Soccer as the continuation of politics by other means

Both may be preoccupied by the terrible events in Iraq, but President Barack Obama and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani have found time to use social media platforms to signal their support for their respective national soccer teams at the World Cup. Obama went with Facebook and Vine, Rouhani tweeted his support along with a picture of himself most uncharacteristically in a football tracksuit rather than clerical robes. Iran’s delegation at the Vienna nuclear talks took time out from diplomacy to watch the TV broadcast of Iran playing Nigeria. 

João Havelange, who preceded current incumbent Sepp Blatter as president of FIFA between 1974 and 1998, understood the power of his office as a function of the popularity of the game. "In the 1990 World Cup in Italy I saw Pope John Paul II three times,” he said in a speech in 1998. “When I go to Saudi Arabia, King Fahd welcomes me in splendid fashion … I can talk to any president, but they'll be talking to a president too on an equal basis. They've got their power, and I've got mine: the power of football, which is the greatest power there is." Brazil 2014 has borne out Havelange’s boasts.

Football’s power – an amalgam of tangible universalism, brilliant narrative spontaneity and variety, and immense popular symbolic range – has attracted an extraordinary array of powerful figures to the World Cup. Some, but by no means all, are head of states whose teams are competing in the tournament. Others have long-standing diplomatic connections with Brazil; some are seeking to forge new ones. A few look like they are on an elaborate holiday, but they all have political business to do either at home or abroad.

Best represented, not surprisingly, are the Latin Americans. The leftist presidents of Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay – Rafael Correa, Evo Morales and José Mujica, respectively – have all dropped in, while Chile’s socialist president, Michele Bachelet, stayed for the match against Australia in Cuiabá. The political right is represented, too, in the shape of Paraguay’s president and richest man, Horacio Cartes, Suriname’s Desiré Delano Bouterse, and Honduras’ Juan Orlando Hernández. United States vice president Joe Biden rolled into town to watch the U.S. beat Ghana in Natal before seeing President Dilma Rousseff in Brasília, hoping to thaw the  relationship between the two states temporarily frozen by revelations of the scale of U.S. spying on Brazil. 

African delegations are also numerous – literally, in the case of the entourage that will be accompanying Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. Although not quite the entourage of 600 that accompanied him to the United Nations in New York, it still includes a cavalcade of ministers, senators and governors. The sharp-eyed Nigerian press notes that no provision has been made for this in the budget plans of the Nigerian football federation. Ghana, the other African qualifier to send a senior national leader, opted for Vice President Kwesi Amissah Arthur, but funds have been assembled to send 500 selected official fans and a cook.

Diplomatically more intriguing is the presence of a number of African presidents whose national teams failed to qualify for the World Cup, among them Angola’s José Eduardo dos Santos and Gabon’s Ali Bongo Ondimba. Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, is coming for the semifinal and final, and together with East African Breweries is paying up to bring Kenya’s national football team, the Harambee Stars, too – a promise made earlier this year after they won the East African regional tournament the Cecafa Challenge Cup.

Kenyatta will be talking to Kenya, but Dos Santos and Ondimba have business in Brazil. Western Africa, particularly these oil-rich nations, has been one of the important areas of focus for Brazil’s new more global diplomacy. The region is important for Brazil’s oil and construction companies and a recipient of aid from the federal government.

Europe, despite having the most teams in the competition, is a little thin on official delegations. Croatia’s prime minister, Zorán Milanovic, watched his team lose the opening game to the hosts; Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel enjoyed the German thrashing of Portugal. The king and queen of Belgium and Prime Minister Elio di Rupo are showing up for their game with Russia. The Dutch royal couple have tickets for their match against Australia.

In some ways the really serious diplomatic business, for Brazil at any rate, comes right at the end of the tournament. Just a few days after the World Cup final, Brazil will host this year’s BRICS summit in Fortaleza. China’s Premier Xi Jinping, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma and Russian President Vladimir Putin have already confirmed their attendance at both the final and the summit. An invitation has been extended to newly elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, known for his love of cricket. But as even India, currently ranked 147th in the world by FIFA, is issuing a commemorative set of World Cup postage stamps and Modi has been tweeting his enthusiasm for the World Cup, it’s safe to bet he’s considering attending the final, too.

The absence of India and China – not to mention Pakistan and Indonesia – from the highest levels of international football is the last remaining element in the globalization of the World Cup. Like the world it was born of in the 1930s, it was a predominantly European and American phenomenon. Now, on the pitch and diplomatically, Africa and the Middle East have arrived. The giants of Asia await. It would be interesting to know if Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi feel it when they come to Brazil and what they will do with it.