Sport and Politics - Unilateral or Joint Interests? Romanian Case

Abstract

Like any field of activity, sport must face the changes on three levels: micro social - at the individual level, medium level - sports institutions, and at macro social level - at the level of society as a whole. Policies in sports, cultivation and promotion of sports talent are a long term investment for a potential benefit of a nation. Sport and politics are not separate realities and cannot be that meet by chance in life practices. Sport has become a policy area that it was exploited due to its universalization. Sports institutions were forced to politicize certain decisions to survive, but also to pursue their interests and to create a favorable image. In Romania, regardless of the political regime or color of the time, sport served as resource, if not an economic, ideological, political and symbolic stake. This area was, through the top people, the safest spokesman and image makers of Romania in relation to other states. However, as in other countries, Romanian sports performance are characterized by a sinusoidal trajectory, fluctuating constantly. Compared to the current democratic regime, communist regime (the period after World War II and until 1989) anticipated the potential of sports, used and benefited more than the results obtained by the Romanian athletes in international competitions to form their own image: the first, by identifying with the nation's athletes, on the other hand, the leading elite.