Entrenching Apartheid Football and Failed Sports Diplomacy

Abstract

Apartheid policy and practices permeated all aspects of social life in South Africa from 1948 onward, with sport becoming a focal point for the implementation and enactment of apartheid policy. While no laws were passed segregating South Africans on the field of play, a range of apartheid laws meant participating in racially mixed sport was near impossible. White South Africa became an integral part of world sport, particularly in the realms of the Olympic Games and in terms of individual sports such as rugby, cricket, soccer, tennis, and golf. In the aftermath of World War II and the decolonization of Africa, apartheid South Africa increasingly became ostracized from the international sporting community. While a range of different sporting bodies in the country engaged in ultimately successful and unsuccessful attempts to remain within the international sporting fold, white South African soccer authorities in particular embarked on a campaign for recognition within FIFA and thereafter struggled to maintain their membership. South African soccer demonstrates the failed sports diplomacy on the part of white South African sports officials and government functionaries more generally in their struggle to justify and maintain segregation and privilege in sports apartheid in South Africa.