International Sports and Late-Stage Capitalism

 


In the former USSR, the Soviets understood that sports were originally supposed to be for the physical and communal benefit, as well as the genuine enjoyment, of the people. By taking capital out of the equation and by allowing the expansion and encouragement of mass participation, the arena of sports actually flourished under the first socialist state when it became accessible to the masses. Under such a system, there was no ‘star system’ where a considerable amount of money was poured into handpicking a select, privileged few individuals and turning them into brand names, sponsored, sports “superstars” who received the lion’s share of scholarships and payments (thus defeating the purpose of team work) — while not-so-famous talented athletes from working class backgrounds have no choice but to work second jobs in order to sustain themselves.  If anything, the current Russian Federation owes it to the former Soviet Union for continuing to be a strong Olympic contender to this day. 
Under capitalism, it is no secret that modern sports are owned and controlled by capital which has commodified such activities, turning them into capitalist enterprises and exchange values for profit. And when International Sports are reduced to nothing more than ‘cash cows’ and brand names, athleticism and friendly competition are essentially almost second thought. 
International events such as the Olympics or the FIFA World Cup are infamous for being utilized as theatres for imperialist, jingoist chest-beating. The Olympics in particular are notorious for allowing the United States to use their events as a sort of extended power projection platform where they can sabre-rattle and bully other competing countries — but particularly Russia and China, both strong Olympic contenders who are geopolitical rivals and major targets of U.S. foreign policy — and make wild, unfounded accusations against their athletes such as alleged “cheating” or “unfair advantages”. In many if not all cases, these unfounded accusations end up needlessly ruining the careers of these “enemy” athletes. Meanwhile, when U.S. athletes are found to have actually been doping and are subsequently stripped of their medals, the U.S. mainstream media either tries to downplay it or to act as if it never happened; not to mention, the United States does not face the same amount of international scrutiny when such a thing happens. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is supposed to be a non-partisan and impartial body, yet time and time again it continues to succumb to acting at the behest of U.S. imperial interests.
Fast-forward to today where the IOC has openly insisted that the people of Japan make sacrifices to ensure that the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games commence, despite Japan currently being in the midst of a ‘fourth wave’ of COVID-19 infections and only having 1-2% of the population fully vaccinated at the time of this writing. This of course sparked even more anger from Japanese residents, most of whom have already voiced opposition to allowing the Games to continue, with many joining protests and signing a petition to cancel them.
*Read the rest here on New Power.

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