Benito Mussolini used the
1934 FIFA World Cup, held in Italy, to showcase
Fascist Italy.
Adolf Hitler used the
1936 Summer Olympics held in
Berlin, and the
1936 Winter Olympics held in
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, to promote the
Nazi ideology of the superiority of the
Aryan race, and inferiority of the Jews and other "
undesirables". Germany used the Olympics to give off a peaceful image while secretly preparing for war. When
apartheid was official policy in South Africa, many sports people, particularly in
rugby union, adopted the conscientious approach that they should not appear in competitive sports there. Some feel this was an effective contribution to the eventual end of apartheid, others feel it may have prolonged and reinforced its worst effects. In the history of Ireland, Gaelic sports were connected with
cultural nationalism. Until the mid-20th century a person could have been banned from playing
Gaelic football,
hurling, or other sports administered by the
Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) if she/he played or supported
Association football, or other games seen to be of
British origin. The GAA banned the playing of football and
rugby union at Gaelic venues. This ban, also known as Rule 42, is still enforced, but was modified to allow football and rugby to be played in
Croke Park while
Lansdowne Road was redeveloped into
Aviva Stadium. Under Rule 21, the GAA banned members of the British security forces and members of the
RUC from playing Gaelic games, but the advent of the
Good Friday Agreement in 1998 led to removal of the ban.
Nationalism is often evident in the pursuit of sport or in its reporting: athletes compete in national teams, and commentators or audiences frequently adopt partisan perspectives. On occasion, such tensions erupt into violence among players or spectators, as during the 1969
Football War between El Salvador and Honduras, a conflict sparked by rioting at World Cup qualifiers. Such episodes are viewed as contrary to the fundamental ethos of sport—namely, that it be contested for its own sake and for the enjoyment of participants. Politics and sport tragically intersected at the
1972 Munich Olympics, when Palestinian militants infiltrated the Olympic Village, took Israeli team members hostage, and ultimately killed 11 athletes in what became known as the
Munich massacre. A study of US elections has shown that the result of sports events can affect the results. A study published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that when the home team wins the game before the election, the incumbent candidates can increase their share of the vote by 1.5%. A loss had the opposite effect, and the effect is greater for higher-profile teams or unexpected wins and losses. When the
Washington Commanders win their final game before an election, then the incumbent president is more likely to win, and if they lose, then the opposition candidate is more likely to win; this has become known as the
Redskins Rule.
As a means of controlling and subduing populations Étienne de La Boétie, in his essay
Discourse on Voluntary Servitude describes athletic spectacles as means for tyrants to control their subjects by distracting them. Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude...they let themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these...enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naïvely...as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books. During the British rule of
Bengal, British and European sports began to supplant
traditional Bengali sports, resulting in a loss of native culture. In communist controlled
East Germany, from the 1970s to 1990, 'an estimated 3,000 unofficial collaborators were used each year in top-level sport, including many football players, fans and referees'. Among the most important reasons for the
Stasi setting up this extensive network of collaborators was to prevent athletes escaping to the West, using both methods of surveillance and repression. ==Religious views==