Is sport a political business?
There is no doubt that sport is becoming more and more commercialized. Often the money is more important than the game itself and there are many situations, which highlight the importance of politics in sports. Why is that? The answer is pretty simple. Sport gains a lot of attention and interest. It is so easy to take advantage of it and involve politics in it, which unfortunately often destroys the beauty of sports.
Perfect example of how politics can influence sport is FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) and the corruption crisis, which was discovered three years ago. The crisis is without a doubt really serious matter, because FIFA being the most powerful soccer institution, instead of focusing mostly on improving soccer, started to be notorious for the bribery. It all began in 2015, when among others, Sepp Platter (president of FIFA) and Michael Plattini (president of UEFA) were banned from all soccer-related activities due to the federal investigation, which revealed many problems inside FIFA. Since then more than 40 officials were arrested and more than half of them pleaded guilty. The main problems included taking bribes and the fact that main sponsorship rights to the events, like Copa América, were sold. Moreover, allowing Qatar to host World Cup 2022 despite obstacles like very high temperature during the summer, also was an important factor in determining the arrests of many authorities. There is no surprise that Qatar is able to pay a lot of money to FIFA and this might be the main reason why it was decided to give them the opportunity to organize the World Cup there. It is important to take into consideration the fact that World Cup generates not only a lot of costs, but also a lot of earnings. FIFA’s corruption may even go as far back as 2010, where South Africa was hosting World Cup. It is possible that $10 million deal, between Blatter and South African President, Thabo Mbeki, secured that the event was hosted there. There is no doubt that FIFA has many issues to resolve and now when the World Cup in Russia is coming, it is even more important.
Another example I want to present, is the terrorist attack on Borussia Dortmund’s team on April, 11th in 2017. It happened just before the Champion League’s game against AS Monaco in Germany. Marc Bartra was the one who was injured and taken to the hospital. The game was postponed to the next day, which was strongly criticized among not only soccer teams, but whole sport business. A lot of people highlighted that money was more important than the health of players. This attack had serious implication, not only on player’s well-being but also on the game itself, which ended 2:3 for AS Monaco. However, the result was not important, because the soccer was shadowed by a tragedy. The fact that the man responsible for the booming was caught few week later did not erase the memories of this event and the fact that political issues are present even in sports.
