El deporte como poder: de los Juegos Olímpicos a Qatar

Los soviéticos siguieron en Afganistán durante nueve años más.

The Soviets stayed in Afghanistan for another nine years.

Y lo único que consiguió el boicot fue arruinarles la carrera a un montón de atletas que no tenían ninguna culpa de nada.

And all the boycott achieved was destroying the careers of a lot of athletes who had nothing to do with any of it.

Los soviéticos respondieron boicoteando Los Ángeles en el ochenta y cuatro, así que se convirtió en un intercambio de golpes simbólicos sin ninguna consecuencia real.

The Soviets responded by boycotting Los Angeles in 1984, so it became an exchange of symbolic blows with no real consequences whatsoever.

Which raises the question of whether boycotts ever work.

But before we get there, there's a Cold War story that actually did work.

Ping pong diplomacy.

Nixon, China, 1971.

A table tennis team opens the door to one of the most significant geopolitical realignments of the twentieth century.

Bueno, ese es quizás el ejemplo más puro de poder blando deportivo porque fue completamente deliberado por ambas partes.

Well, that is perhaps the purest example of sports soft power because it was completely deliberate on both sides.

Mao usó un partido de ping pong para mandar una señal que los canales diplomáticos convencionales no podían transmitir.

Mao used a table tennis match to send a signal that conventional diplomatic channels could not transmit.

A veces el deporte hace lo que la diplomacia formal no puede, precisamente porque no parece diplomacia.

Sometimes sport does what formal diplomacy cannot, precisely because it does not look like diplomacy.

So we get to Beijing 2008.

And I was actually in Beijing that year, not for the Olympics, I was finishing a long piece on something else entirely.

But I watched the opening ceremony in a hotel bar and, I mean, there's no other word for it.

It was overwhelming.

Es que fue un momento bisagra.

It was a hinge moment.

China llevaba décadas creciendo económicamente, pero el mundo no la percibía todavía como una potencia de primer orden en términos culturales o simbólicos.

China had been growing economically for decades, but the world did not yet perceive it as a first-rank power in cultural or symbolic terms.

Los Juegos Olímpicos de Pekín fueron la declaración formal de que China había llegado.

The Beijing Olympics were the formal declaration that China had arrived.

Y la ceremonia de apertura fue diseñada con una precisión milimétrica para transmitir exactamente eso.

And the opening ceremony was designed with pinpoint precision to convey exactly that.

For listeners who might not be familiar with the term, sportswashing is the idea that authoritarian governments, or governments with very poor human rights records, use sport hosting to clean up their international image.

And what Beijing 2008 raised very clearly is whether it actually works.

Y la respuesta incómoda es que sí, en cierta medida, funciona.

And the uncomfortable answer is that yes, to some extent, it works.

No para todo el mundo, y no para siempre.

Not for everyone, and not forever.

Pero genera una ventana de percepción positiva que es muy difícil de contrarrestar cuando tienes el espectáculo delante.

But it creates a window of positive perception that is very hard to counter when you have the spectacle right in front of you.

La atención del mundo está en los atletas, en las medallas, en la emoción.

The world's attention is on the athletes, on the medals, on the emotion.

No en los uigures.

Not on the Uyghurs.

Qatar.

We have to talk about Qatar.

Because the 2022 World Cup is the most contested sporting event in recent memory in terms of what it represents.

A country with a population smaller than Houston, Texas, hosting the biggest sporting event on the planet.

Mira, lo de Qatar tiene varias capas que hay que distinguir con cuidado.

Look, the Qatar situation has several layers that need to be distinguished carefully.

Por un lado están las condiciones laborales, los trabajadores migrantes que murieron construyendo estadios en el calor del desierto.

On one hand there are the labor conditions, the migrant workers who died building stadiums in the desert heat.

Por otro están las acusaciones de corrupción a la FIFA que nunca se han resuelto del todo.

On the other are the corruption allegations against FIFA that have never been fully resolved.

Y por otro está la cuestión de si un país que criminaliza la homosexualidad debería albergar un evento que se presenta como global e inclusivo.

And on top of that is the question of whether a country that criminalizes homosexuality should host an event that presents itself as global and inclusive.

And yet the football was extraordinary.

Spain played beautiful football before going out to Morocco.

And I sat there watching it and thinking: I am absolutely complicit in this.

I cannot look away and I know exactly what I'm looking at.

Esa es la trampa del deporte como poder blando.

That is the trap of sport as soft power.

Está diseñado para que seas cómplice.

It is designed to make you complicit.

Para que el espectáculo supere tu indignación.

To make the spectacle override your indignation.

Y Qatar lo sabía perfectamente.

And Qatar knew that perfectly well.

Sabían que aunque hubiera protestas antes del torneo, una vez que comenzaran los partidos, el mundo se quedaría pegado a la pantalla.

They knew that even if there were protests before the tournament, once the matches started, the world would be glued to the screen.

Sochi 2014.

Russia spends fifty billion dollars, literally the most expensive Olympics ever held.

And two weeks later, Russia annexes Crimea.

I mean, the timing alone tells you everything about how Putin conceived of the whole exercise.

Bueno, Sochi es un caso extraordinario porque el efecto del lavado de imagen duró literalmente dos semanas.

Well, Sochi is an extraordinary case because the image-cleansing effect lasted literally two weeks.

Pero, a ver, yo creo que hay algo más profundo aquí.

But look, I think there is something deeper here.

No creo que Putin organizara los Juegos pensando en la opinión pública occidental.

I do not think Putin organized the Games thinking about Western public opinion.

Los hizo para consumo interno, para proyectar una imagen de Rusia grande y poderosa ante los propios rusos.

He did it for domestic consumption, to project an image of a great and powerful Russia to Russians themselves.

El público objetivo no estaba en Londres o en París.

The target audience was not in London or Paris.

That's a really important distinction.

Soft power isn't always directed outward.

Sometimes the audience is domestic.

And I think Saudi Arabia's current sports strategy, buying golf, buying football clubs, the LIV Tour, Newcastle United, the push to host a World Cup, it operates on both levels at once.

Es que lo de Arabia Saudí es el ejemplo más transparente de sportswashing que hemos visto nunca, porque no hay ningún intento real de disimularlo.

The thing is, the Saudi Arabia case is the most transparent example of sportswashing we have ever seen, because there is no real attempt to hide it.

Cuando el fondo soberano saudí compra el Newcastle, no pretende que lo hace por amor al fútbol inglés.

When the Saudi sovereign wealth fund buys Newcastle United, it does not pretend it is doing so out of love for English football.

Lo hace porque sabe que si hablamos de Haaland y del estadio de St.

It does it because it knows that if we are talking about Haaland and St.

James' Park, no estamos hablando de Yemen.

James' Park, we are not talking about Yemen.

Here's the question I keep circling back to, though.

Does it actually work long term?

Because the evidence is genuinely mixed.

Germany after 2006 really did shift its image internationally.

That World Cup seemed to change how the world saw Germany, and arguably how Germany saw itself.

La verdad es que Alemania 2006 es el contraejemplo perfecto, porque fue un caso de poder blando que surgió de forma relativamente orgánica.

Honestly, Germany 2006 is the perfect counterexample, because it was a case of soft power that emerged relatively organically.

No fue un intento de tapar nada.

It was not an attempt to cover anything up.

Fue un país que organizó un torneo brillante, que jugó un fútbol alegre y desenfadado, y que mostró una cara que sorprendió incluso a los propios alemanes.

It was a country that organized a brilliant tournament, that played joyful and carefree football, and that showed a face that surprised even the Germans themselves.

Eso es poder blando que funciona porque es auténtico.

That is soft power that works because it is authentic.

And then there's Spain.

Look, Real Madrid is one of the most powerful soft power instruments any country possesses, and I'm not sure Spain fully realizes it.

Or maybe it does and just doesn't say so out loud.

Mira, en España tenemos una relación muy complicada con eso.

Look, in Spain we have a very complicated relationship with that.

El Real Madrid fue utilizado deliberadamente por el franquismo como escaparate internacional.

Real Madrid was deliberately used by Francoism as an international showcase.

Las Copas de Europa de finales de los años cincuenta, con Di Stéfano y Puskás, le sirvieron a un régimen fascista para decir al mundo: mirad, España existe, España gana, España es moderna.

The European Cups of the late 1950s, with Di Stéfano and Puskás, served a fascist regime to say to the world: look, Spain exists, Spain wins, Spain is modern.

Es una historia incómoda que el club prefiere no recordar demasiado.

It is an uncomfortable history that the club prefers not to dwell on.

And then la Roja.

Spain winning three consecutive major tournaments between 2008 and 2012.

That came right in the middle of an economic catastrophe.

And there's something almost painful about that coincidence.

Es que fue una paradoja brutal.

It was a brutal paradox.

El país se estaba hundiendo económicamente, con un veinte por ciento de paro, con los desahucios, con los recortes brutales en sanidad y educación.

The country was sinking economically, with twenty percent unemployment, with evictions, with brutal cuts to health and education.

Y al mismo tiempo la selección ganaba todo lo que tocaba.

And at the same time the national team was winning everything it touched.

Recuerdo perfectamente la sensación de que el fútbol era el único espacio donde España podía sentirse bien consigo misma.

I remember perfectly the feeling that football was the only space where Spain could feel good about itself.

Lo cual es hermoso y triste a partes iguales.

Which is beautiful and sad in equal measure.

Let's talk about the athletes themselves.

Because they're not passive instruments in all of this.

More and more, athletes are refusing to be used as soft power props.

And that creates a completely different kind of tension.

Bueno, la historia empieza en México 68.

Well, the story starts in Mexico City in 1968.

Tommie Smith y John Carlos en el podio olímpico, el puño en alto con el guante negro.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the Olympic podium, fists raised in black gloves.

Fue el momento en que un atleta dijo en voz alta: no voy a ser un símbolo de una América que no reconozco.

It was the moment when an athlete said out loud: I am not going to be a symbol of an America I do not recognize.

Y el COI los expulsó de la villa olímpica en menos de veinticuatro horas.

And the IOC expelled them from the Olympic village in less than twenty-four hours.

El mensaje institucional fue muy claro: los atletas son decorado, no actores.

The institutional message was very clear: athletes are scenery, not actors.

And that fight is still happening.

Colin Kaepernick, Caster Semenya, the NBA players who put Black Lives Matter on their jerseys during the bubble.

Sport keeps producing these moments where the athlete refuses the role they've been assigned.

La verdad es que el deporte es el único escenario donde la protesta puede llegar a una audiencia que normalmente no escucha ningún discurso político.

The truth is that sport is the only stage where a protest can reach an audience that would never normally listen to any political speech.

Cuando LeBron James habla, lo escuchan personas que nunca leerían un artículo de opinión en su vida.

When LeBron James speaks, people hear him who would never in their lives read an opinion piece.

Eso es una forma de poder que los gobiernos no pueden controlar completamente, y eso los pone muy nerviosos.

That is a form of power that governments cannot fully control, and it makes them very nervous.

So where does this leave us?

I mean, we've gone from Hitler's Olympics to Qatar to LeBron James.

And the thread running through all of it is that sport creates a kind of emotional attention that nothing else quite replicates.

The question is always who is directing that attention, and toward what end.

A ver, yo creo que la conclusión honesta es que el deporte como poder blando funciona mejor cuando no parece poder blando.

Look, I think the honest conclusion is that sport as soft power works best when it does not look like soft power.

Cuando es auténtico, cuando emerge de una cultura real, cuando los atletas tienen libertad.

When it is authentic, when it emerges from a real culture, when athletes are free.

Alemania 2006 funcionó.

Germany 2006 worked.

Qatar 2022, a largo plazo, no habrá cambiado nada.

Qatar 2022, in the long run, will have changed nothing.

El mundo sigue sabiendo perfectamente lo que es Qatar.

The world still knows perfectly well what Qatar is.

The extraordinary thing is that this conversation, sport and power and identity, it's as old as sport itself.

The ancient Greeks used the Olympics to declare truces between warring city-states.

The whole premise was that sport could exist in a space above politics.

And we've spent two and a half thousand years proving that it cannot.

Bueno, mira, quizás el deporte no está por encima de la política porque el deporte es política.

Well, look, perhaps sport is not above politics because sport is politics.

Siempre lo ha sido.

It always has been.

La diferencia es que cuando hay un balón de por medio, nos cuesta mucho más admitirlo.

The difference is that when there is a ball involved, it is much harder for us to admit it.

Y eso, precisamente, es lo que lo convierte en un instrumento tan eficaz para los que tienen poder.

And that, precisely, is what makes it such an effective instrument for those who hold power.