Government Interference in Sports: Necessity or a Bane
Sports are something that a country can be proud of. There is a lot of national pride at stake and so sometimes the governments of countries can get a little bit overzealous and start interfering in the various sports programmes running in the country. This can more often than not be in good faith and the governments have sports ministries set up to facilitate the sports taking place in the country but sometimes they can start punishing players and interfering with the work of the governing bodies. This is when it gets a bit problematic and more encouragement and less interference is needed.
One very powerful sports organising body is FIFA and they do not tolerate government interference one bit. At the slightest hint of government meddling they ban the country’s football team and force the government to comply. Over the years many international teams have faced this punishment by FIFA and others have come close to being banned. El Salvador was banned for a year because of government meddling and Nigeria came close as well after its government wanted to ban the players from playing any matches for a year. France also faced FIFA’s wrath by nearly getting into hot water when the government stated that it would launch an investigation into the poor performance of the national team at the 2010 World Cup, (Anton Capria, 2010). We will continue to see this tactic used by FIFA in the coming years until governments allow their football federations to work independently and give out punishment and rewards as they see fit.
FIFA’s rules are pretty strict because if a country signs on to follow its regulations then it agrees to follow them to the letter without fail. The reason it has such strict rules is in its bid to be fair to all its participating nation associations. All the associations follow the same rules without exception. Over the years many countries have fallen foul of FIFA’s rules. Bangladesh was banned for government interference in 2002, Kenya faced the same fate in 2004, Greece and Iran faced bans in 2006 and in 2008 the Republic of Chad, Madagascar and Iraq all faced bans, (Champions PK, 2010). Even though FIFA has its rules in place for reasons of fairness, the governments of the participating countries feel that they have a duty to the people of the nation that voted them into power to do something to uphold nationalistic pride and make sure the sports teams are working their hardest.
The situation gets interesting in terms of government interference in sports when a team or a sports organisation is accused of some criminal activity. If there is a case of corruption or match fixing and the police of the country gets involved or some other government body such as the FBI in America, does this amount to government interference, (Jeff Yang, 2008). It seems it is government interference when a country’s sports ministry or the president gets involved with the performance of a sports team and decides to punish them for poor performance or somehow hinders the work of the governing body of the sport. In cases of criminal activity that becomes a matter for the police and that is a whole different ball game, pun intended. The line gets blurred when the parliament or government commissions a report into the performance of a sports team, some see this as interference while others see it as proper procedure being followed.
We will continue to see FIFA banning countries left and right because of their inability to allow the football associations to work independently. This debate will continue to rage on about whether governments should have the right to interrogate and punish teams for poor performance because they are effectively representing a whole nation and are not just a small independent team. This matter may never get solved and we will have to see how it plays out in the future. Governments it seems are unable to leave the governing bodies of sports alone and organisations like FIFA cannot allow this to happen, so the battle will rage on for many years to come.
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