Action Replay: Breaks, shirts and cards (2026)

The Action Replay column from the August 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard 

 

‘Football unites the world’ is a FIFA slogan, but the recent World Cup tournament did a great deal to point up the divisions which currently exist.

With three host countries and long travelling distances, it was always going to be a complicated enterprise. A total of 48 teams, 104 matches and 52 referees, all far more than previously: just 64 games in recent years and, when England hosted in 1966, 16 teams and 32 matches. There were plenty of complaints about the prices for tickets, food and drink, accommodation and travel. But then the whole thing is largely about money, with an estimate of $80bn being the economic ‘output’ of the whole competition, both qualifying matches and the finals.  A number of games did have quite a lot of empty seats, though.

There was plenty of politics involved too. The Uruguay team had to undergo searches of their luggage when they arrived in the US, and a Somalian referee and some Iranian supporters were denied entry there. Haiti were forced to change their shirts for the finals, on the grounds that their first choice was political, in that it showed a flag which referred to the Haitian ‘revolution’ and the country’s ‘independence’ in 1804. Not that the anthems and ubiquitous flags are in any way political.

Then there was Trump’s intervention. A US player was sent off against Bosnia-Herzegovina, which, according to the regulations, meant he should miss the next match, a last-sixteen tie against Belgium. But Trump has a record of pardoning people, even for serious offences, and he appealed to the head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, to have the suspension overturned. Infantino is a bit of a lapdog for Trump, having awarded him the fantasy FIFA Peace Prize, and indeed the player in question was allowed to take part against Belgium. Not that it did much good, as Belgium won 4–1, and the shenanigans may even have inspired the Belgian players a bit.

The hydration breaks in each half might be a good idea, given the temperatures at some games. But they have happened on cooler days too, and they are officially Powerade hydration breaks, sponsored by a sports drink. On US TV the breaks are occupied by commercials. There have been claims, too, that the breaks can alter the momentum of a match, giving one or other side an advantage. So a game of two halves may be becoming a game of four quarters.

One thing the competition has shown, though, is the extent of migration and the impact it has on ‘national’ teams. Many squads consist in large part of sons of migrants or of ex-pats, people who moved to another country but whose family still have links of some kind to their original ‘home’. Football may not unite the world, but it demonstrates how the world and its population are changing.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: You can’t play here (2026)

The Action Replay column from the April 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Probably the best-known example of a sporting boycott was that of South Africa under apartheid, which lasted from 1964 to 1992 and involved not just cricket and rugby tours but also the Olympic Games. As other examples, the US and other countries boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and in 1984 the Soviet Union and others boycotted the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

An alternative to a complete boycott has been to allow athletes from specific countries to compete, but as ‘neutrals’ rather than representing ‘their’ country. Russian athletes have only been allowed to compete as neutrals in recent Olympics, so no national anthems if they win a gold medal. Athletes from Russia and Belarus have been barred too, but at this year’s Winter Paralympics they were permitted to compete under a national flag. This is supposedly because there is now less evidence of Paralympic sport being used to promote the invasion of Ukraine.

Suggestions of a boycott have also been raised concerning this summer’s Football World Cup. Iran has been attacked by massive US and Israeli air strikes; their football team was due to play its three qualifying group matches in different US cities, and the head of Iran’s football federation wondered if participation would be possible. Donald Trump has generously said that he doesn’t care if Iran takes part, describing it as ‘a very badly defeated country’. The Iranian Minister of Sport then stated that the country would not be able to take part.

There has also been speculation about countries such as England and Germany not participating because of US global policies, travel bans and the viciousness of ICE. However, it seems likely that there may well be contracts between FIFA and the English FA about taking part, which would mean that a boycott could break any contract and so lead to sanctions.

This year’s cricket T20 World Cup also led to controversies over who should play, and where. The tournament was co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka, and tensions among South Asian countries gave rise to many problems. The Bangladesh Cricket Board said that on safety grounds its team would not travel to India, as it was scheduled to do, and requested that its games all be moved to Sri Lanka. When they refused requests to change their stance, they were removed from the competition by the International Cricket Board.

Then the Pakistan government said its team would not play against India, though it then changed its mind and the match took place. India vs Pakistan is a huge game at any tournament, so big viewing figures and revenue were no doubt a consideration here.

You can’t help wondering if boycotts really have any impact, or whether they mainly occur to make some people feel good.

Paul Bennett

Letter: Olympic Retrospect (2008)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Olympic Retrospect

I started watching the Olympics and at first was just taken by how well the participants excelled in their particular activities. Then an unease about the whole show leaked through. The elitism, the flag waving and the full-on nationalism made me switch off. Better the athletes, etc had competed in the name of their multinational sponsors or pharmaceutical company than this hideous exhibition of national identity. Backed up by officials and commentators winding up the patriotic fervour, even that stupid chump Adrian Chiles and other media prostitutes, screaming for “their” country. Doubtless the same was happening in all the other countries’ media. I expect the 1936 Olympics was much like this.

Stuart Gibson,

Bournemouth

Greasy Pole: Byers Market (1999)

Byers before New Labour called.

The Greasy Pole column from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perhaps it was because he feared that Blair is coming across too effectively that William Hague complained in Prime Minister’s Questions about whether a British Prime Minister should spend time solemnly discussing a barmy football coach’s religion. Perhaps it was because Blair realised uncomfortably that the Tory leader had a point that made him react so sourly: he could scarcely believe, he snarled, that Hague had raised the matter—ignoring the fact that he had been the first to try to exploit that particular piece of mind-numbing triviality.

This may have been entertaining to football obsessives or students of the techniques of spin doctoring but it obscured the fact that this government came to power on promises to be something new, to so change the capitalist system that it actually worked in a way which had never been experienced before—that is to say in the interests of the majority of its people. That is what politics should be about; it is what should concern people when they vote at an election. On that basis, a more interesting and significant statement was recently (on 2 February) made by Stephen Byers, who took over as Minister for Trade and Industry when Peter Mandelson had to resign over the little matter of borrowing a lot of money to buy an exceedingly posh house.

When Byers got his promotion there may have been a few traditionalists in the party still clinging to the delusion that their party in power really could change how this society operates. They may have hoped, remembering that Byers was once well known as a stroppy leftist local councillor, that he would regard it as a priority to use the power of his new job to bring about that redistribution of wealth which the Labour Party were supposed to stand for. They would have been as disappointed.

“The reality [said Byers] is that wealth creation is now more important than wealth redistribution . . . Governments should not hinder (entrepreneurs) but work to ensure the market functions properly and contributes to creating a strong, just and fair society . . . I firmly believe that the best way to address inequality and social exclusion is to create a more affluent, more successful Britain with opportunities for everyone to fulfil their potential.”

Byers was sharing his thoughts on how to make everyone rich—although some rather richer than others—with a gathering of business people in the Mansion House, in the very heart of the City. We must also understand that this latest exponent of the “trickle down” theory of wealth distribution has recently been through the familiar process which renders the wildest and most romantic left wingers tamely compliant to the demands of capitalism as soon as they get a sniff of power.

But what happened when, a few days after making this speech, he had an opportunity to put into practise his new-favoured theories about leaving the market to work its own way without any interference from the government? On 5 February the news broke that the German car manufacturer BMW, which also owns the Rover car company in England, was considering the closure of the Rover plant in Longbridge which would put about 14,000 people out of work and affect tens of thousands in ancillary firms largely dependent on Rover as their market. The Rover plant is under threat because it was heading to make a loss of up to £400 million this year, after an investment by BMW of £2.5 billion not to mention the buying price of £800 million.

Rover

With the market for cars looking close to saturation it seems good sense for BMW to close Longbridge; after all, like any other company they are in business to make profits and not to give charity to thousands of workers or to make life easier for a minister in the British government. As an admirer of the way market forces operate Byers should have greeted this news with enthuisism. But tens of thousands unemployed workers are not fertile electoral material. And what kind of start would he have made in his new job if his message to those unemployed was that they were the inevitable victims of economic forces which, they would eventually agree, work to the benefit of us all?

So Byers forgot what he had said at the Mansion House and he intervened with BMW, to try to affect the way in which the car market is operating. “I intend to talk to Professor Milberg (the new chairman of BMW) this weekend,” he droned, “to stress to him the importance that the Government attaches to Rover and Longbridge. The Government has a very constructive relationship with BMW . . .” If BMW agreed to keep the plant open Byers will provide financial help to modernise it. Then he will be free to make another speech, stressing how vital it is for governments to be always ready to intervene if they are likely to get some bad publicity—and antagonise a lot of voters–through the closure of a factory which is losing money.

And if he does speak like that we may be sure he will not mention another way in which the market operates. Many recent surveys on the effects of poverty in the family have highlighted the fact that parents often go without food in order to make sure their children have something to eat. Almost without exception they say that they can rarely afford meat. The Guardian of 6 February had something to say about another side of this. Their reporter John Vidal went to see how hill farmers, who raise sheep, get on with the market for their produce. One farmer described the situation as “all doom and gloom” because prices are so low that he can hardly give away his animals. He had just tried to sell some at rock bottom prices only to be told that he would have to pay to have them taken off his hands. Another farmer told Vidal that in some cases sheep were being slaughtered and buried rather than trying to sell them. So while families suffer through being unable to afford perfectly good meat, edible sheep are being wasted—and all in the service of the market which Byers thinks is such a logical, useful safeguard of our welfare.

Even in the face of this we should not assume that Byers does not understand how capitalism works—how it can only operate on the basis of producing wealth for sale at a profit and not on meeting the needs of human beings. We should not assume that he is unaware of the fact that if profits cannot be made production stops and workers are thrown out of jobs. We should not assume that when he was drivelling on about the importance of creating wealth as distinct from its redistribution he was in ignorance of the fact that the wealth creators are the working class, who need to be employed in order to live and who in their jobs are exploited and degraded and then, if the wealth they have created cannot be sold at a profit, are deprived of that livelihood. Any militant leftist will have discussed these issues to the point of exhaustion. Byers now behaves as if he was never concerned. This may be seen as his achievement. Or it may turn out to be his insuperable problem.

Ivan

Billion-dollar Games (1984)

From the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the biggest media and commercial binges in the last four years got under way at the end of July. We refer of course to the Los Angeles Olympics, rumoured by some simple souls to be a sporting festival but in fact an excuse for making money and reinforcing nationalist prejudices.

These were clearly the most commercialised Games ever held. The stages of carrying the Olympic torch across the United States were auctioned for three thousand dollars a kilometre and prominent alongside each runner was someone in a T-shirt advertising the telephone company, AT & T. Each sporting facility had its own sponsor; McDonalds, for instance, built the swimming pool, and Southlands Corporation the cycling velodrome. Fearing a repetition of the Montreal fiasco of 1976 (where the Games will not be paid for until the next century), Los Angeles only agreed to accept the Games if it could be guaranteed that the city would not lose money on them. This was assured when a consortium of businessmen accepted responsibility and set out to make as much money from the Games as they could.

The modern top-class sportsperson can hardly be other than a full-time athlete. Long gone are the days when it was possible to stay at the top by means of a couple of light training sessions a week. Training nowadays is highly scientific, with different emphases for different events, and a daily commitment is required. This is partly why Olympic eligibility is determined not by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) but by the international governing body of each sport. So runners are allowed to make a living from the sport, while swimmers are not. In 1988, when tennis is part of the Games, professionals will be openly allowed to compete — provided they are under twenty!

The American athlete Carl Lewis has openly stated that "the Olympics are about money and not much else”. And he should know: he calculated that every gold medal he won in the Games (and he won four) would be worth one and a half million pounds to him. There would be endorsements for sports products, of course, but also for clothes, deodorants, and the like. Coca-Cola are discussing an extra contract with Lewis worth over four million pounds. Even this will just keep him in the style to which he is accustomed. He maintains his “amateur” status by having his income paid into a trust from which he can draw generous “expenses”. Not surprisingly, he sees little point in formally turning professional.

It may be worth recalling that the original Olympics of Ancient Greece were not based on amateur ideals either. In addition to victory garlands, sizeable prize money was paid, and athletes eventually organised their own professional associations to negotiate with the promoters of games. It is probably not too far-fetched to discern a professional circuit of games which provided an income for highly-trained full-time athletes. There was no pretence that taking part was more important than winning: victory in competition was what mattered, and there were no records or personal bests.

According to the accepted mythology, the Olympics were revived in 1896 because of the heroic vision and single-minded energy of Baron de Coubertin. In fact, there had been plenty of earlier attempts to do so. In 1612, Robert Dover founded the Cotswold Olympics, which won royal approval from James I (they endured in some form till 1852, when they were discontinued because of “debauchery”). In 1862, some “Olympics” were held in Liverpool, but nothing further came of them. Basically, these were sports gatherings for ordinary people — it took an aristocratic movement to get the Olympics truly going again.

De Coubertin was much influenced by the ethos of the English public schools and sport’s role in them. Thus his list of proposed sports for the first Games included rowing and cricket. The early Games were very much for the rich — ordinary workers could not afford the cost of attending, and sporting organisations were too primitive to arrange and finance large teams. In fact it was not until 1908 that entries were made nationally rather than individually, a change which presaged the later jingoism and national rivalries. Many of the early competitors — especially those from the United States and Great Britain — were university athletes, as these institutions provided some of the best facilities for training and competition.

Ironically it was in 1936, the year of the Berlin Olympics, that de Coubertin died. The Olympics had been assigned to Berlin in 1931, before the Nazi takeover, and no had forseen what would happen. No expense was spared in providing superb stadia and other facilities, or in ensuring that the German squad was trained as well as was possible. In 1933 the American Amateur Athletic Union had voted to boycott the Games if German Jewish athletes were discriminated against: but in December 1935 the American Olympic Committee decided narrowly against a boycott. It is often said that the 1936 Games were the first overtly political ones, but a better candidate for this title is the 1920 Games, which were awarded to Antwerp (as an emotional consolation to Belgium after the war) and from which those countries defeated in the war were excluded.

The organisation of events so as to fit in with convenient television timings is a fairly recent innovation but their manipulation for non-sporting reasons is not. For instance, the marathon distance of 26 miles 385 yards has no connection with Ancient Greek battles. The distance was fixed at the London Games of 1908. The race was run from Windsor to the White City, which turned out to be precisely 26 miles. But an extra 385 yards was added so that the finish could take place in front of the Royal Box.

Talking of royalty, the Games are fated to occur in the same years as American Presidential elections. But for this, there would hardly have been an American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games. This year President Reagan has noted the potential for exploiting the Games as part of his re-election campaign. Having been thwarted by Olympic officials in his attempt to secure a more than purely formal role in the opening ceremony, he made the most of every American success. As far as the tame American media were concerned, there was certainly only one country competing.

Which brings us to the boycott on the part of Russia and other East European countries. This was ostensibly because of lack of guaranteed security in Los Angeles but is more likely to be at bottom another move in the lofty and lowly world of power politics. In view of the strength of some of the withdrawing countries, it inevitably means that the achievement of the winners will be devalued, thus reducing the capital that Reagan can make out of American medals. One side-effect of the boycott was the decision of the IOC to pay all the expenses of the Rumanian team, as a way of ensuring some East European presence.

With these the third Games in succession to suffer from a boycott, the IOC executive committee has proposed that attendance at future Games be made compulsory. Of course, the only way to punish infringements of such a rule would be suspension from the Olympic movement. Like truancy from school being punished by expulsion. It clearly takes an Olympic committee to dream up something like this.

The Olympics, then, were not a sporting festival designed to promote international peace and harmony, but a further example of the way capitalist rivalries and priorities pollute and distort every aspect of life under the present social system.

Paul Bennett

Running Commentary: Not cricket (1981)

The Running Commentary column from the April 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Not Cricket

Life as a working-class “non-white” in South Africa is an especially abject experience. We say working-class because many wealthy members of the capitalist class who would otherwise be regarded as “non-white”, notably Japanese industrialists. have enjoyed all of the privileges of accommodation, travel and services usually reserved for “whites”. Here the white African capitalist’s thirst for profits from Japanese trade overrides his racialist prejudices.

The lot of the propertyless black in South Africa is to be treated as subhuman, herded in ghettoes and camps, segregated in squalor from whites in every walk of life and relentlessly harried by the forces of the state. A “white” wanting to return a book to a public library, for instance, will probably have to comply with a rule requiring the book to be enclosed in a polythene bag if it is taken back by a black servant.

Against this backdrop it was understandable that the English Test cricketer Robin Jackman was recently ordered out of Guyana because of his links with South Africa. But as this issue developed and the Test match against the West Indies was disrupted, various contradictions were exposed.

In the Summer of 1980 assorted spokesmen and parrots of the “right-wing” (although some Liberals and Labourites were also vocal on this matter) insisted that British athletes should boycott the Olympic Games as a protest against the oppressive regime in the USSR. The policy of the politicians then was to try and use sport as a political medium. Yet a few months later many of these same politicians and their dutiful echoes are sounding the “keep politics out of sport” slogan. The fact is that the politicians have not suddenly changed the principle on which they seek to act from “Use politics in Sport” to “Keep politics out of Sport” as neither of these mottos was ever really their concern. It is economic considerations (and that doesn’t mean yours or mine) which are the reality behind government policymaking in the profit-system. Whereas the Russian Empire and its expansion pose a serious threat to the interests of the British owning class, no such fear is generated by trouble in the West Indies. On the contrary, they have the prospect of continued substantial trading. Looked at like this, it becomes clear why many of the spokesmen for British capitalism could welcome political hostility in sport at the Games and oppose any political disruption to the Second Test match against the West Indies.

Needless to say, governments of several of the West Indian countries, notably Jamaica and Antigua, allowed the Tests to go ahead on their territories to generate some cash for their flagging tourist trades, rather than exclude supporters of apartheid and jeopardise the series. It is not only the white South African leaders who demote principles below the pressure for profits.

Not Cronkite

Walter Cronkite of CBS television was much beloved by many Americans as — in the words of one newspaper — “something between the national flag and God”. Applauded by many at the time of Vietnam for his view that America should withdraw from the war, his recent retirement as a newscaster brought high praises from all and sundry.

Every evening he would enter the homes of millions of American workers to avuncularly present them with a careful selection of reports written unwaveringly from the viewpoint of the owning class. While the working class in America was wrestling with all of the problems of capitalism — inflation, inadequate housing, poverty and insecurity — old Walt would insist on spinning out the old yarns. Every broadcast was impregnated with false assumptions: all American people have a common interest; the protection of property benefits all equally; anyone can become a capitalist if he or she has the talent and initiative; the working class will always have to follow leaders; communism exists in Russia; and if the political ideas of economic equality were given any chance then all mayhem would break loose and Americans would be eating each other alive on the sidewalks.

Did Walt ever open up a bulletin with the news that Americans in employment were being paid less in the form of a wage or a salary than the value of what they had produced? Did he ever report that the wars are the logical outcome of the continuous struggles over trade routes, markets and territories by financiers, industrialists and land owners? Did trusty Walter ever point out that with advanced technology and abundant natural resources there is no need for a third of the world to go hungry? Sadly Walt never uttered a syllable on these points; he dealt only with items neatly processed for general consumption, images and distorted facts designed to maintain the status quo, the string of silent assumptions which riddle every thoughtfully chosen news item.

Gary Jay

Running Commentary: Sports Aid (1986)

The Running Commentary Column from the July 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sports Aid

From "Sports Aid" to "Neil Aid", and the continuing story of the Labour Party’s attempts to win support on any basis apart from their policies. They have however, moved on from pop stars in an attempt to appear more sensible, as illustrated by their Partly Political Broadcast for the Regional Council elections in May. Elsewhere in Britain viewers were treated to Glenda Jackson among others, but in Scotland it was a much more serious affair with the appearance of the Labour Party’s new signing, that expert on housing and local government, John Colquhoun. Now for those of you who do not know already, John Colquhoun plays for Hearts FC and knows a thing or two about selling dummies, so naturally he is now trying to sell us the shadow cabinet in return for our vote.

Don't mention Albert Kidd . . .

And what did John Colquhoun. the only left-winger that Neil Kinnock doesn’t consider an electoral liability, actually say — “I’ll be voting Labour. I hope you do too", or some such pearl of wisdom. He could even have said he would be over the moon if you would vote Labour, but this viewer couldn’t say for sure — it's difficult taking notes when you are lying in hysterics on the carpet in front of the TV.

More important, though, is what is being suggested here by the Labour Party — forget about your problems of poverty, unemployment or housing, and don't bother trying to relate them to the promises of the Labour Party. Instead just vote according to how some guy who earns his living by kicking a lump of leather around a field, says. Well, they do say that footballers have their brains in their feet.

So what can we expect next? Ian Botham on the government's anti-drugs campaign? Frank Bruno on law and order. . .?

Victorian values

Sweat-shops have never really disappeared from Britain or other parts of the world. Now, however, they look set to be brought back from the fringes of legality into the fold of respectability. Just as Victorian values are once again in vogue, so it seems are Victorian working conditions. The government has just produced a White Paper aimed at the ’de-regulation'’ of small business. The aim is to make it easier for owners of businesses to make profit from the labour of their workers without having to be bothered with the inconvenience of the health and safety of employees or workers' legal rights to employment protection.

If the proposals become law then the following will be some of the effects:

• Workers will be deterred from going to an industrial tribunal after being dismissed "unfairly". by a requirement that they should pay a £25 fee before charging the employer with ’unfair" dismissal.
• Workers will have to have worked for two years with a company, rather than six months as at present, before the employer is obliged to give detailed reasons for dismissal.
• Firms with fewer than ten employees will no longer be obliged to allow a woman to return to work within 29 weeks of giving birth to a child.
• Restrictions will be introduced on the functions union officials are to be allowed to perform or to attend during working hours to only those trade union duties formally recognised by the employer.
• Part-time workers will have to work 50 per cent more hours a week before they are entitled to the main employment protection rights. Those working between 12 and 20 hours a week will only qualify for employment rights after five years working for the same employer.

These legal rights were not granted by the capitalist class without a struggle. That they can so easily be removed now, at a time of economic recession when trade unions are weak, shows the fragile nature of workers’ ’’rights" in capitalism.

Your life in their hands

Recently, as a result of a government report on efficiency in the Health Service, general managers have been appointed to run the NHS. The idea behind the move is that productivity can be improved by using measures not dissimilar to those that might be used in running, say, United Biscuits. The problem is that while cost-benefit analysis might work in assessing efficiency in a biscuit factory, it has somewhat bizarre, or even tragic, consequences when you try to apply it to human health. For example, given the limited resources available for health care under capitalism, how do you decide in strict cost-benefit terms how to allocate those resources? How is productivity to be measured? By the turn-over of patients each year? By the number of operations performed? Should you go for "quantity” — keeping as many people alive for as long as possible no matter what their state of health — or "quality" — maintaining people in good health in the short-term? Do you opt for expensive operations like heart transplants on young people who have still got a number of years left as potentially exploitable workers? If so, what about the huge numbers of elderly workers whose quality of life could be drastically improved by relatively simple and cheap operations like hip-replacement surgery even though they are no longer of use to the labour force?

These are the kinds of decisions that health workers and administrators are faced with, given the lack of priority accorded to people's health and well-being under capitalism. The appointment of general managers will do nothing to change this. Clearly the attempt to run the NHS along the lines of an efficient capitalist enterprise is proving too much for even successful entrepreneurs like Victor Paige, who recently resigned as "Chairman of the Board" of the NHS. But "middle management" is also showing signs of strain. Freddie Lucas has also resigned as general manager of Central Birmingham Health Authority. (A former army brigadier, one would have thought that he was better qualified to make decisions about killing people rather than keeping them alive but then again we don't know what his terms of reference were). He complained that members of the Health Authority didn't "have the good sense to stand back and let management manage" (Guardian, 7 June 1986). Health authorities contain too many vested interests to inspire much confidence and given the choice between the BMA and the army to decide health service priorities, we would obviously do best to opt for a social system based on human interests.

Inside the sports industry (2001)

Botile and Ingle

From the April 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the night of Saturday 16 December 2000 the crowd at the Sheffield Arena must have been stunned when Paul Ingle’s corner forced him back to the centre of the ring to be savagely crushed by his opponent Mbulelo Botile of South Africa. Even one of the commentators remarked that the decision of Ingle’s managers was shockingly unreasonable. Not unexpectedly, Ingle was carried unconscious to hospital with brain injuries. At the end of round 11 everybody, more especially Ingle’s corner, knew he had lost the bout.

The question on the lips of many was why the towel was not thrown in. But how could they do that when they were playing according to the rules of today’s international sports—the cash and fame first before the contender. In fact Ingle’s corner callously hoped that their man could miraculously pull a knock-out.

Gone are the days when games were organised with a view to merely entertaining the audience. In our day the motive behind any activity sports included, is profit. If, in the process of any sporting activity people get entertained, it is an unintended outcome of a purely business-oriented venture. In reality sport is now a multi-billion dollar industry masquerading as an entertainment agency. It has become an industry dominated and controlled by corporate bodies.

Sporting activities are organised mainly by IOC, FIFA, CAF, JBF, WBC, etc. The funds with which these bodies organise games are provided, in the main, by big business. Since business concerns will only spend money if they will make a profit, one can easily understand why they provide the funds—they are financially interesting.

Advertising is an essential ingredient in all profit-oriented activity. Getting people to become aware of one’s products is a vital competitive move. Corporate groups sponsor IOC and Co in exchange ttr the right to advertise their products on radio, TV jerseys, shinguards, gloves, and soon that is why you can never see World Socialist Movement or World Of Free Access or SPGB printed in bold characters and lined up around playing fields on stadiums. What you see is Coca Cola, Amstel, Visa, MasterCard, Western Union Money Transfer, Motorola, Ericsson, etc.

In the same vein other businesses deeply involved in the promotion of commercialised sports are the media houses. TV magnates are able to pay and have a stranglehold monopoly of coverage. They reap huge profits when they “sell” their “product” to other media groups.

Since today’s sports is a matter of business due to its profit-oriented nature, it is always spiced with the not uncommon shady deals. Business is nothing but legalised stealing. Its main rule is “grab-as-much-as-you-can”. International sports is therefore plagued with such inevitable phenomena as bribery, corruption, match-fixing, gambling, betting, pools, etc. In fact most many sports ministers, members of IOC, FIFA (the chief organisers of international sporting activities) siphon away huge sums of money in the process of organising games. A typical example can be seen in the famous Salt Lake City scandal which not only exposed but also shattered the credibility of the IOC and blew apart its five interlocking rings. Again, quite recently some German sportswriters have alleged that the German government and some corporate groups bribed Thailand, South Korea and Saudi Arabia to vote for Germany to host the 2006 World Cup. The multinational corporations mentioned were Daimler Chrysler, Bayer, BASF and Siemens (Gambia Daily Observer 21 November 2000).

Wealth (goods and services) is created by labour. In the sports industry the creators of service (entertainment) are the sportsmen and women. These (mostly) youth are by no means different from workers in the factory; clerks in the bank; teachers in the classroom, etc. Sportsmen and women sell their labour power (i.e. their ability to run, jump, kick, swim, etc) to the owners of the means of production and distribution of the services produced. In sports the means of producing and distributing entertainment include the stadiums, the factories the assorted sporting gear, the media houses, etc. These are owned by corporate bodies, states, local councils and the like. The youth use these facilities to entertain society, who pay money that goes to the owners of these means. The sportsmen and women arc then paid wages by the owners (the employers).

It is a common business practice to fire workers who are considered to be not too productive. In the same way sportsmen and women who do not move mountains to prove, maintain and improve upon their competitiveness risk being booted out of employment. Even the language used by employers, especially owners of football clubs, clearly smacks of the business element in sports. Football clubs who hire the services of footballers are often heard talking of “buying”, “selling”, or “giving out on loan” such-and-such a player. Indeed one sometimes gets the impression that the players are not just wage-earners but real commodities! In one report by Reuters carried in the 6 November Daily Observer (Gambia), entitled “Pele attacks ‘slave trade’ in young players”, the Brazilian Sports Minister decries the almost slave-like ownership of young footballers from Africa, Brazil and Argentina in particular. A very recent example is the case of Kanu Nwanko whose masters, Arsenal, refused to release him (from their bondage) to go to play for his “national” team during the just-ended Sydney Olympics.

Consequences

Having been considered as “commodities” whose price is influenced by market forces, sportsmen and women are constantly engaged in fierce competition with each other. Competition is an unhealthy phenomenon but in sports it is even worse. The use of drugs to enhance performance is a direct result of the unwholesome profit-oriented practices. In the final analysis these people who use the drugs suffer and get disgraced when they test positive. By contrast the organisers and drug dealers, sitting behind their dark sunglasses at the VIP stands get away with their dirty profits.

But perhaps the most serious effect of this dubious U-turn in sports from entertainment-oriented to profit-oriented can be seen in the growing number of serious and in some cases fatal incidents involving sportsmen and women. The story of the British boxer Paul Ingle has already been mentioned. No-one is unaware of the world-famous pugilist, Mohammed Ali. There is also the tragic fate of Michael Watson, another British boxer. A Colombian defender, Escobar, was gunned down in Bogota when he inadvertently scored an own goal during the 1994 World Cup. He met this unfortunate death not because Colombia could not go ahead to win the cup but because, as it was generally believed, some big business people had lost huge sums which they staked in a betting game.

Sports and politics

Another interesting aspect of sports is that it is very much encouraged by governments especially in poor countries. The main reason for this support is the mind-numbing power of sports. A lot of money is spent to get people hooked to and addicted to sports. In fact sports plays the same role as religion, alcohol and the like. Commentators, sportswriters and the like are trained to be able to present the dullest of events or matches to appear to be the most interesting ones to listeners and readers. Sporting activities, as such, are organised constantly and at short intervals—from community through national to international levels. As people’s interest in games soars so is their attention diverted from the mismanagement of social wealth that goes on in the corridors of power. In fact the revolutionary consciousness of people addicted to sports is usually completely blunted.

On this same political front, one notes the narrow-mindedness of so-called sports analysts when they opine that sports encourages togetherness and even has the magic of bringing peace to rival nations. This view dates back to the days of the “Cold War”. These analysts considered the participation in international games by the “West” and the “East” as a positive step towards defusing tension in their world. But a deeper insight into the role of sports in the relations between nations or countries reveals the exact opposite of the claims of these sports experts. Modern capitalist sports is organised with a view to realising profit. Profit-making thrives best when people are kept divided. There is no way then that sports as it is organised today can bring peoples of the world together as one. In reality sports entrenches petty, myopic nationalism and chauvinism. Witness for instance the violence of the famous “English hooligans” during football matches in Europe. There are always running battIe in the streets of towns and cities all over the world during games especially football. Each country sees the other as an enemy. People competing under national flags only helps in keeping them disunited. But we need a single world without boundaries.

Yet sports, at all levels, can be made to achieve its original objective—to entertain both participants and spectators. This however can only materialize when it is freely organised by all persons interested in it—and not only by those who have money. But this possibility is itself dependent on the level of consciousness of humanity When the majority of people come to understand that a society that undertakes every venture with a view to making profit is bound to he plagued with shortcomings. “Money is the root of evil”, as the saying goes. So it is only when the stadia and the factories producing sports-ware are commonly owned by all people, and when the present artificial boundaries dividing them and nations are dismantled that the present violence-prone, drug-infested activity called sport coupled with the slave status of most sportsmen and women can be eliminated. Then sports and games in general can play their unalloyed role of entertaining humankind free of charge.

Suhuyini

What about it? (1920)

Editorial from the October 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

A short while ago "Plum" Warner, the old Middlesex cricketer, bid farewell to the public, and seized the opportunity to deliver through the Press, an admonition to the miners under the title ; "Miners, play the game !" (It does not seem to strike him what a vast difference there is between the game he wants the miners to "play"and the game he has been playing the best part of his life.)

On Oct. 3rd appeared in "Lloyd's Sunday News" an article urging the workers to "Work, Produce!" and, again the incongruity of it, the writer was that indefatigable worker and stupendous producer, Lord Moulton.

A day or two ago the "Daily Chronicle" had an article headed "What Every Woman Knows," and drawing moving but obviously true pictures of what is going to be the experience of the women of the working class in the event of a miners' strike maturing, and again it is one of those people of such wide first-hand knowledge of empty cupboards and the sufferings of poverty—a lady of title—who does the writing.

It is meet to ask, at a time when your "betters" are setting you such an example of class-conscious propaganda in the class struggle, what you are doing in the same class struggle: Are you working for the enlightenment of your fellow working men and women ? Are you even studying for your own enlightenment ? Are you talking about Socialism ? Are you pushing Socialist literature ? Every word you read of the right stuff, helps, and every word you speak with knowledge and understanding. So what about it?

Leftist Hypocrisy about South Africa (1974)

From the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The evils of capitalism are inherent, so that no matter whether it is run by avowed capitalists or alleged socialists, the leopard always has the same nasty spots. One perennial result is that when leftists get into power, they do the dirty work they spent their pseudo-socialist time denouncing while in opposition. It could be said that the reverse of the question: who will do the dirty work under Socialism? is: who actually does the dirty work under capitalism? On the one hand, dustmen, miners, and other workers. On the other, the claimants for the rôle are the leftist political swindlers.

It is possible that some of them, being particularly stupid, at first think they can run the system without the dirt. But experience of office soon makes the real position clear. A government has to govern (one of Wilson’s great sayings).

Examples are legion. During the Tories’ "thirteen wasted years", Wilson and Co. went on about the nastiness of Polaris submarines with their murderous missiles. Three Wilson governments later, and not only are the appalling weapons still in Holy Loch — nobody gives a second thought. Least of all the leftist Aldermaston marchers of the great days of yore, who are now members of the Government.

Another prime example is, of course, South Africa. For many years this has seemed a soft option to the leftists. The racialist regime there is gruesome even by capitalist standards (although it could hardly be worse than those in eastern Europe; or in black African countries such as Uganda or the Central African Republic where President Bakasa personally supervises the beating to death of political opponents). So for years we have endured the spectacle of leftist politicians getting publicity out of such world-shattering matters as the admission of a South African cricket team to this country.

But then, the pseudos get into power (plush offices and black limousines). Lo and behold, one of those who screamed loudest about the cricket tour in ’70 and actually threatened to sit on the wicket at Lord’s — such heroism: he might, in our climate, have got rheumatism in his leftist arse — called Frank Judd, actually finds himself the boss of the Royal Navy. Under the orders of the anti-apartheid Judd, our gallant sailors have been in Simonstown taking part in joint exercises with the South African Navy. Does Judd think this is a lesser encouragement to the racialist regime than playing cricket with them at Lord’s? Well no, he doesn’t. The report (in the Observer — and doubtless other papers too) made clear that Judd was most upset. But the interests of British capitalism (which has enormous investments in South Africa — its third biggest customer, too) demand that the British government plays ball in a more serious way than cricket — and if the blacks don’t like it, it seems they have to lump it.

You might say that if Judd’s conscience was so offended, he could throw up his job; perhaps also his seat in Parliament and his membership of the Labour Party. How can you belong to a party which practises the opposite of what it has preached? Perhaps someone can tell me the last time a pseudo-socialist leader, realising that when in power they were doing the same dirty work as all capitalist governments, left his party and denounced it as being fake-socialist. Some hopes!

About the same time, the TUC was engaged in its annual beano. About a dozen of their prominent leaders (“Mr. Ray Buckton and Others” as the Times put it) wrote a letter to that well-known socialist journal to say how they deplored these junketings contrary to the principles of the Labour Party, etc. ad nauseam. These nauseous specimens did not challenge Wilson when he addressed them a few days later by saying that unless the operation was called off they would leave the Labour Party. All they did was to get their smug letter into print so that later, when challenged about their attitude on the fashionable South Africa issue, they could look righteous and say: “we objected”. Would Vorster be trembling because they had written their useless letter while their government was supporting him (as it did, of course, in 1970 while the idiotic cricket rumpus was going on)? Will the downtrodden black workers feel uplifted by this cant?

Before leaving South Africa, the British Lions rugby team went on a tour of Apartheid-land recently despite the pleas of Wilson and his so-called Minister of Sport, the football referee Howell, to call it off. Wilson instructed the British Embassy there to have no truck with the team and not to socialize with it; no cocktail parties, etc. (Needless to say he did not instruct the Embassy to have no truck with Vorster. That would be serious.) So the Ambassador could carry on socializing with Vorster but not with Willie-John McBride — who would naturally be heart-broken to have to get tight on South African hospitality instead of British. But what happens when the Lions came back ? Why, the Minister of Sport himself drank toasts at their reception.

What unprincipled bastards Labour are !

L. E. Weidberg.

Action Replay: All Above Board (2013)

The Action Replay Column from the May 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Let’s not argue about whether chess is a sport: it certainly contains plenty of rivalry, financial shenanigans and back-biting. It’s probably lost some of its public profile since the days of Bobby Fischer and the rivalry between American and Russian players that echoed the Cold War.

But the world championship has long been ensnared in rows about money. Players, usually with the help of private backers, used to provide a purse on a winner-take-all basis. Then Emanuel Lasker, who won the championship in 1894, demanded that the challenger provide the whole of the stake, which had the effect, if not the intention, of reducing the number of championship matches. There followed lots of controversies about how to organise the championships and how to handle the money.

It was only in 1946 that the World Chess Federation (FIDE) set up an official series of eliminators and standard formats for the final champion vs challenger play-off. In 1999, FIDE was recognised by the International Olympic Committee, and Olympic-style anti-drug rules were adopted (so it must be a sport, then).

Last year, FIDE awarded the commercial rights to the world championship to Andrew Paulson, an American capitalist with his finger in several Russian pies, who has grand ideas for the game. The elimination rounds will be played in glamorous venues in big cities, with lots of media coverage. TV viewers will see the players’ pulse rates and so on. ‘Spectators will be able to see with the eyes of a grandmaster and feel with the heart of a player’, claimed Paulson (Financial Times, 21 September 2012). Sponsors, it is envisaged, will cover the costs and the sizeable prize money.

The latest Candidates tournament was held in London in March. The Norwegian Magnus Carlsen won and will challenge current world champion Viswanathan Anand in November. Carlsen, who is only 22, is sponsored by the Oslo-based investment bank Arctic Securities, for whom he works as some kind of ambassador. As Carlsen says on the company’s blog, for both chess players and banks, ‘precision is of the essence and mistakes can be fatal.’ Mind you, chess players generally play no part in global financial meltdowns.

Paul Bennett

Priorities (1984)

From the April 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Torvill and Dean were cheered by MPs in the House of Commons last night. Winding up a debate on housing benefits, the Social Security Minister of State, Dr Rhodes Boyson said to cheers: "I do think even housing benefits are put into perspective on occasions like this". (Guardian, 15 February, 1984.)

Material World: Brazil – people elect a populist (2018)

The Material World Column from the December 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Far-right parties are mushrooming in popularity across the world elected on campaigns that disdain democracy and glorify authoritarianism. Bolsonaro attracted support from voters overlooking his fascistic tendencies. Recent surveys have found that 55 percent of Brazilians wouldn’t mind a non-democratic form of government if it ‘solved’ problems. Brazilians do have legitimate complaints about poor services. 83 percent of Brazilians believe that more than half of all politicians are corrupt, and they can’t be far wrong. More than half of Brazilian senators and one third of the members of Brazil’s lower chamber of Congress face criminal accusations.

The deep economic and social inequalities have made many Brazilians desperate enough that they are now willing to gamble on a maverick politician who is perceived as a man of action who will shake things up. Bolsonaro has proven wildly popular with some of the country’s most famous footballers: Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Cafu, Kaka, Lucas Moura, all of whom have spoken in favour of him, even Neymar praised Bolsonaro. And while the endorsement of a few footballers may not have been the decisive factor in Bolsonaro’s victory, it nonetheless provided free publicity.

Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain, openly defends Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship which saw at least 30,000 people killed, and has recently stated ‘If Congress grants permission, I would put armed forces in the streets.’ Bolsonaro proudly announced at a rally ‘We are going to gun down all these Workers Party supporters,’ using a tripod to mimic shooting a rifle. He has pledged to ‘purge’ Brazil of his left-wing foes.

Alfredo Saad-Filho, the leftwing professor, explained ‘Bolsonaro thrives on the notion that politicians are all corrupt, are all incompetent, and therefore the military is the solution. What is going to happen, likely, under a Bolsonaro administration is the dragging of the army into politics, into corrupt scandals, and its transformation into another gang’ (LINK.).

Bolsonaro’s Vice-President running mate is ex-General Antonio Hamilton Mourão, who recently advocated a military coup.

The man expected to head the culture ministry, Alessio Ribeiro Souto, is a former general and has said school history books should call the 1964-85 junta a movement to fight communism rather than a dictatorship. He wants creationism to be taught in schools.

The minister of transport may well be Oswaldo Ferreira, yet another retired general, who can be expected to authorise the building of roads through the Amazon forest, which will cause severe damage to indigenous communities and the country’s exceptional biodiversity.

Bolsonaro’s choice for finance minister is Paulo Guedes whose free-market economic agenda includes privatisation of almost all state-run companies, ending the protection of the Amazon rainforest and opening it up to commercial development and further cutting government spending on social services.

Bolsonaro has the backing of agri-business and mining companies, who are looking forward to the prospect of the Amazon rainforest losing its protection. He has promised to ease ‘excessive’ oversight by the country’s environmental watchdog and join up the Ministry of the Environment with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. Business interests anticipate reductions in fines for those encroaching on the world’s biggest tropical forest, reducing its power to counteract global warming.

‘Everything is at risk,’ said Carlos Nobre, a climatologist at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of Sao Paulo.

‘We may face an unprecedented environmental disaster in the next four years,’ said Brazilian researcher Paulo Artaxo, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). ‘The main concern is the Amazon. According to Bolsonaro’s statements we can conclude that illegal settlements and deforestation will accelerate.’

Bolsonaro’s election victory could lead to indigenous people losing land rights. Bolsonaro said during his campaign that ‘not one centimetre of land will be demarcated for indigenous reserves or quilombolas [slave descendants]’, and that indigenous lands could be opened to economic exploitation, including agribusiness and mining. Bolsonaro called quilombola residents ‘lazy’ and said they were ‘not fit for procreation’.

Brazilian voters were desperate for change and have mirrored an anti-establishment trend that has swept around the world, where political ‘saviours’ have been voted into office. The distrust meant people believed in quick easy answers to their problems and the common tactic is to propagate nostalgia for an idealised past that these politicians miraculously promise to bring back. The strategy of these populists is to promote fear, anger, and hatred, scapegoating certain communities for the cause of all the ills afflicting society.

Enough voters fell for this, but right-wing politicians betray their election promises as much as left-wing ones, fortunately.

ALJO

Action Replay: World of Sport (2011)

The Action Replay column from the September 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

It takes a Professor of Leisure Studies to write an atlas of sport. Alan Tomlinson’s World Atlas of Sport was published recently by Myriad Editions and New Internationalist. It contains sections on specific sports, on individual countries and, of course, on sports politics and economics.

One point that emerges is the way that globalisation has affected sport just as it has permeated many other aspects of life. This is not just a matter of the global dominance of football but of the undermining of more local sports, though of course many of these survive, such as pétanque in France and Gaelic football on Ireland. In other cases, changes can only be welcomed: pato in Argentina is no longer played using a live duck rather than a ball.

As European nations extended their power to new parts of the planet, they introduced their own sports. Polo is very popular in Argentina, while cricket is primarily played in Britain and former British colonies: it has been described as an Indian game accidentally discovered in England.

Some sports can be played by almost anyone with a minimum level of fitness, while others require a  lot more investment in financial terms. Skiing was once the preserve of the idle rich, though cheap travel and carefully-prepared snow areas have now widened its appeal to some extent. But polo remains the  sport of an elite, often an aristocratic one, while horse racing, as far as the owners are concerned, is still the sport of kings, capitalists and sheiks.

Not to mention those who flaunt their wealth in sailing – the have-yachts. In his introduction, Tomlinson remarks that sports matter because they express the hopes of billions. But, as he says in his section on merchandising, ‘Sports sell’. Even for a humble kickaround in your local park with jumpers for goalposts what are the odds that players will be wearing logo-covered gear?

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Colin Veitch – Pioneer Football Trade Unionist (2016)

Colin Veitch (22 May 1881 – 26 August 1938)

The Action Replay column from the October 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

In July Bobby Moore was honoured with an English Heritage blue plaque, but he is not the first footballer to be recognised in this way. In 2013, Heaton History Group ran a successful campaign to have Colin Veitch awarded a Newcastle City Council black plaque on his house.

Colin Veitch was born in Heaton in Newcastle in 1881. He captained Newcastle Schools in 1895. At Rutherford College, where he studied after leaving school, he played for their football team, then regarded as one of the finest amateur sides in the North East, attracting the attention of Newcastle United for whom he played as an amateur before turning professional in 1899. 

He was a versatile and talented football player who captained Newcastle United during their Edwardian heyday when the team won three Football League Championships (1905, 1907 and1909), the FA Cup in 1910 and finalists five times between 1905 -1912. A one-time schoolteacher, he introduced the idea of using a blackboard to illustrate and develop tactics diagrams in pre-match planning and post match analyses.

He was an activist in the Association Football Players Union (AFPU) set up in 1907. In November 1908 Thompson’s Weekly News announced that several leaders of AFPU including Colin Veitch would write regular articles for the paper, providing a forum for the union’s views. The AFPU began negotiations with the Football Association but in April 1909 these ended without agreement. The union threatened a strike and in June the FA ordered all players to leave the AFPU, and warned that if they did not by 1 July, their registrations as professionals would be cancelled.

Veitch resigned from the AFPU in order to carry on negotiations with the FA and led the struggle to have players reinstated. In August 1909, the FA agreed that professional players could be members of the AFPU and the dispute ended. Veitch was later the chairman of the AFPU, now the Professional Footballers Association, for a number of years. In politics he was a leftwinger and had once been asked to stand as a Labour candidate but turned this down.

He died in 1938 after contracting pneumonia while recuperating on holiday in Bern in Switzerland at the age of only 57. He is still remembered in Newcastle as one of their greatest players.

Kevin Parkin

Playing with Apartheid (1982)

From the June 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present use of sport for political ends was foreshadowed before World War II by the attitudes of the dictators Hitler and Mussolini, who encouraged and financed the endeavours of native footballers and athletes. The disappointment shown by Hitler and other leading Nazis at the win of the negro Jesse Owens over their own German favourite at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, is still well remembered. Most governments nowadays assist the efforts of “their” athletes of international class. They value success at this level because it engenders patriotic feeling and distracts the working class from problems at home. By publicising the country it helps exporters to gain ground on competitors. So sport today often spills over from its allotted place on the back pages of newspapers into front page headlines.

Although coming into a somewhat different category, in one way or another the apartheid policy operated by the South African government is often involved in such instances. Scarcely a week passes without news of some projected sporting conflict being jeopardised by the “South African Connection”. The latest major incident burst on a sick and weary world last February in an announcement from South Africa that a team of “rebel” English cricketers had arrived to start a tour sponsored by South African Breweries. Many South African cricketers, boycotted internationally for years, welcomed this chance to test their skills against top class opposition.

There have of course been many examples of discrimination in sport not involving apartheid. In many cases—polo, racquets and equestrian events—the high cost of competing eliminates the average worker before the event begins. In this country, cricket was for a long time bedevilled by the distinction between amateurs and professionals. Among other things, the latter—working men playing for a living—had to stay at inferior hotels to their amateur team mates who, in the main, had enough unearned income not to need payment. In some cases however, including that of W. G. Grace, amateurs were secretly paid to ensure that they did not have to openly turn professional. Although officially abolished 20 years ago, vestiges of this traditional separation linger on today. Similar distinctions arose in the United States where, until 1947, the major league baseball teams consisted of white players only. There were separate leagues for negro players. Now many of the major league teams have more black than white players on their staff. In none of these cases was their any legal backing for discrimination, whereas in South Africa apartheid operates within a legal framework, as a result of legislation passed by successive National Party governments since 1948.

The aims of the apartheid policies pursued by the South African government since 1948 are analysed in depth in our pamphlet The Problem of Racism, published in 1966. This government has represented the interests of the Afrikaner farming section of the ruling class, and the policy has been an attempt to preserve the values and attitudes of the old agricultural order and hold back the development of industrial capitalism. The latter is largely controlled by the English speaking capitalists, who would much prefer a free market in labour to the present restrictive situation. Until a few years ago the Afrikaners had a big advantage because of their unity, while the opposition became fragmented. However the increasing Afrikaner involvement in industry and the development of modern capitalist farming have led to dissensions within the National Party, as a section want some relaxation of apartheid rigidity, and others see this as “the beginning of the end”. In the case of its policy on sport, pressure from outside has combined with a shift in Afrikaner attitudes to produce some quite significant changes.

When the National Party government took power in 1948 they applied a rigid apartheid policy in sport as in all other walks of life: sportsfields, seating and clubs were segregated. World reaction took some time to gather pace, but eventually boycotts of South African players started to mushroom. Eventually an attempt was made to apply the policy to visiting teams also, and the situation reached a critical point when it was announced that a New Zealand rugby team, including Maoris, would not be allowed in. On 4 September 1965 the then Prime Minister, Verwoerd, addressing a meeting at Loskop Dam, spelled it out thus:

Our standpoint is that just as we subject ourselves to another country’s customs and traditions without flinching, without any criticism, and cheerfully, so do we expect when another sends representatives to us they will behave in the same way, namely not involving themselves in our affairs, and that they will adapt themselves to our customs.

(Quoted in The Broederband, Ivor Wilkins and Hans Strydom, Paddington Press 1979)

This statement was like fuel on the fire but, for a time, the government stood firm. To them, the policy seemed quite fair and they may well have expected it to be accepted. When it became obvious that it was seen very differently abroad, the next Prime Minister, Vorster, changed the policy and allowed the Maoris to tour. However he told Parliament a few weeks later: “Inside South Africa there will not be mixed sporting events, irrespective of the proficiency of the participants. On this there can be no compromise, negotiations or abandonment of principle” (Ibid).

Wilkins and Strydom also relate how the Prime Minister had to ride a tremendous backlash from hard line Afrikaners. These reactionaries did not consider sporting prestige important enough to justify any weakening in apartheid, and were perfectly prepared to accept complete isolation if that was the only alternative. It was very probable that Vorster decided in 1968 to “sacrifice” cricket as a sop to these critics. Although both games have their origin in Britain, in South Africa rugby is primarily an Afrikaner game while cricket is mainly played by the English speaking population. This was the year of the “D’Oliveira crisis”. Basil D’Oliveira, a Cape Coloured and as such ineligible for selection by South Africa, had qualified for England and been chosen to tour. “To a cheering (Orange) Free State National Congress, Mr. Vorster announced that D’Oliveira’s selection was political and unacceptable” (Ibid).

Except for a visit the following season by an Australian team (which incidentally lost every Test Match by enormous margins). South Africa has played no cricket at international level since then. The position with rugby was only slightly different. The 1970 New Zealand tour was a great success, the Maori players being among the most popular. In 1974 a British Lions team arrived and shocked the Springboks by winning three of the four international matches and drawing the other. It was now obvious that South Africa faced an indefinite period of total sporting ostracism and a decline in standards through lack of the necessary level of competition.

The Afrikaner government was in a terrible dilemma. Wilkins and Strydom report that a 1974 survey of opinion within the Broederband, and exclusive Afrikaner body, showed 97 per cent in favour of national sporting policies for every “nation” to be affiliated with world bodies (a policy rejected by these bodies because the “nations” were not considered to be independent); 92 per cent were opposed to mixed teams being fielded in sports other than athletics; whereas 93 per cent accepted the inclusion of non-whites for the Olympic Games, but as an interim measure only. Yet despite this, writing only four years later, Wilkins and Strydom could predict that “in about two years all races will play together on club, provincial and national level, will sit together on stands, will use all the club facilities such as bars and toilets, and that no more applications for permits will be needed”.

Certainly significant changes have been made. The pressure from abroad, combined with internal pressure from inside and outside Afrikanerdom, has overcome a white backlash which, observing events elsewhere on the continent, was and still is terrified of the consequences of “giving in to the blacks”. A British Lions rugby team visited South Africa in 1980 and played against non-whites in some matches. A South African touring party, containing some coloured players, visited New Zealand in 1981. Despite these isolated events however the sports boycott of South Africa is still virtually complete.

Internationally the capitalist class has reacted in fairly predictable fashion to the anti-capitalist policies pursued by the National Party governments. While perfectly prepared to trade with and invest in South Africa, openly or secretly as circumstances dictate, they have nevertheless made it clear that they expect conformity to normal capitalist practice; for example an open labour market, without the reservation of certain classes of jobs for whites. The expulsion of South Africa from the Commonwealth in I960 was a result of this stand.

However, whereas countries like Great Britain—where capitalists are mostly white—would be satisfied with a South African capitalism dominated by a white ruling class, this does not appear to be the case generally. Countries like India and the emergent ‘Third World” nations, where the capitalists are mostly non-white and perhaps under pressure from extremists in their own ranks, want rather more. South Africa has now become an anomaly in another sense: it is the only part of the continent still under white rule. It could well be that India, for instance, feels that better trading terms could be obtained from a non-white ruling class (a class of wealthy Indians has long been in existence) rather than from white capitalists still harbouring old prejudices from the apartheid era.

This difference is reflected in the field of sport. Sporting bodies in states such as Britain and New Zealand, expressing satisfaction with efforts in South Africa to provide multi-racial sport, show some willingness to resume relations. The position of New Zealand is particularly delicate. The large farming element there may to some extent sympathise with Afrikaner attitudes, and their main sport is also rugby football. South Africa and New Zealand have traditionally had the best teams, so New Zealand players and turnstiles have keenly felt the loss of fixtures with the Springboks.

Walter Hadlee, past New Zealand cricket captain and test selector, gives expression to his frustration in an article in the 1982 Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack entitled "The Escalating Effect of Politics in Cricket”. He criticises the Gleneagles Agreement drawn up by Commonwealth governments in June 1977 to effect a common policy on sporting links with South Africa, aptly noting: “Different interpretations have given rise to endless controversy, much of it still continuing . . . Governments and anti-apartheid groups never seem to clarify their demands by setting out the precise requirements to be met either by the South African government or the sporting bodies concerned”. Hadlee interprets Gleneagles as meaning that when apartheid is no longer practised in any particular sport, normal relations can be resumed. From this viewpoint he comments on South African cricket that “they attained this in 1977”. Similar impatience was displayed in an editorial in the April 1982 issue of The Cricketer International". “India, Pakistan and Guyana, for instance, exercise some repression on ethnic or religious grounds. Moreover cricketers from these countries have cheerfully played with and against South Africans in England. Where should principles stop being applied?”

In non-white dominated countries a different view is taken. Here the Gleneagles agreement is interpreted as demanding an end to apartheid—not just on the sports field. They question whether the multiracial South African teams now being fielded are in fact selected on merit. Here there is a practical problem. Because of years of discrimination, only a few non-whites have achieved the necessary standards. What may be a genuine selection on ability can appear to an outside observer as an attempt to appease critics by fiddling one or two non-white “passengers”.

In this case the counter discrimination does not stop at a refusal to play against South African representatives. Teams and individuals who have previously played in, or against, South Africa are also boycotted. The England cricket tour of India last winter was jeopardised because Geoffrey Boycott and some other members of the party had played and coached in the Republic (coaching mainly non-whites, incidentally). On that occasion a declaration by Boycott of his personal opposition to apartheid was accepted by the Indian government. However, when Boycott and other current England players travelled with the rebel band earlier this year, the only way in which India and Pakistan would agree to go ahead with their projected tours of England this summer demanded that these individuals be prevented from taking the field against them.

To prevent a crippling loss of much needed gate receipts, the Test and County Cricket Board had no alternative but to impose a ban lasting for three years on the selection for England of these rebel players. More extreme action has been taken in the West Indies. The Guyana government cancelled a Test Match because the England team included Robin Jackman, a player with a South African wife, who had played in South Africa. The West Indies Cricket Board cancelled a projected cricket tour by a New Zealand team because of the 1981 tour of New Zealand by the South African rugby team. In neither case, it appears, were the opinions on apartheid of the individuals objected to considered to be of any importance.

Criticism is often directed at individuals for allegedly introducing politics into spheres of activity which, it is said, should be outside the political arena. Sport is often considered to be such a sphere, but the criticism is manifestly absurd. Because the class division of present-day society is to some extent reflected in all aspects of life, informed comment on any of these activities, particularly by those who seek to abolish this class division, must of necessity be political in content. We have seen, how pressure applied in the field of sport, but with the broader aim of modifying the wider South African society, does appear to be meeting with some success. It does increasingly look as if this story of sport and apartheid will not end until South Africa has a non-white capitalist government. The present white ruling class can scarcely be expected to acquiesce in this, as it will inevitably mean the reduction of many of them to the status of wage workers. The present unstable condition of many black African states increases still further the paranoia of the rich South African whites. Yet even the establishment of a black capitalism in the Republic will not prevent sundry prejudices from bedevilling sport, as in all aspects of life.

E. C. Edge