—The Republic of Spain boycotts the “Nazi Games” in Berlin in 1936

The Olympic Games in Berlin remain a contentious issue for many people. With the Nazis in power and with their obvious commitment to racism, anti-Semitism, and military buildup, there was pressure exerted on many nations and the IOC itself to boycott the games. The only nation that boycotted was the new Republic of Spain that elected to hold an alternative People’s Olympics in Barcelona. However, fascists challenged the government of the new republic, and the ensuing civil war cancelled the games in Barcelona, even after many athletes had already arrived ready to compete. (The war ended in 1939 with a new fascist government; one of the officers in that totalitarian government, Juan Antonio Samaranch, went on to be the president of the IOC from 1980–2001).

Protests over the brutal racist apartheid regime in South Africa led the IOC to ban that nation from the Olympic movement in 1964. This wasn’t done because Avery Brundage and the rest of the IOC objected to racism, but they did fear boycotts and disruptions of the games as protests against South Africa grew worldwide.

The Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia were held as the heat of the Cold War was felt worldwide. An anti-communist revolt in Hungary had recently been quelled by a brutal response on the part of the Soviet Union (USSR); additionally, tensions in the “Middle East” reached a peak as the Israeli military invaded the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, which threatened the border of Egypt and the Suez Canal, which had been built by Egyptians. In response to brutal Soviet tactics in Hungary, the games were boycotted by Spain, Switzerland, and The Netherlands. At the same time, Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon boycotted the games to protest Israeli military action and the crisis related to the Suez Canal and related disagreements with the United States over the control of the canal (used to transport oil from the part of the world to the United States).

The 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City came at a time when worldwide awareness of civil rights abuses reached a high point. This awareness was especially intense in the United States where the civil rights movement was in full swing. San Jose State sociology professor/activist Harry Edwards and others organized the international OPHR and called for a global boycott of the 1968 games. The global boycott didn’t occur, but many high-profile African American athletes refused their invitations to the games. Others who competed in the games intended to voice public support for OPHR, but only Tommie Smith and John Carlos, medal winners in the 400-meter race, publically protested with their infamous—now famous—bare feet and gloved fists. They were expelled from the Olympic Village and sent back to the United States where they were condemned for being political. But their fates were less dramatic than the fates of many college students in Mexico City; as they protested the use of public money to fund the games while Mexican poverty was stifling the rest of the nation, over 200 of them were gunned to death by the Mexican military.

The 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany were the scene of a terrorist attack by Palestinian commandos who kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes. A number of African nations threatened a boycott over the IOC approval of participation in the games by teams from South Africa and Rhodesia, both of which maintained white racist regimes. However, the boycott was called off when the IOC expelled both nations from the Olympic membership. Commitment to a boycott was renewed prior to the 1976 games in Montreal, Canada over the anticipated participation of the national team from New Zealand, a nation that had officially sponsored a rugby tour of South Africa, despite an IOC ban against all sport competitions with South African teams. When New Zealand was not expelled, 28 nations, mostly from Africa, boycotted the Montreal games. Additionally, the Republic of China (Taiwan) withdrew from the 1976 games in Montreal because they refused to participate if the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was allowed to participate under the flag of China. Until 1976, the PRC had boycotted the Olympic Games because Taiwan was a participant. It wasn’t until the games in Moscow in 1980 that the PRC sent a national team to the games—because Taiwan joined with the United States to boycott those. But Taiwan participated in the 1984 games in Los Angeles because the PRC had joined the boycott led by the USSR and its allies. When Taiwan came to the games, they did so under the new name of “Chinese Taipei.”

When troops from the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan without UN approval to quell terrorist activity (as the United States did in 2001), then-President Jimmy Carter stated that the United States would boycott the games in Moscow if Soviet troops were not withdrawn. The USSR maintained troops in Afghanistan, and the United States, along with 65 allied nations, refused to allow their national teams to compete in Moscow. This left only 81 nations to compete in Moscow, and the USSR suffered a massive debt due to the lack of tourism and television revenues. Twenty-nine of the boycotting nations held an event called the “Liberty Bell Classic,” also referred to as the Olympic Boycott Games, at the University of Pennsylvania. The Republic of China (Taiwan) boycotted the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid because they refused to use the name “Chinese Taipei.”

In a move to spite and get even with the United States, the USSR and its eastern-bloc allies, with the exception of Romania, boycotted the games in Los Angeles and held their own Friendship Games in Moscow where there were existing Olympic venues. Representatives of the United States convinced, coerced, and “bribed” its allies to participate in the games. The absence of teams from the USSR, East Germany, Cuba, and other sport powerhouses enabled the U.S. team to sweep a disproportionate number of medals. This created a chauvinistic fervor that turned the 1984 games into a major financial success—the largest in Olympic history, despite little competition for medals.

When the 1988 games were awarded to Seoul, Korea, the regime in North Korea argued that they should be named as a co-host for the games. When this did not occur, North Korea along with Ethiopia and Cuba boycotted the games.

A year before the games scheduled for Sydney, Australia in 2000, a delegation representing female athletes worldwide threatened the IOC with a boycott and a disruption of the games if it allowed the continuation of gender testing. The delegation was armed with scientific data proving the inadequacy of the tests and with support from major international sport governing bodies, such as those for soccer and track and field (FIFA and IAAF). The IOC feared violence over this issue, so they suspended the testing and said it would be done only in individual cases when there was a serious question about an athlete’s gender. Additionally, the IOC banned Afghanistan from sending a team due to the Taliban government’s repressive policies against women.

Human rights activists worldwide were incensed when the IOC voted China as the host of the 2008 games. Protests around the world objected to China’s treatment of Tibet, but Tibet was used by many as a symbol of China’s larger record of human rights abuses. Although the protests involved millions of people around the world and disrupted the global torch run sponsored by China and the IOC, a boycott never materialized, mostly because many of the nations in which protests were held had less than shining human rights records—and there also was much money to be made on the games by people in those nations, especially the United States.

The government of Georgia, a former republic of the USSR, announced in mid-2008 that it would recruit support for a boycott of the winter games in 2014. The games are being held in Russia, which invaded the territory of Ossetia, a disputed part of Georgia that borders Russia and is an area through which a pipeline transports oil used in Europe and North American (this reduces U.S. dependence on oil from western Asia—the “Middle East”—while avoiding contact with Iran and Russia).

What she meant was that she and my father worked hard to plan Christmas Day—what the six kids and they would wear to Christmas mass, the presents for each child, how to handle Christmas Eve with gifts being assembled until the early morning hours, and what would be made and served for Christmas dinner. All that work and effort and it was over in less than 12 hours with paper, boxes, dishes, pot and pans, and food leftovers in its wake.

I thought of her statement when I began to do research on sport mega-events. After seeing how much work, effort, and money goes into such events and how little of the benefits carryover into the post event period, I concluded that “there’s nothing so over as the World Cup” (or the Olympics, Pan American Games, etc).

One of the perceived and publicized advantages of hosting a sport mega-event is the opportunity to invest in projects that will create a legacy—that is, things that will exist and benefit the population after the event is over.

There is one legacy that appears to be constant in connection with the World Cup (and the Olympic Games), and that is a massive public debt that will take years if not generations to pay off. In fact, the debt is so great in many cases that people who were not even born when it occurred will pay taxes that will go toward the debt payment.

When a country hosts the World Cup, it must have 10-12 stadiums that meet FIFA standards. It must have sufficient hotels located strategically to house nearly a million foreign visitors. It must have transportation infrastructure that can move people between the hotels and stadiums, and there must be a network of city airports to handle people traveling from stadium to stadium as their teams play in different locations during the 4-week tournament.

Additionally, there must be tens of thousands of trained service workers and volunteers who can respond to the wants and needs of visitors, many of whom will not speak the native language, know local norms, or feel comfortable with some local customs.

To convince the population of a country that the investment of their future taxes into such an event is warranted, promises are made about what will be left for them after the event is over. When boosters are initially promoting a bid to host the event and when money is allocated after a country is awarded the event, many promises are made about the event’s legacy and how the legacy will benefit everyone in the country.

But there is so much work, time, effort, and money that goes into the event that there is nothing left after it is over. Promises about legacies cannot be kept because there is nothing left to make them happen. Money is gone, people are tired, motivation has long since disappeared, and memories of what was promised fade.

This is the way it was in South Africa in 2010 and in Mumbai after the 2010 Commonwealth Games. It is also the way it was after the 2012 Olympics in London and the 2014 Olympics in Sochi (Russia) in 2014. If history tells us anything, this is also the way it will be in Brazil after the 2014 World Cup and in Rio de Janeiro after the 2016 Olympic Games.

In other words, there is nothing so over as the World Cup and other sport mega-events.
©2014 Jay Coakley


Reading 4.

Global politics and the production of sports equipment and apparel
Free-trade agreements allowing money and goods to flow across national borders without the constraints of taxes and tariffs have created a new global economic environment. This change makes it cost-effective for large corporations selling products to people in wealthy nations to locate production facilities in labor-intensive, poor nations. Workers in these nations are desperate for jobs and will work for low wages under conditions that would be considered oppressive by everyone who buys the products.

At the beginning of the 21^st century, many athletic shoes costing well over $100 a pair in the United States were cut and sewn by Chinese, Indonesian, and Thai workers, some of them children, making less than $2 per day (Sage, 1999). Children in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, where working conditions and pay often are reprehensible, stitched soccer balls (see photos below).

In the 1990s, soccer balls were marketed as being produced with CHILD FREE LABOUR when they were being stitched by children in developing nations. For example, the ball in this photo is being stitched by the girl below.

But child labor and sweatshop conditions continue to exist, and a wide range of sporting goods and apparel consumed in wealthy nations is made by people living below local poverty levels and working under conditions that make individual and family survival a daily challenge.

When activists such as the Maquila Solidarity Network, the Global March Against Child Labour, and other social justice groups sparked global pressure to stop companies from using children to sew soccer balls in India and Pakistan, some sewing operations moved to Africa, where people are desperate for jobs and not yet organized to demand fair wages. Instead of setting up factories, companies contract with individuals who work in their homes or small local facilities like this one outside of Nairobi, Kenya.



Workers in a rural region in Africa sew soccer balls away from agents who enforce labor laws.

(Photos compliments of Kevin Young, sociologist, University of Calgary)
A report in 2004 showed that MLB used balls stitched in Costa Rica by people who worked eleven hours a day, six days a week, for about $2750 per year. This compares poorly with the $2.5-million average salary for MLB players. Starting at 6 a.m. and quitting at 5 p.m., unless forced to work overtime, the people in Costa Rican factories earn about 30 cents for sewing 108 perfect stitches on the seams of a ball. The work is hard, says a thirty-seven-year-old man who sews baseballs in a factory where the temperature often is above 90 degrees.

“Sometimes,” he explains, “it messes up your hands, warps your fingers and hurts your shoulders” (Weiner, 2004). This man’s 30 cents of labor produces a ball that Rawlings Sporting Goods sells for $15 (as of June 2008; http://www.-rawlingsgear.com/Baseball/Balls).

Research shows that it’s possible to improve working conditions among people who produce sporting goods and other products if enough people in wealthy nations participate in actions that make corporations accountable and also provide exploited workers with the resources they need to demand higher wages and better working conditions. For example, when the Nike Transnational Advocacy Network, a worldwide Internet-based activist organization, exposed the exploitive practices used in Nike factories in the late 1990s, they forced significant changes in the conditions under which workers produced Nike products in certain nations. However, Jim Keady, co-director of Educating for Justice and an expert on working conditions in Nike factories in Southeast Asia, continues to report in 2014 that wages and collective bargaining remain crucial issues in Nike production facilities.

In Indonesia, where Keady has done extensive research on living conditions, workers continue to fight for cost-of-living wages. In response, Nike often threatens to leave town and take thousands of jobs elsewhere. This relocation would devastate already poverty-stricken areas and threaten thousands of lives.

But stockholders always want Nike to hit quarterly revenue projections, and Nike does this by keeping wages as low as possible in their production facilities. Of course, Nike is not the only company doing this. Many others use the same exploitive practices despite the work of activists between 1995 and the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Research reports issued in 2008 provide evidence that serious violations of workers’ rights remained the norm in the production of sports brands (Oxfam International, 2008; Play Fair, 2008). Keady’s reports from Indonesia continue to document labor exploitation in 2014.

Politics is relevant to this sport-related labor issue because neither the local (Indonesian, Thai, Chinese, Sri Lankan, Cambodian, and others) nor U.S. governments see fit to intervene for the sake of the workers, and people in the United States and other wealthy nations are not yet concerned enough about these issues to politicize their consumption of sport equipment, shoes, and apparel by boycotting all products not certified by worker advocacy organizations.

Unless consumer-citizens in wealthy nations become concerned enough about the people who make their products to take action, social justice activists will not by themselves be able to make significant changes in an under-regulated global marketplace where transnational corporations can pursue profits with little or no oversight or accountability.

Students at a number of universities in the United States have organized to demand that the apparel and equipment sold in their campus stores and used in the athletic departments are made in conformity with an anti-sweatshop code. This is a useful step in reducing worker exploitation in poor nations where governments don’t regulate corporations to protect workers.

In the case of Nike, Champion, Adidas, Reebok, Puma, and others, this strategy can be effective because these companies have contracts with many universities and athletic departments. Human rights and social justice groups have fought these battles for many years, and organizational structures are in place that enable students who are willing to help without ever leaving campus.

©2014 Jay Coakley

Qatar’s population is about 2.1 million people, but less than 300,000 or 14 percent of them are citizens. The rest of the population consists of foreign workers who live there. Additionally, 20 percent of the citizens are member of the Al Thani family which rules the nation.

Despite its wealth, Qatar lacks a defense system that could protect it from external threats—that is, it lacks what political scientists call hard power. This means that Qatar needs allies that would come to its aid in the event of a threat—that is, they need to build soft power.

This is where sport enters the scene. The royal family decided that if Qatar could host a mega-event such as the FIFA men’s World Cup, the country could recruit allies that would come to its aid when needed. The first step in reaching this goal was achieved when they were named to host the 2022 World Cup. This, the Qataris hoped, would alter their place in international affairs and create valuable allies.

Housing and hosting these workers has been a major challenge. Qatari citizens feel insecure, because they control the country and its resources but constitute only 12 percent of the population. If the other 88 percent made a move to acquire more power and resources, the wealth and culture of the native Qataris would be seriously threatened.

Immigrant workers in Qatar are under the direct control of Qatari managers. They have no rights and they work and live under conditions that are inhumane. Reportedly, hundreds of Asian workers have died each of the last few years due to working and living conditions. Officials from the Indian embassy in Doha reported that during a two week period of extremely hot weather over 500 workers from their country died in Qatar.

As human rights groups, trade unions, International Labour Organization (ILO), and the United Nations Human Rights Council began to investigate how workers are being treated, their findings were publicized worldwide in 2013 and 2014, and Qatar now faces a major threat to its integrity as a nation.

The members of the ruling Al Thani family want to retain control over the country, its culture, and its massive natural resources at the same time that they do not want to grant citizenship to immigrant workers who don’t think or act like them. This puts them in a difficult position: They need the workers to complete the projects they promised would be ready for the World Cup, but they now need approval from powerful international labor and human rights groups and the countries on which they are counting to build their soft power.

At this point it appears that using sport as a developmental strategy has backfired. As a host of the World Cup they have attracted attention forcing them to be more transparent and accountable for their treatment of workers—two things never before demanded of the royal family. Overall, the World Cup has caused such a bright light to shine on Qatar that they must account for how they treat foreign workers who make up the vast majority of the population.