From ‘political neutrality’ in sports to athletes’ freedom of expression

Guy Osborn
Westminster Law School, University of Westminster

Sport and politics may be uneasy bedfellows, but they are inextricably linked. Kaal (2021) cites the Olympics as a great example of this, quoting Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Whilst speaking at a G20 summit, and riffing on the focus and scope of the Olympic Charter, Bach extolled the unique nature of the Olympics and its mission to bring the whole world together through sport and its need to remain politically neutral. Kaal (2021) uses Bach’s words to neatly illustrate the more complicated nature of the sport/politics nexus:

In this very same speech, however, Bach links the activities of the IOC and sport more in general to political or politicised issues like ‘universality’, ‘sustainability’, and ‘peace-building’. Although it seems hard to ignore that the IOC and the Games are in fact political and part of a political force field in which neutrality is a very scarce resource, the self-proclaimed ambition to remain above the fray of ‘politics’ has persisted since the early days of the Olympic movement.

Its aim is to provide a framework for the defence of freedom of expression in sport, so looks very specifically at the issue of freedom of political expression within this context.

This interrelationship, this tension, has of course proved fruitful for academics across disciplines although Cha (2009) argues that Moscow 1980 provided the catalyst, or year zero for what he termed its ‘mutual neglect’ by academics before this point (I would argue the South African anti-apartheid sporting protests predate this but take his point. Recent examples of athlete activism include San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback Colin Kaepernick ‘taking the knee’ during the American National Anthem, to protest against social injustice and police brutality in the United States of America. Coupled with the widespread support for the Black Lives Matter movement following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, and related anti-discrimination protests, athlete activism has become more widespread in recent years. This indeed is the point of departure for Cem Abanazir’s very welcome addition to the literature:

This book will time and again refer to the rhetoric of ‘politics free sport’ and ‘political neutrality’. In parallel to the view that sport is autonomous from the state, the market and society, political expression has been condemned when it is associated with sport. In reality, sport does not have absolute autonomy from society. (pp. 1–2)

The aim of the book is therefore more specific than simply examining the interface between sport and politics. Its aim is to provide a framework for the defence of freedom of expression in sport, so looks very specifically at the issue of freedom of political expression within this context. The book is based upon Abanzir’s PhD thesis, but he has skilfully woven this into a text that is more suitable for a wider market – something that not all authors do when exploiting their successful defence of their work.

The book is organised into three parts. Part 1 entitled ‘Sport, Politics, the Market and the Law’, Part 2 Defending Freedom of Expression, and Part 3 ‘Limiting Freedom of Expression’. Part I is broken down into three chapters, the first looks at the issue of autonomy of sport and taps into the debate about the supposed neutrality of sport referred to above. The second chapter looks particularly at the role of the governing bodies and the disciplinary hold they have over athletes, and chapter 3 provides a useful overview of some specific examples of political expressions at sport events and their impact, drawing on issues of nationalism, use of symbols, flags and songs, and more. This is a useful contextualisation, although it focusses mainly on England and Turkey which are expedient vehicles or lenses to help understand and appreciate the issues. Part II comprises two chapters that explore defences of freedom of expression. These are very solid, perhaps my only query here would be the sections that deal with spectator/audiences – it is of course valuable to look at this as an area, but it feels slightly out of keeping with the book as a whole which is mainly concerned with athletes, and possibly would have been better in a separate paper or expanded. That said the chapters are perceptive and useful.

The final part is concerned with the limits of freedom of expression. Again this part consists of two chapters, the first looks at a number of philosophical arguments for restriction and regulation, dealing with many of the usual ones, but seen specifically through the lens of sport which makes it an interesting take on traditional limits on freedom of expression approaches. It’s a very solid chapter, including some useful observations on the impact of such expressions on play itself, drawing on previous discussions on balance amongst other things. The second chapter in this section focusses on hate speech.   Perhaps more could have been made of the role of the state in terms of policing freedom of expression here, and this reinforces my point about the role of the spectator (which is covered in this chapter at pages 162-166) and that this could have been given more prominence in the book as a whole, but these are minor quibbles. Overall, this is a well-researched and authoritative book, tapping into an issue of significant contemporary importance and a useful addition to the literature.

Copyright © Guy Osborn 2023