What do we know and understand about sports diplomacy?

This article was submitted as part of sportanddev’s call for articles on sport and democracy. Want to share your views? Find out how.

The concept of sports diplomacy has a long and interesting history. From the early example of Ancient Olympic competitors being given amnesty to travel through the city-states of Greece to Olympia to the alleged Christmas truce football match in 1914 during World War One and the more recent conversations on the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic (non) involvement of Russian athletes, sports diplomacy has long affected and influenced international relationships.

Despite this long history, it has not garnered much traction or interest to those in the sports development field until relatively recently. It seems that more organisations and people working within the sports development field (and the sport for development sub-field) are showing an interest in better understanding this concept and how it relates to their work.

Our research team, consisting of Verity Postlethwaite, Emma Sherry and myself, similarly wanted to understand how we, as researchers, could contribute towards this discussion. We felt that it was important to understand what knowledge already existed, before being able to identify where more research was needed. As such, we undertook a literature review of the peer-reviewed academic journal articles in this field, looking at the last twenty years of published research (2000 to 2020). The findings from this study are summarised below. 

In this search, we found 224 peer-reviewed journal articles, with most of those being published in the past 10 years. A significant majority of this research focused on essay-based, historical case studies, particularly relating to global relations such as the Cold War or global movements, for example the International Olympic Committee or the United Nations. 

Disappointing, but similarly to other academic fields (including sport for development), most of the researchers were based in higher income countries, such as those in Europe and in the USA, when predominantly researching events in other countries, such as those in the Middle East and Asia. The least represented geographical continents for researchers were those based in South and Central America, and Africa. More research on activities in the Global South, conducted by those based in those locations, needs to be encouraged and supported. 

The fields of sports development and sport management were hugely underrepresented in sports diplomacy research, with only 17 journal articles in the review. Of these, most were case studies on international events and activities, ranging from the 2002 FIFA Men’s World Cup and the 2017 Maccabiah Games, to the Formula One events in Abu Dhabi. 

When looking specifically at the role of sport for development in sports diplomacy endeavours, there were only nine relevant research articles. These included South Korean development programmes, a USA State Department’s programme involving Jordan and Tajikistan, and the UK’s engagement with development assistance. These nine articles showcased the potential for exploring how sport for development activities link with sports diplomacy. However, the use of sport for development for sports diplomacy purposes is becoming increasingly prominent. Therefore it is critical to understand the perspectives of those working in the field of sport for development, to see how they understand and enact sports diplomacy practices in their roles. We see this as a key knowledge gap. 

This literature review has highlighted that there is little research on this knowledge gap, that is the operationalisation of sports diplomacy. As a research team, we have started to work on filling some of this knowledge gap, by doing an exploratory study on understanding some sports development and sport management operational practices in the UK and Australia, with a free, 15-minute webinar overview available here. This is a good starting point but much more is needed, particularly for sport for development activities. 

We would argue that all sport for development activities are connected to sports diplomacy actions, but this link is not often made or understood. Without better understanding the operationalisation of this, it is difficult to maximise the opportunities these activities can make to positively promote diplomacy between different people, countries and organisations. So we actively encourage more joint learning and knowledge exchange between the sport for development and sports diplomacy fields. 

If anyone would like to read the full literature review, it is available for free here, and if you would like to further discuss this, or anything else, with us, please reach out via Twitter: @crjenkin, @verity_pos, or @emmaesherry. We’d love to continue the conversation with you! 

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Claire Jenkin is a Senior Lecturer in Sports Development at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. Her current research interest is largely focused on the operationalisation of sport for development in sports diplomacy initiatives.