Alireza Abbasi, the mastermind of world sports science, said: No one still knows for sure whether politics entered sports first or sports entered politics (!), but what is certain is that for many years, politicians around the world who have been talking about separating sports from politics have been using sports as a tool to achieve their goals.
An analysis of the statements of the trustees of international sports institutions shows that they have always talked about separating sports from politics and have even included it in their laws, but in practice, wherever necessary and their political interests require it, they take a completely opposite approach and in this regard, they use sports as a plaything for their policies.
Many people like to avoid talking about politics when they define sports, but sports are more political than you might think for different countries around the world, and of course, our own country. These days, we can review hundreds of political events that have occurred in and around sports; Events that some are caused by the rulers of countries and others by athletes, but the creators of the events, do not make a difference to the essence of the story; a story called «political sports!»
In the complicated story of football, Saudi teams have not been playing in Iran for years and have dragged the matter to neutral grounds, claiming that they are not willing to travel to our country due to political problems. A similar issue occurred with the Qataris after their relations with Saudi Arabia and the Emirates soured; diplomats, however, did not sit idle under the pretext of «no political interference in sports» and resolved the problem through their consultations, and the Saudis were obliged to send their clubs to Qatar for the Asian Champions League.
International federations in various sports sectors have repeatedly shown that, despite their apparent slogans of separating sports from politics, they easily bow to the decisions of political powers and obey their orders.
By reviewing these events, it is easy to understand that political interference in sports is not a recent issue, and among them, countries that claim to separate sports from politics have had and continue to have the highest share of political interference in sports; therefore, it must be admitted that «sports have become more politicized than we think.»
