Abolish International Sport

Now that we are in the middle of the 2010 football World Cup it seems like a good time to revisit an article I wrote last year about the nonsense of having 'international' sports teams. Already we've seen evidence of politicking - Didier Drogba being allowed to play against the rules with his arm in plaster, presumably to keep fans and sponsors happy. Platini and Blatter patronising Africans with talk about 'sounds of Africa' and entire nations - even continents - pretending that these pampered pooches, cheats and cynics somehow represent them. Read on...




It's a funny thing about sport, but when teams suddenly become countries: "Germany", "France", etc - the contest suddenly becomes less about sport and more about national pride. When England beat Australia to win the Ashes the entire country basked in the glory. Even though the baskers themselves couldn't throw a ball for toffee and have contributed exactly nothing to "their" team's success.


So here's my proposal. All 'international' sporting events should be abolished. Not sporting events themselves; just that athletes should compete as individuals at the Olympics and at every other sport, and that the England football, rugby etc teams be abolished and players play for any team they want to - clubs, associations etc.



The reasoning being firstly : that international sport divides rather than unites; that it promotes nationalism, even racism, cements differences and encourages jingoism and xenophobia. It is, as Orwell said, "war minus the shooting". Hardly what the world needs. Secondly: that in a sporting context 'nationality' is actually pretty meaningless. Andy Murray was born in Scotland but trained and learnt his skills in Spain. So he actually owes more to Spain than Scotland. So shouldn't he really represent Spain, if anyone? After all we have no control over where we were born. It just depends on where your mother went into labour. I could have been born in France if my mum had delivered early. So can I play for France? My mother was born in Tanzania, so I can play for them too, even though I've never set foot there? It's meaningless. Most people have 'foreign' blood in them.



International sport equates sporting prowess with nationhood, even ethnicity. And if American athletes win say 10 golds, how does that mean 'America' has won 10 golds? It doesn't. It just means that those individuals have won them. Nothing at all to do with insurance salesmen in Texas or computer programmers in San Francisco. They haven't done anything. This false sense of 'belonging', of somehow partaking in the success of others, living your dreams and fantasies vicariously through the success of others who just happen to share your passport is simply nonsense. Do you know an olympic gold medallist? Have you ever met one? Have you personally helped him/her to perfect the techniques that enabled them to win gold? Of course not. So you can claim no credit for their success. The feelgood factor you get from their success in competing for the team of the country you live in is illusory.


Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT, renowned linguist, author and campaigner said this about sporting loyalties during a live interview in front of an audience:


"You know, I remember in high school, already I was pretty old. I suddenly asked myself at one point, why do I care if my high school team wins the football game? [laughter] I mean, I don't know anybody on the team, you know? [audience roars] I mean, they have nothing to do with me, I mean, why I am cheering for my team? It doesn't mean any -- it doesn't make sense. But the point is, it does make sense: it's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements -- in fact, it's training in irrational jingoism. That's also a feature of competitive sports. I think if you look closely at these things, I think, typically, they do have functions, and that's why energy is devoted to supporting them and creating a basis for them and advertisers are willing to pay for them and so on."


Professor Chomsky's slant is that obsessing about sport distracts the masses from the important things in life, like politics. But extrapolate his point further to people's association of entire countries or races with sporting contests . It's not a big stretch.


Take English football. Many people like watching football. They like to see the skill of the players and the teams. But a curious thing: they think that a team is equivalent to themselves. They think that they are a team. So they say: "We won on Saturday"; "we beat you"; "we're better than you" etc. It makes me laugh. "We"? "We"? Since when do you play for Chelsea? Are you a goalkeeper or something? It used to be the case that teams were composed of players who were all local lads from the area. Those days are long gone - now football is in the hands of huge and powerful corporate giants, media companies and billionaires. I'm looking forward to laughing my socks off when the day comes that rival teams are owned by companies that are in partnership with each other, or even the same company. Just to see the bafflement of the 'fans' who believe that 'their' team is apart from, and distinct from, all the others.


On a local level sporting loyalties are laughable. Irrational. An imagined and entirely concocted 'rivalry' that sweeps people along into believing that they have 'enemies'. Two guys could pass each other in the street perfectly peaceably. But if the next day they are wearing colours from opposing teams they suddenly become rivals. Amazing.


On an international scale it is even more absurd. If sport is truly about aesthetics, admiring the strength, speed, technique, determination and willpower of the competitors, then grouping teams of individuals by country should be abolished. Individuals should compete as individuals, teams merely as colleagues. In many sports the players in the same teams don't even have the same nationality, they only qualify through ancestry, so it's meaningless anyway. International sport encourages the most ugly kind of jingoism and nationalism, often with a healthy dose of racism thrown in for good measure.


It could be too ambitious an aim. Perhaps the desperate urge to have a sense of belonging, the divisiveness of 'them' and 'us' is too strongly ingrained in human nature to achieve this. But we could make a start by abolishing the contemptible 'league table' of medals that 'countries' win at the Olympics. I don't care that the UK did so well, beating France, Australia etc. It wasn't our country anyway, just a miniscule proportion of people who hold the nationality and outperfomed another tiny number of individuals, none of whom have any affinity whatsoever with the watching viewers.



Even the 'positive' aspects of international competition - camaraderie, national hysteria, strangers kissing each other in the street - is all based on 'beating' someone, on being 'better' than someone and on being, in some way, superior. I'm not against competition, I think it's healthy. I'm against it being based on nationhood. The world would be a much better place without it.