Sport as a Soft Power Tool

The decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to award the 2020 Olympic Games to Tokyo has made tens of millions of Japanese very happy and more than a hundred million Spaniards and Turks distraught. Spain is right to rue a golden opportunity to enhance its image on the international stage. The Barcelona Olympiad of 1992 truly put Spain in the global limelight, cementing its place amongst Western liberal democracies as an aspiring economic power which had successfully overcome a terrible authoritarian past. Madrid’s loss has meant there will be no repetition of Olympic glory.
 
As for the Turks, having never held the Olympics on their territory this loss is a bitter one. It is the fifth time Istanbul has been by-passed by the IOC. This time round it had the best chance ever competing against a city representing economic decline and increasing unemployment coupled with fear for the future. Its other rival, the city that eventually won, did so despite the fact that it had hosted the Games in 1964 as well as being only 150 miles from the earthquake and tsunami that hit the north-east of the country two years ago which has led to extremely high levels of radiation emanating from the Fukushima nuclear plant.
 
The reason why Spanish, Turkish and Japanese diplomats strove to host the Olympic Games is related to both their profession and history. Diplomacy is as old as the hills. Sport is probably older. Ever since humans inhabited the earth they have felt a need to communicate and compete. Competition at the dawn of civilisation probably involved gathering the most berries and being first to kill a rabbit. Communication would have involved demonstrating through bragging about one’s success in the forest outside the cave.
 
We know from history that in ancient times both sport and diplomacy acquired certain rules and regulations. Soldiers were selected to be messengers and carry the views of their chieftains to other leaders. Athletes were ordered to line up and race each other over a specific distance – 200 metres for the ancient Olympic Games - and wrestlers tried to rest their opponent’s backs on the ground.
 
Leaders who received messages learnt about what their equals were proposing or contemplating. Athletes also found out about the villages and the regions their rivals were from. Therefore, both diplomats and sportsmen got to convey and receive information about their respective territories. Quite naturally it was the messengers who carried correspondence relating to trade treaties or alliance proposals, whereas it was most likely that wrestlers exchanged information about training and diet.
 
Over time, with the inception of the Olympic Games, the spectacle of sport became widespread and much treasured. Although no actual treasure was handed over to the champions -only the sacred olive tree wreath being laid on their head - they were, however, heralded as the winner, with their father's name and homeland also being announced. Such advertising and marketing opportunities were unrivalled at that time.
 
Whilst these champions did not receive monetary rewards, they did personally benefit from receiving free meals for life, free board and lodging, theater seats and after the fifth century B.C. exclusion from taxes. What was perhaps much more significant concerned the prestige the winner’s village or town gained. As personal victory was clearly identified with contributing to the acknowledgment of the athlete's city, some towns would pay for their athlete's training. Thus, even in ancient times political office-holders understood that sporting achievements would sooner or later revert back to them.
 
Public Diplomacy
 
Just as sports have developed over the millennia so has diplomacy. As more and more events were added to sporting competitions (ending the monopoly of the 200 metres) so were different methods to achieve diplomatic aims. An important shift took place in the post-war period with the rise of public diplomacy. The Edward R. Murrow Center for Public Diplomacy at Tufts University, defines public diplomacy as dealing “with the influence of public attitudes on the formation and execution of foreign policies. It encompasses dimensions of international relations beyond traditional diplomacy; the cultivation by governments of public opinion in other countries; the interaction of private groups and interests in one country with those of another; the reporting of foreign affairs and its impact on policy; communication between those whose job is communication, as between diplomats and foreign correspondents; and the processes of inter-cultural communications."
 
The Indian Foreign Ministry considers public diplomacy “as the framework of activities by which a government seeks to influence public attitudes in a manner that they become supportive of its foreign policy and national interests. It differs from traditional diplomacy in that public diplomacy goes beyond governments and interfaces primarily with non-governmental individuals and organizations. Furthermore, public diplomacy activities often present many differing views as represented by private individuals and organizations in addition to official Government views and positions.... It requires systems that acknowledge the importance of an increasingly interconnected world where citizens expect responsiveness to their concerns on foreign policy and other issues.”
 
Organised cultural visits, such as philharmonic orchestras are therefore, part of public diplomacy. Though one must not forget that public diplomacy goes beyond one-way communication - it is about listening not only to fellow diplomats but to a wide range of actors. For it to be successful, it must be actively engaged with the public in a manner that builds, over a period of time, a relationship of trust and credibility. Sports events are a prime venue where such an endeavour can and does take place.
 
Any cursory look at the money spent on international sports events highlights how much greater that sum is compared to slender public diplomacy budgets. It is not only the staggering sums that are allocated to major sporting competitions but also the size of the audience that can be and is attracted. When the level of interest is coupled to this fact it becomes quite clear that sports overtake news programmes and motion pictures in terms of international impact.
 
2013 World Athletics Championships - Moscow 
 
A good example demonstrating this was the 2013 World Athletics Championships held in Moscow. Very few spectators and an equal proportion of the global audience were knowledgeable about Jamaica, some perhaps never having heard of this small Caribbean island. It is not a country that appears very often in the global mainstream media. Nevertheless, even people with a passing interest in track and field longed to watch the 100 metres final. In that race they followed the ongoing exploits of Usain Bolt - whom they know is Jamaican. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that a single individual, a single sporting personality has put his country on the map, with his distinctive yellow jersey, for all to see.
 
A global sporting forum such as the one witnessed in Moscow provided Jamaica with an enormous opportunity to associate itself with victory and glory. With no disrespect to Jamaican diplomats, it is simply not possible to achieve such publicity through other channels of traditional or public diplomacy.
 
The potential benefit of such a positive sporting message is that it can be utilised as a tray on which other messages can also be carried. Unfortunately for Jamaica, this has been badly damaged by the revelation of five of its athletes - including the country’s most successful female athlete, the twice Olympic 200 metres champion Veronica Campbell-Brown - as having tested positive for drugs. This is a tremendous blow not only for Jamaica, but for the whole sporting community that strives on noble values such as fair competition. The inclusion of former double world champion Tyson Gay, the joint-second fastest man ever over 100m, proved to be devastating for athletics enthusiasts and an embarrassment for the United States.
 
Ethical foreign policy is much talked of and quite rare to witness. Similarly drug-free athletes are always accepted as the norm but recently there have been so many violations that one begins to have serious doubts. Given the fact that sports can project such positive imagery for nations, drugs have been an unwelcome visitor to those countries which are either too poor to purchase them, or are committed to Olympian values. For the many states that do not fall into these two categories, the use of steroids is not a new phenomenon.
 
The women’s world records set by one American and other Soviet and Eastern Bloc athletes for the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 100m hurdles, High jump, Long jump, Shot put and Discus have remained unbroken for thirty years or so. Given the fact that records in all other categories have long ago been broken, it is difficult to accept that those athletes competed fairly and were free from drugs.
 
It has long been suspected that during the Cold War the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic viewed sporting achievements as highlighting their political systems to a global audience. By winning they naturally concluded that it enhanced their state’s reputation. Therefore, these countries assisted their athlete’s performances by giving them banned substances in order to secure “victory” which naturally meant “defeat” for their adversaries, namely the western democracies.
 
There are other contemporary countries such as Iran that believe their reputation will be elevated by refraining from competing against Israeli athletes. Whatever Tehran wishes to believe, such actions only endear it to extreme Islamists, which is a constituency Iran already feels close to. The rest of the sporting community is left very much unimpressed.
 
A particularly disappointing recent development has been the inclusion of athletes from countries usually not identified with drug taking or major athletics successes such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Qatar, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Albania, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey.
 
In June the IAAF declared that two Turkish athletes were suspected of doping. Having the 2012 Olympic 1500 metres champion Aslı Çakır Alptekin be confirmed as a previous user of banned substances – she endured a two-year ban from the track in September 2004 due to positive testing – had already left a very bad taste in the mouth for some Turkish athletic fans, which was made worse when Nevin Yanıt, the double European 100 metres hurdles champion, was identified as the second athlete alongside Alptekin to be charged.
 
Therefore, just as the Jamaicans have learnt, athletics success is a double-edged sword. It is very welcome when it happens and the athletes are proven to have competed fairly, though a disaster when accused of - in effect - cheating. Yet as optimists always assert, in every crisis there is an opportunity. Both for Jamaica and Turkey, effective and decisive action taken by their respective Athletics Federations punishing the perpetrators and installing much stricter testing arrangements can result in them leading the way to curtail the evil of doping, thus being seen as trendsetters or trailblazers. To its credit the Turkish Athletics Federation did ban 31 athletes for two years for their doping-related transgressions. Despite taking such a measure, Istanbul could not shake off the questions relating to doping during its bidding to host the 2020 Olympics.
 
Bearing all these in mind, one must remember that the attractiveness of sport in terms of public diplomacy is the positive attributes it contains such as the nobility of the competition, the adherence to fair-play, the beauty of the competition. Added to this, for many of the participants, it is the first time they will travel abroad and meet face-to-face with a different culture. The experience of meeting foreign competitors and a foreign audience is an opportunity to demonstrate soft power.
 
Whilst some young athletes are new to international meets, established stars have effectively formed themselves into a transnational social elite, participating in the Diamond League which is held in cities such as London, Paris, Rome, New York and Shanghai. It is the global stars of track and field such as Bolt, Isinbayeva, Bondarenko, James and Kipruto whom attract the attention of both the national audience sitting in the stadium as well as the hundreds of millions, if not billions watching on their television screens.
 
Sport: Enhancing Soft Power
 
It is precisely this power of attraction that makes sports and those competing in it a ready-made opportunity to attach national values, aims and characteristics to broadcast to the world. It is a significant vessel within which the attributes of soft power can be transported wider, further and deeper – certainly much more than can be hoped for than by cultural exchanges.
 
When one ventures into the domain of professional sports then one enters a completely different arena of worship. The effect of the Boston Celtics playing against Fenerbahçe Ülker in October 2012 witnessed the level of interest and enthusiasm garnered for American professional basketball in Istanbul. Needless to say, the first ever victory recorded by a Turkish team over an NBA team made the occasion that much sweeter. Examples such as these can be multiplied the world over. Suffice it only to mention the global phenomenon that David Beckham has been over the last decade and a half, and the near-messianic status attributed to Lionel Messi.
 
Through these sportsmen, the U.K. and Argentina enjoy positive connotations. Incidentally, Beckham was instrumental in securing London to be the host of the 2012 Games, though unsuccessful for the candidature to host the FIFA World Cup in 2018. Henceforth, however noticeable and likeable an individual sporting personality may be, it is no guarantee for hosting major tournaments. Nevertheless, one cannot imagine any country rejecting people of Beckham and Messi’s caliber campaigning for them.
 
Therefore, sport intrinsically as well as institutionally crosses borders. Each sport has a federation, whether it be FIFA for football, IAAF for Athletics, FINA for swimming or FILA for wrestling. Whilst all of these are meant to overarch nations and to lend themselves as an arena for interaction, it is clear to observe the work of federations on behalf of nations. As much as these federations are founded upon going beyond nationality one observes the machinery for maneuvering to satisfy national demands.
 
One of the reasons for such moves and actions concerns the undeniable fact that each sport has to have a home where the competitions will be held. The current world championship in athletics is in Moscow which will end next Sunday. The next will be held in 2015 in Beijing with London hosting in 2017, thereby giving both countries that have held the past two Olympic Games another opportunity to shine on the sporting stage. Another previous Olympic city which is enjoying its spot back in the limelight is Barcelona, currently hosting the FINA Swimming World Championships. All three cities and countries have benefitted from a positive image portrayed on the global stage and fervently hope to replicate the same experience and appearance.
 
Hosting major sporting events, however, does not necessarily mean the projection of a positive image. The worst example must be Munich when it hosted the Olympic Games in 1972 and suffered a terrorist attack. Despite not experiencing such a tragedy, Athens and Greece have not fared well after 2004. The impression that the venues for the games were barely completed on time and very much beyond the scheduled budget has been made worse by the ongoing economic difficulties the country has been experiencing over the past few years. As the international financial markets and credit ratings agencies can attest, Greece is not considered to be a credible country to invest in.
 
To conclude, whilst there are countries in the world there will be a need for diplomacy. Policy-makers will strive to seek or create new and imaginative ways of getting their messages across. In the past, conquest was the preferred option. In today’s world it is not the use or threat of force that is preferred, but convincing your target that what you offer is really what they want.
 
Even if what is offered differs greatly from what is desired, the attractiveness of the image rather than the reality is being pursued by all powers great and small. Sports are a wonderful arena within which to pursue such a strategy, which is why it has become an area of interest in terms of public diplomacy attempting to increase its soft power.
 
Japan is well known for its post-war constitutional defence limitations and its peaceful foreign policy actions. Japan has played an important part in international politics through introducing its culture, especially utilizing its language programs throughout the world. It has tried to attract world opinion to the Japanese way of looking at things and how its culture has developed over the centuries. Putting all these endeavours and strategies together has certainly enhanced Japanese soft power over the past few decades.
 
As successful as Japan has been in increasing its soft power, it now eagerly awaits its best opportunity yet, hosting the Olympic Games in 2020. For the next seven years the world’s attention will be on Japan as it prepares for this mega event. Quite naturally that will mean literally thousands of hours of free, and by and large positive, radio and media coverage alongside kilometers of printed matter, whether in traditional published newspapers and journals or in electronic format.
 
Whilst Turkey has lost its best and Spain another opportunity to appear on the global stage, Japan has claimed the title of unrivalled victor, set to dominate billions of people’s views, perceptions, hearts and minds.
 
All that remains to be said within the Olympic spirit is:
 
おめでとうございます
東京*

* Congratulations Tokyo.