“Politics should not interfere with sport” and, in turn, sport should not be used as an “instrument of geopolitical pressure”. This call to keep sport and politics separate was made by none other than Vladimir Putin, in 2016, when Russian athletes were embroiled in a doping scandal. This morning, there is a prophetic sound in his words. If someone has reason to feel uncomfortable about the power that sport has to move opinionsis the Russian president.
Already, St. Petersburg lost the right to host the football Champions League final e the Russian Grand Prix was canceled. Putin himself was suspended from the post of honorary president of the International Judo Federation. Nobody would like to overestimate the effect these measures have have altered the course of events in Ukraine, but Putin, who shamelessly used sport as a badge of national identity and supremacy, will at least now be aware that there is another side to this particular ruble.
His belief that sport and politics should not mix is outdated and out of place. Today sport is politics. The multinational and multicultural nature of our Premier League ensures that the insularity and introspection of national football are no longer viable. Our footballers can be pampered and spoiled, overpaid and frivolous, but they share a locker room with players from all corners of the world. Top managers, men who aren’t afraid to voice political views like Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola, have made sure their bosses know there is more to life than Bentley and bling.
And so was that Premier League the players were ready for the weekend to express their support for desperate people thousands of miles away. The scene at Everton before the game with Manchester City was particularly moving. There are few Ukrainians in the top flight of English football and two of them – City’s Oleksandr Zinchenko and Everton’s Vitaliy Mykolenko – were in their respective teams.
The two rivals embraced on the pitch before the match, the City team wore ‘No War’ shirts, while each Everton player took to the pitch with a Ukrainian flag draped across their shoulders. The crowd stood up and applauded this gesture and the cameras turned to Zinchenko – the captain of the Ukrainian national team – who was holding back tears. I can’t remember a more poignant or politically powerful scene on a soccer field.
Meanwhile, an Aston Villa player raised his shirt to reveal a message to a Polish teammate who plays for Dynamo Kyiv. “Stay strong my brother”, he read. While some cynics may dismiss these demonstrations as symbolism, there can be no doubt that these expressions of opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine eloquently convey the “soft” power of sport to draw attention to injustice.
Putin knows this. He is not a man concerned about public relations, but he cares about sport and, as we have seen, recognizes its ability to exert geopolitical pressure. We should all applaud the stance some are taking against his brutality.
