More than just a game

By Jarle Hetland

Date: 15/06/06

Before the 2006 World Cup even began, the contest was caught up in political controversy. Twice in the last few weeks, a contingent of MEPs has tried to prevent first the Iranian national football team and then the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from entering Germany because of Ahmadinejad's questioning of the Holocaust and his intention to "wipe Israel off the map".

Before Iran's opening match in Nuremberg against Mexico - which they lost 3-1 - on Sunday (11 June), several hundred people staged a protest against the Iranian government and the presence of Vice-President Mohammed Aliabadi. And although he is unwanted and declared a criminal by Bavaria's Interior Minister Günther Bechstein, Ahmadinejad could still turn up in Germany in the unlikely event that Iran go through to the last 16.

But this is not the first time that the World Cup has been caught up in politics.

Countries under totalitarian rule have won the contest several times since it was first contested in Uruguay in 1930. When Italy staged the second World Cup on home soil in 1934, Benito Mussolini was taking no chances. An array of South American players was drafted to make the Italian side unbeatable. Several had already been capped for other countries such as Argentina and Brazil and were ineligible to play for Italy.

As a propaganda tool, the 1934 contest had limited value. From the first kick-off in the Stadio Nazionale del Partito Nazionale Fascista against the US (Italy won 7-1) to the final whistle on the same ground against Czechoslovakia (Italy won 2-1), large chunks of the stands were empty. The final did draw a crowd of 50,000 but most matches were seen by fewer than 20,000 - only 9,000 turned up for the semi-final at the Benito Mussolini stadium in Turin between Czechoslovakia and Switzerland. Italy went on to win the 1938 tournament too.

In those days, the tournament was largely a European and Latin American contest. The 1970 contest in Mexico was the first televised live in colour to a worldwide audience. Brazil won its third title and got to keep the Jules Rimet trophy. Back home, the victory by 'the Beautiful Team' of Jairzinho and Pelé gave a much-needed boost for the military junta which had seized power in 1966 and was desperate to improve its image abroad, and to deflect attention from the atrocities taking place in the country's prisons.

In 1978, Argentina was host to the 11th World Cup and the ruling military junta there was desperate for a public relations success. Several of the matches were tainted by poor refereeing, but Argentina beat the Netherlands 3-1 in the final after extra time. Daniel Passarella received the trophy at the Antonio Liberti stadium from General Jorge Rafael Videla, but it was the general who later took credit for the country's victory on the balcony of the Casa Rosada.

Although sometimes football has served a political purpose, on occasion politics has become subordinate to the football. During the 1998 World Cup in France, politicians sought to cash in on the enthusiasm for the tournament. The French President Jacques Chirac, who on earlier occasions had shown his disdain for football, suddenly declared that he would like to be a goalkeeper. The then Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin said that although he used to be goalkeeper, he was now more "both a coach and playmaker...".

Those looking for political controversy from this year's World Cup need not focus their attention only on Iran. Serbia and Montenegro, Ukraine and Ivory Coast are all deeply divided countries. There is plenty of potential to prove that football is more than just a game.

Author takes a look at the football World Cup's fraught relationship with politics through the years.
Article is part of a European Voice Special Report, 'The EU and Football'.