, this against the backdrop of an ‘Education Revolution’ and ‘Pan Against Crime’. Mention must be made here of the fact that neither of the two aforementioned institutions have made any impact on the state of crime in the nation.
The number of young people, especially those who have been born in the post 2001 era, who have been caught up in crime in the recent past, speaks volumes of the inefficiency of the initiatives undertaken to stem criminal activity in our country. The initiatives had proven to be abject failures.
Vincentians are aware of several sportspersons having been involved in criminal activities in the past several years, and of those who would have lost their lives in the pursuit of the chosen field in crime.
Sport and values
Positives
For more than a century, sport has been lauded and encouraged by those who have long associated it with positive values and the enhancement of the human condition.
Sport leaders almost always saw themselves ads helping to benefit society by engaging youth in the playing arena.
Sport was seen as facilitating the building of character in players. This involved instilling discipline, commitment, a sense of fair play, solidarity, camaradery and long-lasting friendship.
In the United Kingdom, many of the sporting organisations developed in communities and even today, it is possible to still see football being associated with cities around the nation. The depth of this aspect of English football was revealed when fans responded vociferously to the suggestion of a Super Clubs competition on the continent.
The reality of sport clubs being directly linked to communities extends to many countries around the world and has not changed despite the professional managerial approach to procuring players from different countries to join them.
When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was established in 1894, it quickly became a willing ally in the effort to link positive values to sport. In its fundamental principles, the IOC’s Charter states, ‘Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for internationally recognised human rights and universal fundamental ethical principles within the remit of the Olympic Movement…The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity’.
The growing popularity of sport and its global impact on nations has allowed the media to market it as an integral component of society.
Everywhere, the media has sold the world that sport is a great unifier. The IOC has marketed the Olympic Games as bringing athletes from around the world tgether to compete in ‘friendly’ rivalry in an atmosphere of peace and unity. Mandela enunciated this same phenomenon in his native South Africa an dsuggested that this could be replicated everywhere that sport in practised.
Contradictions
The harsh truth of the history of sport, however, reveals stark contradictions in practice, to the extent that many are forced to ask whether there was ever a time when sport lived up to its lofty ideals, casting aside all the negatives.
In Ancient Greece it appears that the Olympics focused on the involvement of the ‘educated class’ more than the rest of society and also discriminated against women’s participation.
In the United Kingdom, the ‘plebs’ were denied participation in sport since it was generally reserved for the upper and upper middle classes.
Long before the establishment of the IOC and the Olympic Games, evidence pointed to what was described as ‘hooliganism’ in the sport of football. There are those who would confess that this is one aspect of the game that has not lost its place through the ages. Today we must add negative issues such as rabid racism in a variety of forms amongst the darkest side of football.
The IOC has nonetheless continued its pursuit of linking positive values in sport with the discipline.
In September 2022 there was a BBC news article that stated, ‘Richarlison says racism will continue “every day and everywhere” unless the authorities “punish” the perpetrators after a banana was thrown at him during Brazil’s 5-1 win over Tunisia.
The incident took place after the Tottenham striker celebrated scoring Brazil’s second goal in the Paris friendly.
Black footballers playing in Europe have had crowds make animal sounds while they played the game.
Over the past week, Arsenal striker, Kai Havertz, and his wife were severely abused online because the player failed to score during the game ‘s 90 minutes and later missed a penalty in the shoot out.
The article stated, ‘The German’s wife Sophia shared screenshots of the “shocking” abuse she received on social media amid the game, including threats to the couple’s unborn child’.
Arsenal’s manager, Arteta is quoted as saying ‘It’s incredible, honestly…We really have to do something about it, because accepting that and hiding this has terrible consequences…It’s something we have to eradicate from the game because it’s so cynical and dependent to a result of an action…There is no other industry like this…We are all responsible. That’s a really serious matter. It affects me. It affects him and everybody that is in the industry’.
In the USA, for decades it was thought that blacks were only fit for sport and music, not general academia. But even in sport, for many years it was thought that blacks were too dumb to remember the plays so they could not be considered for the quarterback position in American Football.
A study undertaken by British Equestrian in 2023 revealed that ‘Bullying is “commonplace” and race, and class bias are “perpetuated” within equestrian sports…equestrian activity was deemed to be “elitist and classist”.
Society reflected
As a social institution sport is as much influenced by society as it influences what happens in society. This helps to explain the challenges in the relationship between sport and society.
Sport therefore, reflects the society in which it operates at any given point in time.
It is not at all surprising, therefore, that sport has had as much confusing a oathway through the years as has society, generally. When women were generally being discriminated against in society, this was also the case in sport. When blacks and minorities were being discriminated in societies the same was happening in sport.
In every historical epoch it has been a truism that what obtained in sport reflected what was happening in society.
When the women’s liberation movement gathered pace and global support, women were allowed, increasingly, to become involved in sport.
Today’s spawning of international sport organisations that engage themselves in contemporary challenges facing society comes as no surprise. So we have focuses on Sport and Peace, Sport and Nature, and Sport and the Environment. The list continues to expand as manking responds to ever emerging challenges.
In the relatively recent past, the IOC has finally brought the broader global concern about the protection of the human rights of individuals into focus and in its remit. This however, came much later. It took the actions of many other international sport federations to combat the negatives in sport before the IOC found itself almost anachrtonistic in its seeming hesitancy to act.
Today, international sports organisations must confront the contentious changes in the concept of gender and its multivarious implications. Failure to do so will only delay the process of change but it is inevitable as the numbers falling in the new definitional categories consistently increases. There is safety in numbers when they come together to confront society.
Across societies, there is now a clarion call for something to be done to end the negatives associated with sport.
It is interesting that the IOC has agreed with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) to include Lacrosse on the sports programme for the Olympic Games of 2028. Lacrosse is a sport created by the indigenous peoples of the Americas and which the latter have been keeping alive in different parts of the world.
Notably, no mention is being made of the connection between indigenous peoples of the Americas and the sport of Lacrosse following its announced inclusion in Los Angeles2028.
Athletes are being invited to form their own Commissions in different international sporting organisations and their respective member federations at home. These athletes are far more aware of the rapidly ch anging world in which we live and are committed to ensuring that not only are their voices heard but that they are aggressively acted upon, to their collective benfit. This is the reasonw hy we are certain that athletes around the world are onto a good thing in asking to receive financial rewards for their medal-winning performances at the Olympic Games. This demand will soon be made to all other multisport Games organisers going forward.
Voluntarism is on the decline as the cost of living uncontrollably rises on a very consistent basis, everywhere and every individual’s time is precious and valuable. It stands to reason that just as amateurism gradually disappeared from sport, so too will voluntarism.
The time is here when sporting organisations must engage themselves in consistent analyses of the changes taking place in the societies in which they operate and determine what inputs they wish to make to themselves and to those very societies. Around the world, it is increasingly the case that athletes are becoming critical opinion-shapers. National federations must understand this and determine how theyw ould address it going forward.
