Sports diplomacy issues (2): the limits of the intuition

Sports diplomacy issues (2): the limits of the intuition

Dr. Gilles Klein, 7 April 2017

Planet

Founding an intergovernmental organization that finances Youth sport and training of its staff in the developing countries. Some will say aloud: what a nice project! Others will think: financing a lost cause, you must be crazy! They are far from being wrong. Every day, in the main streets of the occidental metropolises, bystanders are stopped by a direct seller of the major non-governmental organizations: Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, Amnesty International, World Wildlife Fund, etc. The general public is constantly being asked to fund great causes. The middle classes, sometimes drained of blood in the context of economic crisis, are then invited to save the planet.

Choice

When you are invited to found an international sports organization that gathers States, mainly developing ones, the time of honors is quickly replaced by the challenges that darken the future. Because it is exactly a diplomatic affair to which you have been invited. One of the administration of international affairs, the management and implementation of negotiations between states and between organizations. In 2007, we were still at the intuition stage. Over the last ten years, we have had to patiently elaborate a diplomacy to enable us to convince ministers, heads of states, entrepreneurs, and bankers to help us to support our project. However, between intuition and elaboration, what sports diplomacy was to be built?

France

In Paris, on 15th January 2014, Laurent Fabius, French minister of foreign affairs, presented, in front of an audience of athletes and sports staff, the major orientations of the sport diplomacy of France thus: “if we want that France should succeed and have an influence in sporting terms, we need to implement what we call a sport diplomacy. Until now, it was done intuitively. It will be now done in an organized way”.

How?

A posteriori, the words of the minister are reassuring to us. Before that date, France would not have therefore rationalized the use of sport as a means of foreign policy. A statement that is surprising for a country that is reaching the world top places in medal counts in the major sports international events, such as the Olympic games, world championships or world cups. In any event, the French minister provided us an opportunity to capitalize on our young diplomatic experience. At least, this encouraged us to ask ourselves: What is an intuitive sports diplomacy? What is an organized one?

Tunis

One year ago, the civil society of the Tunisian sports called to take stock of the sports diplomacy issue, as well as the choices available for the authorities of a state or an international sports organization when it is necessary to define the appropriate orientations of a foreign policy. On this occasion, I presented two kinds of sports diplomacy: implicit and explicit. A categorization which embodied the typology proposed by the French minister. However, to help the Tunisian decision-makers to structure their own sports diplomacy, we have gone further by associating these two categories with a diversity of possible orientations. We will here return to the main orientations of an intuitive or implicit sports diplomacy.

Implicit

Many states adopt an implicit sports diplomacy that we can characterize thus: the management of the international sports affairs is not formally expressed, but can be identified through the acts that are effectively undertaken on the international sports scene. For most of the countries, it is a diplomacy that is focused on the participation in major international sports events and the institutions which are organizing them. Three strategies can be identified showing the interests and the limits of each of them.

Represent

The first diplomatic strategy is to increase representation in the major international sports events. The size of the national delegations at the Olympic Games is an indicator of that strategy. For some states, it is important to increase the level of representation. In London, in 2012, half a thousand athletes are British. For others, this increase is not essential. In London, just 81 Indian athletes represent 1.25 billion inhabitants. For the developing countries, the national representation in the major events assumes the mobilization of budgets that are not insignificant. In Rio, with 1025 representatives, the number of athletes from the African states has never been so high.

Expensive

We know that the priority of the African ministers of sports is the presence of the national teams in the major international sports events. This priority was suggested in the article “Break the shop window”. Let us see precisely the price of this strategy. In the Ivory Coast, the Elephants, the national soccer selection is expensive, too expensive. The Ivorian federation of soccer reserved a budget of 1,5 billion of Francs CFA (2.460.000 dollars) for the six qualifying matches to the African Cup of Nations. The sports staff argue, saying that the Ivorian professionals are international stars whose care is expensive: travels from Europe, match premiums of international players, long-term uses, etc.

Referee

As for him, the minister is ready to chip the shop window: “The Elephants are costly for the taxpayers. Where the Senegalese put 60 million Francs CFA (98.600 dollars) for a home-game and about 73 million (119.720 dollars) for an away game, Ivory Coast put in it 300 million (492.000 dollars)”. Following an arbitration of the President Alassane Ouattara, the state decided to fix a premium that will be paid according to the team's results in a competition.

Win

Winning medals is the second diplomatic strategy. We remember the matches involving the American and Soviet ice hockey teams. During the cold war, the medals table was of strategic importance. The United States and the USSR wanted validation that their systems produced the best athletes. Nowadays, some athletes are more attracted by the defense of their personal interests than by the defense of their nation. Medal winning carries economic development for some communities. How could we blame these athletes tempted by the naturalization in the Middle-East States? This choice allows entire families, even villages to live in the uplands of Kenya or Ethiopia.

Bear

The medal winning can also respond to geopolitical challenges. In April 2016, Lamine Diack is awarded by the President Vladimir Putin the rank of the Bear order, a very coveted Russian distinction. According to the minister of sports Vitaly Mutko, “Lamine Diack played a determinant role in Russia’s ability to remain a world force in athletics”. To summarize, a diplomatic medal is exchanged for Russian athletic medals. In a few words, let us revert to this diplomatic strategy to win medals, sometimes at all costs.

Integrity

Lamine Diack is a major actor on the international sports scene. He had an exemplary career: long jumper and French champion, soccer player then national technical director, member then president of the Olympic Senegalese Committee, Deputy minister of youth and sports, Mayor of Dakar, several times president of the International Association of Athletics Federations. He is re-elected IAAF president, in August 2011, for a term of four years. Raphaël Kodjovi Agopome, one of his former collaborators said about him: “He is a man with a high moral value. Integrity is the value that he taught to us”.

Medal

However, in 2015, the same Lamine Diack revealed to the investigators of the central office of combatting financial and fiscal infractions that he received 1,5 million euros directed to a campaign to beat the former Senegalese President Wade during the Presidential election in February 2012. In exchange, Lamine Diack has been engaged to cover up the doping practices of the Russian athletes and to postpone the suspension of Russian athletes. Then, Russia could have purchased the protection of the International Athletics federation (IAAF) against the financing of electoral expenses in Senegal in 2012. Russia won medals. The representative of international sport was also rewarded.

Elect

Increasing the administrative representation in the international sports institutions is the third form of an implicit diplomacy. The states are looking to get elected representatives in the international sports bodies; IOC, FIFA, IAAF, etc. In the first article of this blog, we suggested the wanderings driving these mandates in the management of the major international sports organizations. Some presidents of major organizations have nothing to envy of some African presidential practices. The case of the Confederation of African football is emblematic of these interests, but also of the drifts of the representation in the major sports organizations.

Unexpected

Recently, an important but unexpected event occurred in the world of African football. Last March 16th, in Addis Abeba, Ahmad Ahmad, former Malagasy minister of sports, then fishery, became the new president of the Confederation of African football (CAF). The Cameroonian Issa Hayatou, in charge since 1988 give up his seat. The discrete support of Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s President is no doubt linked with this election announcing a change of the mode of governance at the head of CAF.

Discreet

Indeed, the new president who is considered a discreet man, is looking to modernize the institution. To ensure this, he has three major assets. In his view, it is imperative to change the mode of governance. For example, money given to the African federations should be better tracked. Then, he relies on a network. A network that swings the votes on his behalf. The fourteen presidents of Austral Africa announced that they will vote for the only opponent to the former president. Finally, he wants to develop training of young people and coaches and promote the construction of better-secured sports infrastructures.

Longevity

The record of President Hayatou is remarkable. Over about thirty years, the former CAF’s president has brought a lot to African football. According to Claude Leroy, who has been coach of several national selections in Africa, “many things have been done. The number of places for Africa in the final phase of the world cup, the CAN format and the clubs’ competitions, the creation of CHAN (African clubs’ championship), notably. CAF is in good financial health because he was able to attract important sponsors. In about thirty years of presence, he obviously advanced African football. Everyone, even his detractors, can appreciate”.

Survival

Issa Hayatou, nicknamed the Emperor of African football, a candidate at an eighth mandate, seemed to be undefeated. Trying to be so, he is suspected of having adopted the strategies of the African presidents: maintaining power at all costs and election rigging. To ensure his continuance, Hayatou was supported by Blatter, his FIFA counterpart, suspended for trading in influence and personal enrichment. Both had this kind of survival instinct, that allow them to attain sustainability in politics. Blatter, to be re-elected, counted on Hayatou and Africa, the largest provider of voices at the FIFA. Hayatou counted on Blatter to develop football on the African continent and organize the world cup there. But, like Blatter, Hayatou was at the heart of several scandals: acquiring interests in broadcasting rights, rigging in the allocation of the world cup to Qatar, etc.

Drunkenness

We have pointed out three strategies of an implicit sports diplomacy. Increasing the representation in the major events, because the important thing is to participate, assumes also to control the budgets of the federations and ministers of sports. Winning medals is a lofty goal, but can be guided by geopolitical interests giving rise to transactions which are as well discreet as fraudulent. Being elected in a major international sports organization can lead to the construction of a work of art of public interest, but also to the drunkenness of power. We are now back at our starting point and our questions about the governance of world sport. To elaborate our own sports diplomacy, we had at least to keep in mind the drifts generated by the appetite of power or the thirst for money. We had also to pursue our investigation of the possible models of sports diplomacy, to build our own pathway and propose adapted solutions to youth sport.

Next: 14 April 2017 – Sports diplomacy issue (3): on the side of classics.