Politicisation of Sports – Athletes, Anthems and Agenda

Author(s)	Ms. Harshaa S
Country	India
Abstract	Sport is often considered apolitical but this paper argues that framing is political. The paper follows the evolution of sport from soft power projection, to identity-building at the domestic level, and it focuses on the asymmetrical use of the term “sportswashing” which is almost exclusively applied to non-Western hosts such as Qatar, but not to comparable conduct by Western states, exemplified through the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which is relabelled “sports diplomacy”. A parallel debate, invoking Anderson’s notion of ‘imagined communities’, differentiates postcolonial sporting pride from sportswashing and cases of individual athletes (e.g. Djokovic) inadvertently reshaping national image. The paper concludes that the political use of sport is not the problem per se, it is the selective willingness to name it as political that is.
Keywords	Sports, Sports Diplomacy, Sportswashing, national identity, Politicisation.
Field	Sociology > Sports
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 4, July-August 2026
Published On	2026-08-16
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i04.85359

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