Sport to build a nation

There was a rich symbolism in a football event serving as a vehicle for South African nation-building. Where previously it was the success of the rugby Springboks that produced outpourings of national elation, during the FIFA World Cup South Africans congregated around the sport of the masses, thereby legitimising the passion of the majority.

Sport has often been used to galvanise populations, for good and for ill. Argentina’s controversial victory in the 1978 World Cup, which it hosted, is said to have extended the life of the country’s murderous military junta. The Soviet Union and its satellite states pumped extensive resources into the accomplishment of sporting success for the sake of international prestige, and domestically to give their oppressed people something to cheer about.

On the other hand, events such as West-Germany’s 1954 World Cup win had a profound effect on the nation’s psyche, less than a decade after the country was thoroughly defeated in World War 2 (while the destiny of beaten finalists Hungary took the opposite direction).

This year, Spain put aside its fierce regional antagonism as a whole nation divided by regionalism united behind the World Cup winners. Observers of Spanish football and history will have taken note of a team made up mostly of players from FC Barcelona, traditionally a symbol of Catalonian resistance, being cheered by millions in the streets of Madrid.

Sport’s unifying potential was perhaps most powerfully demonstrated when South Africa’s 1995 rugby World Cup victory produced an astonishing moment of national unity. That moment might have been ephemeral, but it continues to serve as a reference point for the possibility of national unity. The experience of hosting the world’s biggest event will provide South Africa with an even more powerful reference point.

The excitement of the World Cup presents South Africa with a remarkable opportunity to use football as a means of cementing national unity and, perhaps more importantly, advance social development and education.

Football can serve as a helpful metaphor and example for the value of working together, a Gospel value in itself. The 2010 World Cup especially showed the advantage of working collectively over individualism as superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Kakà, Franck Ribéry and Wayne Rooney failed to assert themselves.

Pope Benedict in 2008 summed up the benefits of football in shaping the individual: “I’d like the game of football to be a vehicle for the education of the values of honesty, solidarity and fraternity, especially among younger generations.”

Most countries experience a post-World Cup spike in interest in active football among youngsters, more so in countries where the event is hosted. This enthusiasm must be harnessed and put to work.

Government, football administrators, the private sector and civil society should cooperate to provide subsidies for amateur and youth football as an investment in society. The provision of football (and other sports) infrastructure can be a means of diverting the attention of young people from drugs, gangsterism and other deleterious behaviour. Moreover, the creation of football coaching and mentoring jobs would be a socially profitable form of devising employment opportunities.

The promotion of football as a developmental tool and a means of bridging divisions should not be seen as peripheral, never mind as trivial. On the contrary, it should form part of a focussed policy.

The adoption and implementation of a social policy built around sport would, of course, require political will and social innovation (as well as the revival of what seems to be a defunct sports ministry)  –  qualities that often are lacking in South Africa’s political discourse.