Editor’s
note: Thomas Terraz is a fourth year LL.B.
candidate at the International and European Law programme at The Hague
University of Applied Sciences with a specialisation in European Law. Currently
he is pursuing an internship at the T.M.C. Asser Institute with a focus on
International and European Sports Law.
Since its inception, the Olympic Movement, and in particular the
IOC, has tirelessly endeavored to create a clean bubble around sport events, protecting
its hallowed grounds from any perceived impurities. Some of these perceived ‘contaminants’
have eventually been accepted as a necessary part of sport over time (e.g.
professionalism in sport),[1]
while others are still strictly shunned (e.g. political protest and
manifestations) and new ones have gained importance over the years (e.g.
protection of intellectual property rights). The IOC has adopted a variety of
legal mechanisms and measures to defend this sanitized space. For instance, the IOC has led massive efforts
to protect its and its partners’ intellectual property rights through campaigns
against ambush marketing (e.g. ‘clean venues’ and minimizing the athletes’
ability to represent their personal sponsors[2]). Nowadays,
the idea of the clean bubble is further reinforced through the colossal security
operations created to protect the Olympic sites.
Nevertheless, politics, and in particular political protest, has
long been regarded as one of the greatest threats to this sanitized space. More
recently, politics has resurfaced in the context of the IOC
Athletes’ Commission Rule 50 Guidelines. Although Rule 50 is nothing new, the
Guidelines stirred considerable criticism, to which Richard
Pound personally responded, arguing that Rule 50 is a rule encouraging ‘mutual
respect’ through ‘restraint’ with the aim of using sport ‘to bring people
together’.[3] In
this regard, the Olympic Charter aims to avoid ‘vengeance, especially misguided
vengeance’. These statements seem to endorse a view that one’s expression of
their political beliefs at the Games is something that will inherently divide people
and damage ‘mutual respect’. Thus, the question naturally arises: can the world
only get along if ‘politics, religion, race and sexual orientation are set
aside’?[4] Should
one’s politics, personal belief and identity be considered so unholy that they
must be left at the doorstep of the Games in the name of depoliticization and
of the protection of the Games’ sanitized bubble? Moreover, is it even possible
to separate politics and sport?
Even Richard Pound would likely agree that politics and sport are at
least to a certain degree bound to be intermingled.[5]
However, numerous commentators have gone further and expressed their skepticism
to the view that athletes should be limited in their freedom of expression
during the Games (see here,
here
and here).
Overall, the arguments made by these commentators have pointed out the hypocrisy
that while the Games are bathed in politics, athletes – though without their labor
there would be no Games – are severely restrained in expressing their own
political beliefs. Additionally, they often bring attention to how some of the
most iconic moments in the Games history are those where athletes took a stand
on a political issue, often stirring significant controversy at the time. Nevertheless,
what has not been fully explored is the relationship between the Olympic Games
and politics in terms of the divide between the ideals of international unity
enshrined in the Olympic Charter and on the other hand the de facto embrace of country
versus country competition in the Olympic Games. While the Olympic Charter
frames the Games as ‘competitions between athletes in individual or team events
and not between countries’, the reality is far from this ideal.[6] Sport
nationalism in this context can be considered as a form of politics because a
country’s opportunity to host and perform well at the Games is frequently used to
validate its global prowess and stature.
To explore this issue, this first blog will first take a historical
approach by investigating the origins of political neutrality in sport followed
by an examination of the clash between the ideal of political neutrality and
the reality that politics permeate many facets of the Olympic Games. It will be
argued that overall there has been a failure to separate politics and the Games
but that this failure was inevitable and should not be automatically viewed negatively.
The second blog will then dive into the Olympic Charter’s legal mechanisms that
attempt to enforce political neutrality and minimize sport nationalism, which
also is a form of politics. It will attempt to compare and contrast the IOC’s
approach to political expression when exercised by the athletes with its
treatment of widespread sport nationalism.
1. Constructing the Political Neutrality of the Olympics
The roots of political neutrality in many ways can be traced back to
the Olympic Truce, a tradition that started in Ancient Greece.[7]
The idea of creating a temporal space where nations are at peace is in a way an
attempt to separate Games from the political squabbles of the world, and this tradition
has continued to the modern day. Pierre
de Coubertin envisioned a space ‘to bring the youth of all countries
periodically together for amicable trials of muscular strength and agility’.[8] In
accomplishing this goal, the Olympic Movement
applies a principle of political neutrality,[9] which
includes that the IOC must ‘promote its political neutrality’,[10]
‘oppose any political or commercial abuse of sport and athletes’,[11]
requires new members of the IOC to ‘act independently of commercial and
political interests’,[12]
and NOCs must ‘resist’ political pressures that ‘may prevent them from
complying with the Olympic Charter’.[13]
Lastly, international sport is deeply grounded in the idea of universality in which
a sport, regardless of where it is played, is played by the same rules, meaning
that the sport rules (the rules of the game) are not influenced by the politics
or decisions of a particular state (i.e. sport autonomy).[14]
Coubertin also saw the Games as a ‘sacred enclosure’ for the
athletes of the world,[15] symbolizing
the conceptual genesis of the sanitized space within the modern Games. In these
early days of the Games, Coubertin also believed that protecting the ‘sacred
enclosure’ also meant keeping women out.[16]
While women were first able to participate in the 1900 Olympic Games, albeit in
a limited way and resistance to their participation continued,[17]
politics remained a black sheep. Avery Brundage, IOC President (1952-1972), also
persisted in advocating to keep women out of the Games but was especially a
staunch defender of ‘two major Olympic ideals, i.e. amateurism and the
non-politicisation of sport’.[18] For
him it was not just necessary to keep politics out, but to also ‘actively
combat the introduction of politics in the Olympic movement’ and was ‘adamant
against the use of the Olympic Games as a tool or as a weapon by an
organization’.[19]
With Brundage leading the IOC, political neutrality was placed front and center
and thus Olympic rules began to reflect this new priority. The 1956 Olympic
Charter was the first to include the ‘Information for cities which desire to
stage the Olympic Games’ which specifically required that invitations ‘must
state that no political demonstrations will be held in the stadium or other
sport grounds, or in the Olympic Village, during the Games, and that it is not
the intention to use the Games for any other purpose than for the advancement
of the Olympic Movement’. This would slowly evolve into the current Rule 50:
‘No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is
permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas’. It is interesting to
note that the only earlier explicit mention of politics in the Olympic Charter
was the 1946 Olympic Charter which was concerned by ‘the nationalization of
sports for political aims’ where there would be ‘a national exultation of
success achieved rather than the realization of the common and harmonious
objective which is the essential Olympic law’.[20]
As will be further elaborated in the second blog, it seems as though the IOC has
now placed greater priority on enforcing Rule 50 compared to its rules
concerning sport nationalism. All things considered, the IOC perceives and
projects itself as a neutral entity, which is further confirmed through its governing
rules[21] and
even its seat in Switzerland further reflects this self-perception.[22]
2. Failing to Keep Politics Out of the Games
At this point, it is worth exploring some examples that elucidate
how politics have continually found a way into the ‘clean’ Olympic bubble
through a variety of agents: be it the general public, the athletes, the IOC or
states (both the host and participants).
While perhaps often overlooked when discussing politics in the Games,
public protests are important to study, especially because there have been many
instances of host nations suppressing such public gatherings. For example, in
the 2008 Beijing Games, after great international pressure, the Chinese
government had set
specific zones for Olympic protests. However, protesters were required to
submit an application and could be rejected if the protest would ‘harm
national, social and collective interests or public order’. In the end, all
seventy-seven applications were denied and some of those who applied were
arrested, detained and/or put into forced labor.[23] Similarly,
at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, the IOC
proudly welcomed the announcement of special protest areas, despite the
fact the zones were placed ‘20
minutes by train from the nearest Olympic venue’ and ultimately only attracted
a handful of protesters.[24]
Moreover, in the months leading to the Sochi Games, anti-LGBT
laws were passed and a ‘crackdown
on civil society unprecedented in the country’s post-Soviet history’
ensued. Despite these repressive measures, athletes stood defiant, and after
the IOC made an exception to Rule 50 allowing political expression during press
conferences, many athletes used this platform to take a stand.[25]
This shows how athletes can sometimes be a critical source for political
protest and dissent amidst an atmosphere of suppression, and history has repeatedly
demonstrated how athletes can have a vital role in promoting human rights and
raising awareness concerning sensitive issues. One simply has to point to the
infamous moment when Tommie
Smith and John Carlos raised their fists on the podium in protest or when Vera
Caslavska turned her head away while the Soviet anthem played. There is little
doubt that there has been an extensive history of athlete protest at the Games,
and athletes will likely continue raising the problems close to their hearts
irrespective of the restrictions they face.
Politics also permeate the Games through the IOC itself as it is
continually faced with political decisions, including the recognition of
national Olympic committees,[26]
decisions concerning participation of athletes,[27]
and the awarding of the Games to a city. The latter has often embroiled the
Games in controversies, such as the Salt Lake City bid scandal in which a ‘Special
US Senate commission found some 1,375 separate expenditures totaling nearly $3
million’ to try and ‘sway individual IOC members’.[28]
The scandal prompted several internal investigations in which ten IOC members ‘either
resigned or were expelled’. The current Tokyo Games have not been without
controversy as a Japanese
businessman admitted to giving gifts to IOC members while lobbying for the
Games after having received $8.2 million dollars from the Tokyo bid committee. Taken
together, it could be argued that this is a real source of ‘dirty’ politics and
a greater threat to the concept of a clean or ‘sacred’ space for the Games. Finally,
you’ll find a lot of politics inside the IOC, where some commentators have described
the rise to power of IOC Presidents as resembling ‘the ascent of a conventional
politician’.[29]
Lastly, countries participating and hosting the Games are also able
to introduce politics to the Games through boycotts,[30]
hosting the Games to promote internal and geo-political interests, and using one’s
performance at the Games for political gain and geo-political posturing. Concerning
the first, a decision to boycott is always tied to some political goal, as a
boycott usually seeks to instigate political change or send a specific
political message, such as disapproval of certain political decisions or even
an entire political system. For instance, the 1980 Moscow Olympics had 60
countries, led by the US, boycotting the Games in response to the USSR’s
invasion of Afghanistan.[31]
Indeed, this kind of political wrangling and posturing heavily plagued the Cold
War period. It was also during this time that the ‘Soviet Union and the United
States attempted to proclaim the superiority of their political and
socioeconomic systems by winning the most Olympic gold medals’.[32] A
country’s performance at the Games became an indication of one’s geo-political power
status, and the idea that ‘sport for sport’s sake is not a goal; rather it is
the means to obtaining other goals’ gained more traction. [33] It
could be argued that this trend started even before the Cold War. For instance,
at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Nazis were obsessed with trying to demonstrate
��German superiority’, which included the incredibly calculated efforts to make
the Games into a propaganda spectacle.[34] In
this sense, hosting the Games is a unique way to boost a nation’s image and send
political messages on a world stage as a sort of ‘soft power strategy’.[35] This
kind of sport nationalism is pure politics, and the IOC has long recognized it,
as first enshrined in the 1946 Olympic Charter, as a threat to the fundamental
goals of the Olympic Games.
3. Conclusion
Despite the IOC’s attempts to create a ‘clean’ apolitical bubble,
politics are structurally embedded within the Games due to the array of actors representing
a variety of interests that are involved in its planning and execution. In this
sense, the Games can never truly take place within an impenetrable bubble that
is somehow separated from the societal context in which it takes place. The ‘opposite assumptions, that sport was both
“above and below” the political dimensions of social life’ is simply untenable.[36] In
spite of this, the IOC maintains strict restrictions, through Rule 50, on the
free speech of athletes and of the fans and continues to pedal the myth of a pure
and sanitized Olympic Games. Instead, I believe political expression should not
be regarded as a sly specter infiltrating itself within the Games, defiling the
‘sacred enclosure’ but rather something innate to any free society. Perhaps, in
the end, a more genuine ‘mutual respect’ could be achieved if individuals were authorized
to openly express their identity and convictions without fear of reprisal even in
the face of deep rooted differences.[37] Regardless, politics and the Games remain naturally
entangled, and the next blog in this series will unravel the double standard of
the IOC when addressing sport nationalism and athletes’ political expression at
the Games.