The Case for Inter-national Sport: A Reply to Gleaves and Llewellyn

Abstract

In their recent contribution to JPS, Gleaves and Llewellyn argue on lusory and ethical grounds that elite sporting competition should cease to be predicated on competitions between nations. From a lusory perspective, they argue that inter-national sports’ limitation on who can compete (due to it being based on national and cultural criteria) undermines some of the central principles of elite sport, such as athletic supremacy and merit. From an ethical perspective, they argue that inter-national sport is categorically unethical because the national and cultural narratives that frame such contests are inherently untruthful and inauthentic. In this article, we challenge Gleaves and Llewellyn on both these grounds and argue that national identity and representation are worthy values that can be achieved through sport, and that inter-national sport, far from being categorically unethical, has the potential to stimulate meaningful cultural conversations, both within and between national communities.

Keywords:

• Inter-national sport
• elite sport
• identity
• nationalism

This article refers to:

Ethics, Nationalism, and the Imagined Community: The Case Against Inter-National Sport

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the editor and the two reviewers who provided valuable and constructive criticisms of our first draft. We also wish to thank Carwyn Jones for raising similar criticisms and questions on a later draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Accepting the overlapping and complex nature of most manifestations of sport does not mean denying the tensions that often exist between manifestations of sport. There are occasions where the value and purpose of various manifestation of sport become muddled and perverted. For example, the English Football Association recently considered introducing a home-player quota in their domestic leagues. Here, issues of culture and identity take prominence in ways that seems to undermine the core value and purpose of professional domestic football. In much the same way, such is the focus and pressure on achieving national excellence in inter-national sport, it could be argued that the lax eligibility regulations of various governing bodies and national federations that allow athletes to adopt a ‘flag of convenience’ impinges on some of the important values that ought to emerge through such competition (genuine and meaningful cultural representation). In such circumstances, we accept that sports practice communities may need to take action in interrogating and better articulating the central premises and purposes of certain competitions, and indeed their future direction. Such conversations, however, need not rest on the misleading idea that any manifestation of sport must be about one thing only.

2. Gleaves and Llewellyn’s position seems to be at variance with its moral foundations. Kant, the progenitor of categorical imperatives, suggests that there are occasions when patriotism is prohibited, when it is permissible, and when it is a duty. The upshot is that for Kant, the moral universalism associated with cosmopolitanism is an imperfect, rather than a categorical duty. So from this it would seem that our critical or reflective patriotism (where neither cosmopolitanism nor patriotism demand unconditional moral obligations binding in all circumstances) is closer to that of Kant.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hywel Iorwerth

Cardiff School of Sport, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cyncoed Campus, Cyncoed Road, Cardiff CF23 6XD, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Alun Hardman

Cardiff School of Sport, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cyncoed Campus, Cyncoed Road, Cardiff CF23 6XD, UK. E-mail: [email protected]