CONTEMPORARY REFLECTIONS ON THE INTERSECTIONS OF POLITICS, CORRUPTION AND SPORTS

Апстракт

This paper aims to present the negative impacts of politics and corruption on
sports as a social phenomenon, which, due to such malign influences, is increasingly moving
away from its original humanistic concept. The impact of politics and corruption is driving
sports towards dehumanisation and national, religious, and racial discrimination of all its
participants. Sports have become a battleground for power struggles between superpowers
and small states, with nationalism and xenophobia imposing characteristics that contradict
the very essence of sports.
Today, sports are a crucial aspect of the ideological operations of systems that use sports
to solve certain problems or as a mobilising force to support the system. Often, sports are
treated as a means of achieving the basic ideological goals of society or the government.
Sports have become an ideological tool to deceive the masses and maintain the control of
the ruling powers. The integration of politics, sports, and power allows sports to be turned
into entertainment for the masses, and under the motto “bread and circuses,” the people are
turned into an audience, a crowd, which, through repressive behaviour control, absorbs social
discontent arising from the marginal social position of certain groups.
Sports are suitable for influencing the masses, especially the youth, and for affirming various
political ideologies and social anomalies and irregularities. Therefore, corruption, a negative
phenomenon that has not spared sports despite its initially noble assumptions, is not new. In
one form or another, it has always existed. Corruption appears in various forms throughout
sports, undermining honesty, fair play, and trust in the game. The increasing amounts of
money inherent in sports make this industry susceptible to corruption, while the participants
become addicted to power, elitism, and betting.