You’ve heard the phrase a thousand times before. Keep politics out of sports. Fans scream it on social media whenever an athlete kneels, wears a statement jersey, or meets with a head of state. Broadcasters sigh and wish they could just talk about the playbook.
It is a comforting illusion. We want our stadiums to be neutral ground, completely insulated from the messy reality of elections, foreign policy, and culture wars. But that separation has never actually existed.
The Myth of the Neutral Playground
Athletics have always been a high-stakes theater for statecraft. When leaders chase the spotlight at global tournaments, they aren’t breaking a sacred tradition. They are following a playbook written decades ago.
Look back at the winter of 1945. As World War II ended, Dynamo Moscow toured Britain. It was billed as a friendly exchange to thaw icy relations between London and the Soviet Union. George Orwell hated the idea. He called international sport "war minus the shooting" and warned that competitive matches only breed nationalistic hatreds. On the other side, diplomats like Philip Noel-Baker argued that athletic rivalries could build bridges where politicians failed.
Orwell was right about the passions involved. Noel-Baker was right about the unavoidable entanglement. Athletics do not exist in a vacuum. They amplify whatever political currents are already swirling through society.
When Presidents Step Onto the Field
Modern politicians don't just watch games; they try to hijack them. Whenever a major tournament rolls around, heads of state rush toward the television cameras. They want the halo effect of national pride without doing the work on the ground.
Think about how politicians weaponize sports branding. When teams visit the White House, it's photo-op diplomacy. When national anthems echo through packed arenas, patriotism is baked into the entertainment. You cannot separate the flag on the sleeve from the government funding the stadium or passing the immigration policies that screen international fans.
Athletes realize this power, too. Colin Kaepernick sitting during the NFL national anthem wasn't an aberration. It was a continuation of a long lineage of sports figures—from Muhammad Ali to Tommie Smith and John Carlos—who realized that a global audience listens when athletes refuse to stick to sports.
The Cost of Pretending
Why do we cling so desperately to the idea that sports and politics don't mix? Because sports provide an emotional escape. Real life offers agonizing problems with no clean solutions. A championship match has a scoreboard, a winner, and a definitive end.
Yet, pretending the stadium is bulletproof creates blind spots. It lets governing bodies like FIFA or the International Olympic Committee cut multi-million-dollar deals with authoritarian regimes while preaching global unity. It allows ticket prices to skyrocket, pricing out local communities who built the culture of the game in the first place.
Stop expecting athletes to shut up and play. Stop acting shocked when world leaders use a World Cup trophy presentation as a campaign stop. Sports are a mirror of our political reality, reflecting our tribalism, our ambitions, and our hypocrisies.
Accept that the games we love are political. Only then can we demand better from the people who run them.
