Sport as a tool for deflecting political problems: Bolivia's President Morales' successful campaign against FIFA's ban on high-altitude football

Abstract

In 2007, FIFA banned international matches in high altitudes for concerns about the players' health. Bolivia's President Evo Morales, representing a country affected by this ruling, initiated a successful campaign against the ban that was lifted after only one year. The article argues that one of the main aims of Morales' campaign was to deflect internal and external political problems. His socialist government was under high pressure in domestic politics by conservative autonomist movements, and in foreign relations, tensions with neighbouring countries such as Brazil resulted from his government's decision to nationalize foreign companies and cooperate with Venezuela. Apart from the political motives for his campaign, the article shows how Morales mobilized the Bolivian population and allied with other countries to fight FIFA's decision.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the American University of Beirut which granted me for the summer term 2012 a Faculty Development Grant. I was a Visiting Scholar at the Technical University of Oruro in Bolivia. I would like to thank the Department for Post-graduate Studies at the Technical University of Oruro for giving me this opportunity. Furthermore, I would like to thank Robert Wittkuhn, my Graduate Assistant in the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration at the American University of Beirut, for supporting me in my research.

Notes

^1. Since 2009, the official name of the country is the ‘Plurinational State of Bolivia’. For reasons of simplicity, I will only use in this article the term ‘Bolivia’.