sport boycott essay

Fighting Apartheid with Sports

Apartheid policies that segregated sports in South Africa were challenged by its own athletes, as well as internationally.

The choice of Beijing as the host of this year’s Winter Olympics has raised questions about participating in sporting events connected with a nation that perpetrates human rights abuses. As sports historian Douglas Booth writes, these questions were on the minds of many people, both within and outside of South Africa, during the decades of apartheid.

Through the 1960s, Booth writes, South Africa kept its sports segregated, with officials there arguing that mixed-race events would exacerbate “racial tensions.” National sports were divided into African, Coloured, Indian, and white associations.

Pushes to integrate sports came from both inside and outside the country. On the international stage, Eastern bloc and global South nations led the fight. In 1964, the Olympics barred South Africa from participating due to apartheid. In 1968, the country tried again, preparing racially mixed teams for the international games but without changing the underlying sports systems within the country. Olympic officials initially agreed to let South Africa participate, but withdrew the invitation after a threatened boycott by other African nations.

Meanwhile, Booth writes, other nations began pushing back against South African policies when they were directed against their own players. For example, through 1960, the New Zealand Rugby Football Union kept Māori players home when its teams toured South Africa. But in 1967, domestic protests against this policy caused the Union to cancel a tour there. The next year, South Africa allowed Māori players to come.

As international pressures mounted, South African officials began discussing racially mixed sports as a solution to conflict rather than a cause of it. Through the 1970s, the nation’s sports gradually integrated. Black athletes began wearing the Springbok, a symbol of several sports teams and of the white-dominated nation. This was a symbolic acknowledgement of their status as members of the nation previously denied to Black people, even though it meant little in terms of actual citizenship rights.

But, Booth writes, some activists within the South African sports world became disillusioned with the desegregation of sports, instead viewing the full abolition of apartheid as the only appropriate goal of their movement. Hassan Howa, president of the South African Council on Sport (SACOS), explained that he gradually came to question work he’d done to integrate cricket.

“People come to me and say what you fought for has arrived, why aren’t you satisfied,” he said. “I can’t be satisfied if I was fighting for the wrong things.”

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Under the slogan “no normal sport in an abnormal society,” SACOS embraced the strategy of non-collaboration with institutions sponsored by the apartheid regime. Other organizations, such as the National Sports Congress (NSC), formed in 1989, continued the push for the desegregation of state-affiliated sports institutions, with the goal of building structures of a “non-racial” South Africa even within the apartheid state.

Ultimately, it’s hard to know how much sports boycotts and related pressures contributed to ending apartheid in the 1990s. But Booth argues that the long-term campaigns to integrate sports played a significant role in changing South Africa’s culture, helping to pave the way for political equality.

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Boycotts in sport may not advance human rights. But they do harm individual athletes

Professor of International Sport Business, Head of Sport Business Insights Group, Victoria University

Professor, Victoria University

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Ramon Spaaij receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Department of Health.

Hans Westerbeek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Organisers of Wimbledon, the main draw of which begins on June 27, have found themselves in a quandary over their controversial decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players in protest over the invasion of Ukraine.

The banned players include current men’s world number 1 Daniil Medvedev, number 8 Andrey Rublev, and women’s world number 6 Aryna Sabalenka.

Both the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) penalised Wimbledon for this ban by stripping the tournament of its ranking points .

Because one of the world’s most prestigious tennis tournaments has been relegated to merely a high-profile exhibition event, a growing number of players have pulled out of the tournament , including Naomi Osaka and Eugenie Bouchard (this shows how a boycotter event can simultaneously be boycotted by participants).

These kinds of boycotts occur regularly in high-profile sport as event organisers and participants use its global reach to highlight human rights violations.

But boycott actions and counter-actions – including those at Wimbledon – often do more to harm individual athletes who happen to be nationals of these countries rather than to the condemned regime or the event sponsors.

Read more: Is banning Russian tennis players from Wimbledon the right call?

Sport and human rights

Australian former golfer Greg Norman sparked world-wide condemnation with his statement that “we’ve all made mistakes” when discussing the Saudi-Arabian-backed killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

It didn’t go unnoticed that Norman is also CEO of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Investments, which launched a PGA-breakaway golf tour for the super-rich.

Norman’s dismissal of a murder and the horrified global reaction to his comment show the power of sport to highlight and simultaneously ignore human rights violations.

Nations accused of violating these rights have found strategic, proactive approaches to counter the punitive, reactive, and short-term approach of economic boycotts. And sport plays an important part in that, such as the example of Qatar using the FIFA World Cup as a confirmation of their credibility and ability to host a globally significant event.

Such investments in “sportswashing” – using sport as a thin veneer to present a sanitised, friendlier version of a political regime or an organisation – are big business. The global influence of sport can become a vehicle for soft diplomacy and pursuing legitimacy.

November’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar remains a topic of a decade-long debate questioning how FIFA could award the world’s biggest sporting event to a country with a dubious human rights record .

This has now only worsened with evidence of mass exploitation of the migrant workers constructing the Cup’s stadiums.

Although arguably less extreme in nature, Australia is not absolved of human rights deficiencies in sport.

Why, for example, do Indigenous Australians remain under-represented at the elite and community level in most Aussie sports? Why are Australian women missing as leaders in coaching? Why is there currently only one openly gay male professional soccer player in Australia and no openly gay male AFL players ? Why have so many members of Australia’s gymnastics and swim teams reported abuse and toxic cultures that started when they were children?

We should take to heart that even the practice of sport is a universal human right under the Olympic and European Sports Charters , and other internationally ratified declarations and treaties.

However, most nations do not fully recognise and implement this notion in policy and practice, with access to sport participation often marred with complexities and hypocrisy.

Read more: The Olympics have always been a platform for protest. Banning hand gestures and kneeling ignores their history

Has Wimbledon’s boycott worked?

Wimbledon organisers are clearly trying to make a point: invading the sovereign territory of another nation is unacceptable.

Yet even though the tournament can call the world’s attention to its stand, has banning players from invading nations proven to be an effective means to defend and protect human rights?

The answer would be a resounding “no”.

What the ban has achieved is to signal that the Wimbledon organisers take a position against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But taking a stand does not defend nor protect.

In this case, it hurts those who cannot be blamed for the war (the banned tennis players), and the unintended consequences (no ranking points) hurt the wider community of professional tennis players.

Read more: French Open: understanding why Russian and Belarusian tennis players are competing despite Wimbledon ban

While sport can indeed be a valuable platform to promote human rights, we must also recognise it doesn’t take much for sport to become exclusive, divisive and controversial.

Crucially, leveraging sport to advance human rights requires that human rights safeguarding by Australia, Russia or Qatar is measured by the same yardstick, recognising that much work must be done to ensure each country’s own sporting environment is inclusive and free of discrimination.

In doing that, we can truly recognise sport as the universal human right that it is, and it can remain true to its core objective of celebrating human potential and achievement.

• Human rights
• Grand Slams
• Russia invasion
• Daniil Medvedev
• FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/sport-is-political-how-athletes-are-keeping-human-rights-center-stage-at-the-olympics

‘Sport is political.’ How athletes are keeping human rights center stage at the Olympics

With a silver medal in women’s shot put draped around her neck, U.S. athlete Raven Saunders raised her arms over her head and crossed them into an “X,” a gesture she would later clarify to journalists as representing the “intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet.”

“Shout out to all my Black people, shout out to all my LBGTQ community, shout out to everybody dealing with mental health,” Saunders added. “Because at the end of the day, we understand that it’s bigger than us, and it’s bigger than the powers that be.”

The moment was the first political demonstration on the tiered Olympic podium at the Tokyo Games, deepening the decades-long debate over how athletes can exercise free speech at the global event.

Silver medalist Raven Saunders of Team USA, gold medalist Lijiao Gong of Team China (C) and bronze medalist Valerie Adams of Team New Zealand (R) pose during the medal ceremony for the women’s shot put at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

Before Saunders, there had been a series of athletes who protested during the Games. Gwen Berry raised her fist before the women’s hammer throw final, weeks after she held up a shirt that read “Activist Athlete” and didn’t face the American flag as the national anthem played during the U.S. Olympic trials. American fencer Race Imboden displayed an “X” on his right hand, echoing Saunders’ gesture, as he received a bronze medal.

Two years ago, these same two athletes received yearlong probations from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) for similar demonstrations — Berry raised her fist, Imboden took a knee — during medal ceremonies at the Pan American Games in Peru. This year, neither athlete faced consequences from the International Olympic Committee for their demonstrations, underscoring how the rules have loosened since. But Saunders’ case is a reminder that bigger disagreements over the longstanding Olympic ban on athlete protests remain.

The IOC expects the 205 national Olympics committees, a group that includes the USOPC, to mete out punishment for violations of its rules at the Games. But the USOPC defended Saunders in the day following her demonstration. After conducting its own review, the USOPC said in a statement that the “peaceful expression in support of racial and social justice” didn’t violate its own rules for demonstration.

The IOC had been in discussion with the USOPC and World Athletics, track and field’s international governing body, about the gesture. And on Wednesday, the IOC announced that it was suspending its investigation “for the time being” after the athlete’s mother, Clarissa Saunders, died .

https://twitter.com/GiveMe1Shot/status/1422582267793186821

Saunders’ protest may not be the last high-profile demonstration at the Olympics, which continue through this Saturday, followed by the Paralympics starting Aug. 24. Saunders, a Black and openly gay athlete, has been outspoken about her struggles with depression and identity . And as long as athletes of marginalized identities reach the podium, some experts say, it’s doubtful the desire to take a stand will fade anytime soon.

But this year’s Olympic Games may be a “turning point” on this issue, said Letisha Engracia Cardoso Brown, an assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Tech.

“Protests will continue as long as people are athletes and athletes are people with ties to the world,” she said. “They exist in this world, and they’re impacted by this world. They’re going to have feelings and emotions about what’s going on.”

How did we get here?

The IOC has long described the Olympic Games — and sport in general — as something that exists separately from politics . In its latest guidelines, the IOC said that a “fundamental principle” at the Games is sport is neutral , adding that athletes’ expressions within Olympic venues — whether on the field of play during competitions or official ceremonies — “may distract the focus from the celebration of athletes’ sporting performances.”

Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter reads : “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.” A similar rule appears in the International Paralympic Committee handbook.

A view of the “X” drawn on Gwen Berry’s hands, as she competes in the women’s hammer throw final at the 2020 Tokyo Games. Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images

In an op-ed in The Guardian late last year, IOC president Thomas Bach reiterated the organization’s stance and wrote that the Games “are not about politics.”

“The International Olympic Committee, as a civil non-governmental organization, is strictly politically neutral at all times,” Bach wrote. In a subsequent statement in the weeks before the Tokyo Games, Bach stood firm on the IOC’s position, telling the Financial Times that the podium wasn’t a place for demonstrations.

But Rule 50, which has been in the charter in some form since 1975, has been under increasing pressure to change. In December, the USOPC announced it wouldn’t discipline athletes for peaceful demonstrations after an athlete-led council offered recommendations for the rule, following the murder of George Floyd and the global protests against racial injustice.

The IOC, bolstered by a worldwide survey showing athletes largely supporting Rule 50, made some clarifications around its ban ahead of the Tokyo Games: Athletes were allowed to speak up in news conferences, on their social media accounts, or protest on the field of play before a competition, but the medal podiums were still no place for political expression.

Lindsey Horan of the U.S. women’s national soccer team kneels during a game between Sweden and USWNT at the 2020 Tokyo Games. Photo by Logan Beerman/ISI Photos/Getty Images

But the calls for changes did not stop. On the day of the Tokyo Games opening ceremony, more than 150 athletes, academics, and advocates signed an open letter , urging the IOC and the IPC to “make a stronger commitment to human rights, racial/social justice, and social inclusion” by amending the rule and refraining from imposing sanctions on athletes who protest at the Games.

Brown, who was one of the letter’s signatories, said “to deny people the opportunity to protest is to silence an essential part of their being.”

For Brown, Saunders’ “X” was a “beautiful reflection of Black feminism,” reminding her of a particular line from the 1977 Combahee River Collective Statement : “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.”

In an Instagram caption after her televised demonstration, Saunders wrote : “Meet me at the ❌”.

‘Sport is political’

U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos most famously tested the IOC’s stance against demonstrations during the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. In a now-iconic image, both athletes, heads bowed and donning black gloves, raised their fists after being awarded their medals in the 200-meter sprint. Atop the podium, they stood in black socks and no shoes, a nod to the poverty Black people faced in the U.S. Smith also wore a scarf to symbolize Black pride. Carlos wore beads in honor of lynching victims.

Gold medalist Tommie Smith (C) and bronze medalist John Carlos (R) protest from the podium at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto via Getty Images

The athletes’ protest of system racism and discrimination against Black people, considered one of the most influential moments in sports history, was met with suspensions from the U.S. team. At home, they were vilified for bringing the subject of human rights to the Olympic stage.

Reflecting on that moment, Smith told the Los Angeles Times that “athletes have a right to say whatever is on their mind, whether it’s agreeable to those who are watching or it’s thought of negatively.”

“We are human beings,” he added.

“As an athlete, if I want to protest, I don’t really care what the rules are. I really care about the issue,” said Kenneth Shropshire, a professor and chief executive of the Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University who was also on the Team USA council that offered revisions for Rule 50.

Czech gymnast Vera Caslavska is thrown in the air by her teammates after winning an event at the 1968 Mexico City Games. Photo by Agence France Presse/Getty Images

He pointed to another silent protest at the 1968 Games. Vera Caslavska, a decorated Czech gymnast, shared a gold medal with Soviet gymnast Larisa Petrik in the floor routine and was awarded silver in the balance beam. During both medal ceremonies, she shared the podium with Soviet gymnasts. As the Soviet flag was being raised and the country’s anthem played, Caslavska turned her head down and to the right. It was, in part, a protest against the Soviet Union invasion of Czechoslovakia weeks before the Games.

“This does not appear to be an accident,” an announcer at the time said of Caslavska’s defiant gesture .

Simply, “Sport is political,” Shropshire said, adding that there are all kinds of political decisions involved with the Olympic Games that chip away at the notion of neutrality. Think of the Games that have been canceled, he said.

The Games were canceled once during World War I and twice during World War II, including the 1940 Summer Olympics after Tokyo forfeited its position as host city when Japan invaded China a few years prior.

The IOC’s guidelines warn against “disruptive” expressions from athletes. But what to make of the “disruptions” from world events outside the Olympic Village?

Jesse Owens competing in the men’s 100m final, one of the four gold medals he won at the 1936 Berlin Games. Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images

Notoriously, Adolf Hitler used the ceremonial grandeur of the 1936 Berlin Olympics to promote Nazi propaganda and Aryan supremacy. And despite an attempted U.S. boycott by Jewish groups, Catholic organizations and some Black-owned newspapers, the Berlin Games prevailed. The 18 Black athletes on Team USA, including Jesse Owens, won 14 Olympic medals. Their victories carried a weight greater than athletic excellence. They were upheld as a blow to Hitler’s Nazi racist ideology, an argument Owens himself made prior to his participation in the Games. At the same time, these Black American athletes returned to a country with pervasive Jim Crow laws.

In his 1972 autobiography “I Have Changed,” Owens reflected on what happened after he came back to the U.S. with his four gold medals, writing “it became increasingly apparent that everyone was going to slap me on the back, want to shake my hand or have me up to their suite. But no one was going to offer me a job.”

What lies ahead

When you live at the intersection — at the “X” — you are placed on the margins of society, said Akilah R. Carter-Francique, executive director of the San Jose State University’s Institute for the Study of Sport, Society and Social Change.

“If you’re not of that dominant population, if you aren’t white, if you aren’t male, if you aren’t upper class and you aren’t heterosexual … you’re othered and, oftentimes, your voice is silenced. Your existence in spaces and places and in communities is often invisible or rendered invisible,” Carter-Francique said. When that happens, “your own humanity is really reduced and often ignored.”

And Sauders, through her protest, is speaking for all those communities, she said. It provided an opportunity for spectators to ask what the “X” represented, as well as understand the issues driving her demonstration. People may find that each of the issues amplified by the athlete “is just not a Raven issue, it is not a U.S. issue, but these issues are happening globally, and they need to be addressed in many of our respective nations,” she said.

The IOC didn’t specify in its guidelines on how it would punish athletes for violating its updated rule on demonstrations during this year’s Games.

Carter-Francique, who also signed the statement to the IOC, said we’ve seen a departure from the typical marketing for the Olympic Games as this quest for gold. She said when she thinks back to Smith and Carlos raising their fists from the podium, “to get to that stage, it takes a lot of training, takes a lot of strength, takes a lot of hours, and then to have the consciousness and fortitude and support behind you to say, ‘I’m going to stand up and speak for my people,’ is another state as well,” she said.

She hopes the IOC, learning from ongoing discussions over its rule, creates a space for athletes to speak up on various issues, and work with them to create pathways toward education, toward policy creations and revisions to better address these issues that affect multiple nations. It shouldn’t matter if they’d earned a spot on the podium.

For Brown, the IOC also risks athletes not wanting to partake in the Games if they’re not allowed to “participate to their full extent.” She said, in the U.S. in particular, where sports are built off of Black labor, all the Black athletes could band together and say “we’re not going to lay down for you to walk all over anymore.”

“If the IOC isn’t going to make space, I would like to see athletes make the space for themselves,” she said.

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What Suni Lee’s gymnastics gold win means to Hmong Americans

World Jul 29

International Sports Boycotts: Sport, Law and Politics

• First Online: 01 January 2012

Cite this chapter

• R. C. R. Siekmann 2  

Part of the book series: ASSER International Sports Law Series ((ASSER))

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In this paper, from a historical perspective particular attention is paid to the unilateral sports boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games against the background of the Helsinki process of détente (CSCE) in Europe, the 1995 EU sports boycott of Nigeria, and the debate concerning the Olympic Games, China and human rights in The Netherlands in 2008. In this context, the Netherlands government’s so-called Starting Points for ‘Sport and Politics’ are separately dealt with in detail.

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Nationalism, Boycotts and the Olympic Industry

Soviet Sports History and the Olympic Movement

Sports Relations Between Russia and Europe Through the Lens of Sport Diplomacy

Cf., Siekmann ( 1984 ).

In 1992, Robert (‘Bobby’) Fischer won an unofficial rematch against Boris Spassky of the USSR, after having captured the World Championship title from him in a match in Reykjavik, Iceland, that was widely publicised as a Cold War confrontation. The 1972 match attracted more worldwide interest than any chess match before or since. The rematch was held in Yugoslavia, which was then under the UN embargo. This led to a conflict with the US government, which was also seeking income tax from Fischer on his match winnings, and he never returned to his native country.

Department of State Bulletin, March 1980, p. 50.

This subject was based on an East European (Bulgarian/Polish) proposal (Doc. CSCE/I/8 and CSCE/II/I/1/Rev. 1 of 5 July and 19 September, 1973 respectively. See Kavass et al. ( 1981 ), vol. I: Stage I—Helsinki 1973, resp. vol. V: Stage II—Geneva 1973–1975, pp. 375 et seq., resp. pp. 21, 4–6. During the CSCE follow-up meeting in Belgrade, a Bulgarian proposal was submitted on Co-operation in Sports, Doc. CSCE/BM/44- of 11 November, 1977 (see Granier ( 1980 ), p. 559. The word ‘sport’ as such does not appear either in the final document of Belgrade of 8 March, 1978 or in that of the follow-up meeting of Madrid. On the background to the paragraph on sport: ‘The intention of the East European countries was to ensure that sporting contacts would help to reinforce friendship and mutual understanding between nations and to use these contacts to carry out the East European idea of detente, and in general to introduce political aspects into sports contacts, possibly by the creation of new European organizations. In contrast, the Western countries adopted the position that only existing ties and existing co-operation was under discussion, as well as contacts in accordance with existing procedures. The text of the Final Act is in fact restricted to existing ties and co-operation. Nor can the text be used for the organization of “political” sporting events.’ (See “ Conferentie over Veiligheid en Samenwerking in Europa; Helsinki–Genève–Helsinki 1973–1975” [Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe; Helsinki–Geneva–Helsinki 1973–1975], published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, No. 115 (The Hague 1976), p. 155.).

On the legal character of the Final Act, see van Dijk ( 1980 ), pp. 106–110.

The Russian bibliography about the CSCE which appeared in Moscow in 1978 lists in volume II the agreements/protocols of the USSR with Australia, Sweden, France, Portugal, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Italy. Apart from its agreement with the Soviet Union, the Netherlands have also made agreements with East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Bulgaria.

In the Agreement concerning the principles of co-operation between the sporting organisations of the USSR and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Sportfederatie: NSF) of 23 June, 1976, the only reference made is to the cultural agreement between the two countries which ascribes a role to exchanges in the field of sport in the context of détente (See Annex D for the text of the Agreement). Text of the Agreement concerning the cultural co-operation between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of 14 July, 1967, in: Tractatenblad, 1967, No. 115 (see introduction and under Article 2 sub k). See also the Explanatory Memorandum for the parliamentary approval of the agreement, Bijlage Handelingen [Annex to Parliamentary Proceedings], II 1967/68—9337, No. 3. N.B. In the protocols some references are made to the European Sports Conference, which has taken place in alternate years since 1973 between central Western and Eastern sports organisations.

Knecht ( 1980 ), pp. 51–52.

Van den Heuvel ( 1978 ), p. 48. N.B. The present chairman of the Soviet N0C is also the Minister of Sport.

Cf., the vice-chairman of the American delegation at the follow- up meeting of Madrid on 24 November, 1980, World Affairs, 1982, No. 4, p. 333 et seq.

NYIL, 1981, pp. 167–168.

Department of State Bulletin, May 1980, pp. 14–15.

Aanhangsel Handelingen [Appendix to Parliamentary Proceedings], II 1979/1980, No. 568, p. 1111.

Cf., Guldenpfennig ( 1981 ), in particular see pp. 35, 134.

Cf., the Decision of the Judicial Division of the Council of State on 12 June, 1980 in pursuance of the possible South African participation in the Olympic Games for the Handicapped (Paralympics) held in the Netherlands, NYIL, 1981, p. 349 et seq.

Article 24 F. ‘The flag […] used by a NOC at the Olympic Games shall be submitted to and approved by the Executive Board of the IOC.’ The Bye-laws to the Rules states ‘[…] NOCs may only make use of the Olympic flag […] provided that they have the express approval of the IOC to do so.’.

At the same time the Mayor of Innsbruck offered his city as a permanent location for the Winter Games, which had been held there previously in 1964 and 1976.

Official Journal of the European Communities, No. C59 of 10 March, 1980, pp. 57–58.

Olympic Review (1980), p. 706.

However, the IOC now has at its disposal a formal criterion of assessment based on international law in view of the contract that is made between the IOC and the organising NOC, as well as the city chosen for the Games. This is Article 5 of the model contract as contained in the Olympic Charter. (This article was not included in the 1979 version, though it is contained in the 1982 and 1983 versions.) It reads: ‘If the country where the city is located at any time before the opening ceremony of the Games finds itself in a state of war or in a situation officially considered as one of belligerence, the IOC has the right, by simple notification addressed to […] the NOC, to withdraw the Games from the city.’ (author’s emphasis added). This provision could, in fact, be considered as a modern variation of the classic Olympic principle of political truce. During the Games there was always a truce, and the organising city State was forbidden to wage war and the other city States were forbidden to declare war on it.

Olympic Review (1980), pp. 107–108.

Id ., p. 110.

Reference is also made to the section ‘History’ in Siekmann ( 1998 ), pp. 400–405, which is the first time the article is published in an English version.

Reference is made to the text of the Resolutions dealing with the Olympic Truce in the section ‘Documentation’ in Siekmann ( 1998 ).

See for the text of such resolutions, The International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) 2008/1-2, pp. 128–132.

The European Court of Justice explicitly accepted this (sport-specific) sporting exception to the non-discrimination of EU non -nationals with regard to team sports in Walrave and Koch .

See on the matter of possibly depoliticising the venue of the Olympic Games: Rich 2009.

Dijk P van (1980) The final act of Helsinki—basis for a Pan-European system? Netherlands Yearbook of International Law (NYIL)

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Siekmann, R.C.R. (2012). International Sports Boycotts: Sport, Law and Politics. In: Introduction to International and European Sports Law. ASSER International Sports Law Series. T.M.C. Asser Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-6704-852-1_11

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What To Know About The U.S. Olympics Boycott

Asma Khalid

Mara Liasson

John Ruwitch

In response to China's human rights abuses, the United States will not send any government representatives to the 2022 Winter Olympics in the country. U.S. athletes will still compete. The move is expected to increase tensions between the two world powers. Connect: Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here . Email the show at [email protected] Join the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group . Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout . Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter . Find and support your local public radio station .

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Do boycotts of sports events, such as the Beijing winter Olympics, work?

Their track record is weak but they aren’t always futile.

SPORTING BOYCOTTS are almost as old as sport itself. In 332 BC, the city of Athens threatened to withdraw from the ancient Olympics because of allegations of match-fixing against one of its athletes. In modern times boycotts have tended to be prompted by politics. On December 6th America said its diplomats would not attend the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, in protest against China’s human-rights abuses against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang. Australia followed suit, although both countries’ athletes will still take part. The Chinese government has dismissed the announcement as “pure political grandstanding”. Is America making an empty gesture? Or can boycotts be effective?

Boycotts are usually intended, at least in theory, to press governments into making some sort of political or social change—or to shame them. They rarely achieve much. For one thing, many boycotts that are threatened end up fizzling out. Before the Berlin Olympics in 1936, several countries considered withdrawing rather than be guests of Germany’s Nazi regime. In the end 49 took part—the most at any Olympics until then. More recently, boycotts were mooted by Britain and Germany in the build-up to the football World Cup in Russia in 2018. No teams stayed away.

Even widely observed and repeated boycotts often have little effect. Consider the mass sporting stayaways of the cold-war era. In 1980 America and 66 other countries and territories chose not to go to the Moscow Olympics, most in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union, along with other Eastern-bloc countries, retaliated by boycotting the summer games in Los Angeles four years later. Neither gesture changed the dynamics of the cold war; they merely denied scores of athletes sporting glory. And some athletes went to Moscow despite their countries’ official boycott. Similarly, the frequent refusals of Arab countries and Iran to compete against Israeli athletes have done little to resolve the Palestinian conflict.

But sometimes boycotts can work. The most powerful endorsement of them comes from the anti-apartheid movement. For more than three decades, white-ruled South Africa was a sporting pariah. It was banned from all Olympics between 1964 and 1992 (largely because of pressure from other countries rather than on the International Olympic Committee’s initiative). And its participation in other sports such as rugby union and cricket was severely restricted. Many political scientists believe this sporting isolation contributed to the regime’s downfall. According to one study in “How Sanctions Work”, a book, it created pressure for change; another, in the Journal of Contemporary History , suggests it undermined white racial ideology.

There are several reasons why this boycott worked where others had failed. For a start, it was sustained over time, long enough to hurt its intended target: white South African leaders, who cherished sport—rugby and cricket especially. Nearly 75% of white South Africans in 1990 said they felt the impact of the sporting boycott strongly, according to one poll. The demands from the boycotters were also clear and specific, such as widening participation in sports to all races. And most important, they were supplemented by a strong civil-society movement within South Africa and other sanctions, including economic penalties , from abroad, which exerted significant pressure on the country.

American diplomats’ boycott of the games in Beijing may, then, appear to be little more than symbolic. Other countries may follow America’s example, amplifying negative publicity about China’s human-rights abuses and undermining its efforts to use the games to boost its “soft power” globally. Uyghur groups abroad will welcome this. But nothing will change in their homeland.

Editor’s note (December 8th 2021): This article has been updated since it was first published.

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• DOI: 10.2307/2934968
• Corpus ID: 155352219

Apartheid on the Run: The South African Sports Boycott

• Published 1992
• History, Sociology
• Transition: An International Review

24 Citations

From nairobi to baden-baden: african politics, the international olympic committee, and early efforts to censure apartheid south africa, ousting south africa: olympic clashes of 1968, circumventing apartheid: racial politics and the issue of south africa's olympic participation at the 1984 los angeles games, warriors of the rainbow nation south african rugby after apartheid, boycotting apartheid from south africa to palestine, creating a ‘deplorable impression’: the dryden society’s 1969 tour of south africa and the making of end of the dialogue, "the whole world's watching": new zealand, international opinion, and the 1981 springbok rugby tour, from south africa to south central l.a.: transnational black protest, celebrity, and the cultural boycott, ‘an americanised issue with no place in south africa’ – rodeo sports, muscular and cultural identity and animal rights in urban south africa, bernth lindfors and dennis brutus in association: african literary studies, anti-apartheid politics, and the paradox of competing principles, related papers.

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The effect of sport boycott and social change in South Africa : a historical perspective, 1955-2005 / P. Nongogo

Nongogo, Philani

Edited by [s.n.] - 2011

This study examines the effect of sport boycott in South Africa; a country with a long history of racial discrimination. The struggle for political freedoms and all-inclusive-and-non-racial sport was intertwined. The former colonial power and major investor, Britain was strategic to-and-targeted for black people’s diplomatic efforts after the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910. By 1940s, however, a comprehensive campaign against apartheid was undertaken by the Africa National Congress and Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM). The oppressed majority’s hope for-and-focus on British support had shifted to the United Nations and newly-independent African states. Non-racial sport movement approached the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Federations. South Africa’s official participation in the Olympic Games between 1908 and 1960; racially discriminated against blacks sportspersons and resistance to this was observed in the mid-1940s. Radical struggle was, however, started in the 1950s; illustrated by the emergence of AAM and sport boycott campaigns. These campaigns were continued until controversially abandoned in the early 1990s, paving way for South Africa’s re-admission into the Olympic family in 1992. This literature study utilized the IOC Archives. It sought to analyse the effect of sport boycott in South Africa and social change thereof, in relation to the IOC’s attitude, response and actions towards apartheid sport in contrast to that of the non-racial sport proponents. This study is grounded in a qualitative, historical descriptive research design, with the aim of generating a body of literature and contextualising sport boycott campaigns in the period under investigation.

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History Resources

Bruised Egos, Battles, and Boycott: The 1980 Moscow Olympics

By elise stevens wilson.

Politics and sports have intermingled since the inception of the Olympic Games in Greece, but not until the 1980 Olympics did people fear that politics might destroy the Olympic movement and spirit. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America battled each other ideologically, economically, militarily, culturally, and politically in a very long Cold War that spanned more than forty years (1948–1991). In the midst of the Cold War, the two countries often met in sporting arenas around the world to compete for medals. In 1980, Moscow hosted the Summer Olympics, the first Olympics held in a communist country. Because the United States and the USSR were deep in conflict, especially over the recent movement of Soviet troops into Afghanistan in 1979, the Olympics became an extension of the political arena. The United States did not show up for the games. The 1980 Olympics were not unusual because they were political, but because the extreme degree to which they were politicized had never before been seen. Many Americans and Soviets alike feared that the Olympics would be destroyed if politics infiltrated the games.

In 1980, some Americans believed it their duty to boycott the Olympic Games. Others felt that the Olympics were meant be a de-politicized time when countries could put aside their differences and celebrate something they had in common: sports. These opinions were discussed and debated in the media. Journalists, politicians, athletes, and average citizens expressed their feelings about, and their justifications for or against, the boycott. The 1980 Summer Olympics are significant both in sports history and Cold War history.

In this two-day lesson, students will investigate the various reasons for the boycott and the ways Americans analyzed the 1980 Moscow Olympics at the time. Students will use periodicals as their tools for examining this period in history, and teachers should take the opportunity to discuss media bias. Students will gather information from articles and participate in a debate over whether the US should have boycotted. Additionally, a PowerPoint accompanies this lesson to aid in background information.

• Students will be able to identify various points of view.
• Students will be able to describe why the boycott is significant to both sports history and Cold War history.
• Students will be able to effectively debate using arguments gathered from American periodicals.
• Students will formulate opinions on whether politics should be mix with sporting events.
• 1980 Moscow Olympics: A World Divided  (PowerPoint)
• US periodicals—arguments for and against the boycott (PDF) (Some articles have been shortened to achieve equity in length.)
• US periodicals—coverage of the Moscow Olympics and the boycott (PDF)

Additional Resources

• Opening Ceremony, 1980 Moscow Olympics , YouTube 
• Closing Ceremony, 1980 Moscow Olympics , YouTube

Day One (45–60 minutes)

Use the Think, Pair, Share method or a journal prompt, and ask students the following: Do you think political disagreements between countries should affect their participation in the Olympics? Or: If you were the leader of a country, and the Olympic Games were being held in another country that you believed committed crimes against its people, would you send your athletes to that country? (5 minutes)

Use the 1980 Moscow Olympics Background PowerPoint to introduce the Cold War and the back story to the Moscow Games. (7–10 minutes)

Take some time to discuss media bias with students. Tell students that they will be working with periodicals and that they should take bias into account when reading these sources. (5 minutes)

Divide students into groups of 3–4, and give each group a different article from US periodicals—arguments for and against the boycott found under Materials. Instruct students to read the articles in groups and underline sections that express an opinion about the boycott. (10–15 minutes)

Give each group a large piece of paper and colored markers. Ask each group to discuss their article and write down key ideas. At the top, they should indicate whether are pro-boycott, anti-boycott, or split. (5–10 minutes)

In groups, students should prepare for a debate on whether America should have boycotted the Olympics in Moscow. You can set up the debate in one of two ways.

• Students can take on the personalities mentioned in the articles, such as athletes, politicians, the President, the International Olympic Committee, or even the US Olympic Committee, and debate each other on a television show that is similar to The McLaughlin Group or Meet the Press .
• Students can be members of a presidential advisory committee on the Olympics. Their job is to convince the President which position to take on the boycott.

Some articles will have opposing viewpoints, so you should divide groups into two. Students should create a slogan that best represents their opinions. This slogan can be displayed during the debate. (15 minutes)

Students should prepare for the debate. To make the debate more interesting, students can dress appropriately for their roles.

Day Two (45–60 minutes)

Most of this class period will be spent on the debate for which students have prepared the previous day. Lay down the ground rules for the debate. There are a number of different ways to hold a class debate. (5 minutes)

Here is one suggestion for a class debate:

1) Assign a student to be a moderator or the teacher can be the moderator. If you chose option (a) for the debate, the moderator can act as the television host. If you chose option (b) for the debate, the moderator can be the President of the United States. 2) Only one person may speak at a time. 3) While a person is speaking others should take notes to use to further support their position or to attack the other side. 4) Provide a time limit for each person to speak (1–2 minutes). 5) Make sure each side has an equal amount of time to speak. 6) At the end of the debate, one student from each side gets one minute to provide closing arguments. 7) Remind them that they are not students, but either the personalities from the articles or members of a presidential committee, and they can feel free to take on these roles fully.

Allow students to meet with their sides for a few minutes. They should pick who will give the closing argument and perhaps who should speak first, second, third, etc. (5 minutes)

Proceed with the debate. (15–25 minutes)

Debrief the debate. Ask students how they would feel about the boycott using the barometer method. For this method, students line up on an imaginary line in the classroom with one end of the line representing the choice to boycott, and the other the choice to attend the Olympics. Students can stand anywhere along this spectrum and justify their position. (5 minutes)

Choose one or more of the articles from US periodicals — coverage of the Moscow Olympics and the boycott found under Materials. Read the article(s) as a class, and make sure to point out the media bias. This will give students some closure to the issue of the boycott as well as allow them to see more of the language and rhetoric used during the Cold War. (10–20 minutes)

Ask students to write a response to the following prompts. (5 minutes)

• In this debate, who had the most persuasive argument and why?
• Evaluate whether the Moscow Olympic Games were an appropriate battleground for the Cold War.

Assessments

In addition to the debate and written responses, students can be assessed in the following manner:

• Students can write a letter to President Carter either in support of or in opposition to the boycott of the Moscow Olympics. Make sure they identify the reasons for their opinions.
• Students can research other Olympics that have been politicized and write a comparison paper focusing on whether sports activities should be political.
• Students can research articles from major American newspapers on whether the United States should have supported the Beijing Games in 2008. Many people felt that China, a communist country, had violated human rights and therefore should not be supported. It is an excellent, modern analogy to the Moscow Olympics.

As an extension to this lesson plan, the students can explore how Soviet periodicals covered the boycott and the Moscow Olympics. A good source with an English translation is The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press .

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International Boycott of Apartheid Sport by Mary Corrigall

With special reference to the campaigns in Britain by the Anti-Apartheid Movement

Paper prepared for the United Nations Unit on Apartheid in 1971 1

The system of white supremacy in South Africa is applied in the field of sport as much as in all other walks of life. In other societies where black people have been subjected to widespread discrimination it is in the field of sport and culture that they have managed to make substantial inroads. Not so in South Africa because both the sports administrators, who control all official sport, and the Government have jointly taken measures deliberately to exclude South Africa's non-white people from participating in representative sport.

The imposition of apartheid in sport means in effect that no 'mixed' sport is permitted under the aegis of the official organisations which are accorded international recognition and bear the responsibility for selecting representative teams for international competitions. There are no open trials to permit the selection of the best sportsmen in each class from the entire sporting community. Instead, competition is limited to whites only and it is from them that national teams are selected. This situation was well-known to all the international sports bodies which granted unqualified recognition to the racialist, official organisations in South Africa. Just as the South African white sports bodies are responsible for enforcing racial discrimination in domestic sport, so the international bodies which granted them membership are responsible for bestowing respectability upon such practices.

Apartheid is not only limited to the level of administration of sport and selection of participants. As spectators, the African, Coloured and Indian people are subjected to rigid racial segregation. The main sports arenas have separate entrances, seating enclosures and toilet facilities for non-whites. These are usually the worst and minimal rather than `separate and equal'. At some arenas non-whites are banned altogether from attending sports gatherings.

Non-white sportsmen have always opposed the enforcement of racial discrimination by the official sports bodies and countless appeals were made to the all-white bodies to end apartheid in sport. Without exception, the administrators refused to relax the racial barrier and remained adamant in maintaining the colour bar. In most cases they even refused to meet representatives of non-racial sports bodies to discuss the problem.

The only alternative left open to sportsmen who wished to replace racialist sport with open and non-racial sport was to make representations to the international bodies and point to the enforcement of apartheid by the South African member. But it was not until the mid-1950s that these initiatives were first taken. At that time white sporting bodies enjoyed international recognition in the field of athletics, boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, tennis, table tennis, soccer, rugby and cricket. The all-white South African Olympic Games Association (SAOGA) was a full member of the International Olympic Committee. White South Africans were thus able to participate in the Olympic Games as in all other international sport.

South African white teams did not, however, establish any bilateral links with non-white countries. For example, in the field of cricket, white teams from South Africa exchanged visits with teams from Australia, New Zealand and England but not with teams from the West Indies, India or Pakistan, though all these countries were members of the Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC) until 1961. There is no record of the cricketing bodies of England, New Zealand or Australia expressing concern, let alone opposition, to this extension of racialism to the international level. Since membership of the ICC is open only to Commonwealth countries, South Africa lost its membership when it left the Commonwealth in 1961. But that has made no difference in that the white members of the ICC still continue to exchange visits with racially selected teams from South Africa.

What is true of the cricketing authorities in white Commonwealth countries is also true of other sports bodies in those countries, and of most sports bodies in other white countries which have enjoyed traditional links with colour-bar sport in South Africa. The leaders of sports bodies in these countries are among the best friends of white South African sports administrators. Since representatives from these countries enjoy an undue preponderance of influence in most international sports bodies, the battle for withdrawing recognition from all-white South African bodies has been a difficult one.

International sporting involvement in apartheid

Before examining the efforts of non-white South African sportsmen to win equal opportunities and their representations to international federations which have led to the present isolation of large sections of official South African sport, it is useful to consider the implications of continuing the exchange of visits with apartheid bodies. This is not merely of historical interest because there are still a host of bodies in Western countries which ignore the existence of racialism in South African sport. They continue to visit South Africa and participate in sport conducted under rigid apartheid conditions. They see nothing wrong in inviting all-white teams from South Africa to their own countries.

The moral position is absolutely clear. Human beings should not be willing partners in perpetuating a system of racial discrimination. Sportsmen have a special duty in this regard in that they should be first to insist that merit, and merit alone, be the criterion for selecting teams for representative sport. Indeed non-discrimination is such an essential part of true sportsmanship that many clubs and international bodies have express provisions to this effect. For example, the first fundamental principle of the Olympic Charter states: "No discrimination is allowed against any country or person on grounds of race, religion or political affiliation".

The objection to tolerating apartheid sport is not confined to a firm stand on principle only, though that is clear and should be enough for most people; this toleration in fact gives direct support to the enforcement of apartheid in South African sport. As long as the white sports leaders continue to enjoy international recognition on the basis of apartheid, why should they make any effort to eradicate racialism from the playing fields? The exchange of visits with apartheid teams serves to provide added encouragement and stimulus to racialism in sport, and impedes the efforts of those sportsmen inside South Africa who make brave efforts at promoting non-racial sport. It is ironical that sportsmen committed to the international principle of no discrimination in sport are handicapped in their efforts as a result of overseas recognition granted to apartheid bodies.

Furthermore, playing with white South African sportsmen who represent all-white bodies involves the extension of apartheid principles to overseas sport in that all visiting teams to South Africa have to be selected on the basis of apartheid: non-white players are not welcome as members of visiting teams to South Africa.

Until fairly recently very few non-white sportsmen reached international class in white overseas countries. These countries felt justified in maintaining close links with South Africa, although it had always been understood that overseas teams visiting South Africa must be all-white. They willingly accepted this pre-condition for playing sport with apartheid teams. They were well aware that all games in South Africa with touring sides are played before segregated audiences: international teams which are prepared to tour accept and reinforce apartheid in this respect also.

A real problem arose when the English cricketing authorities found it impossible to exclude a Coloured cricketer from the M.C.C. team to tour South Africa. The South African Government banned the entire team from entering the Republic. It was as a result of this development that the sporting public in Britain and other parts of the world really began to understand the full implications of continuing to exchange visits with apartheid bodies.

Finally, it is well known to the overseas bodies which maintain links with South African apartheid organisations that they refuse to play with teams from non-white countries. Yet, none of the traditional partners of apartheid sport considered it desirable to end its voluntary association with racialist sport.

The international campaign against apartheid sport

It was not until the mid-1950s that the status accorded to all-white South African sports bodies by the international sports community was effectively challenged. This challenge was launched in the main by the direct victims of the system of apartheid sport, South Africa's non-white sportsmen, who took initiatives to dispute the international membership of apartheid bodies which apply racial principles to national sport. They recognised that it was not enough merely to ensure that recognition was not accorded to racial bodies; their place must be taken by non-racial sporting organisations.

In 1956, the first victory against apartheid sport was won in the field of table tennis. The International Table Tennis Federation removed the all-white South African Table Tennis Union from membership and recognised the non-racial South African Table Tennis Board as the sole controlling body in South Africa. Although the non-racial body was not able to send representatives to international competitions, because of Government action in withdrawing the passports of its players, this decision encouraged other sports organisations to take similar initiatives.

By 1955 the non-racial South African Soccer Federation had made representations to the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA). It was pointed out that the non-racial body had more than twice the membership of the white body, the Football Association of South Africa (FASA). Because of the large number of friends of the all-white Association who held influence in FIFA, it was not until 1961 that FASA was first suspended. But this led to even more concerted efforts on the part of these friends to reinstate the offending member. The device chosen was to send a FIFA commission to investigate the situation in South Africa. Sir Stanley Rous of Britain, President of FIFA, and Mr. James McGuire of the United States constituted the mission. During their visit to South Africa in January 1963, the Johannesburg Star of January 9, 1963, reported Sir Stanley as having said that no provision in the FIFA constitution required its members to apply the principle of multi-racialism: if South Africa applied segregation in soccer that was its concern.

"All we are interested in is to see the controlling body of soccer in this country furthering the cause of football to the best of its ability."

The commitment of Sir Stanley Rous to keeping FASA as a full member of FIFA, despite its colour-bar, was also evident in the lengthy correspondence between him and the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, which called for the exclusion of the racialist body from international football.

The report to FIFA recommended the reinstatement of the racial body and this was done in 1963. This decision met with widespread opposition in Afro-Asian countries with the result that the suspension was reimposed at the 1964 Tokyo congress of FIFA. In retaliation the South African Government imposed banning orders, including 12-hour-a-day house arrest, on Mr. George Singh of the non-racial Soccer Federation.

This brief account of developments in the field of soccer reveals a pattern of behaviour which was repeated in other battles to eliminate racialism from sport. In most cases the most important and senior officials of international bodies worked desperately to maintain the status quo and retain the all-white bodies as full members. The South African racialist organisations were, therefore, very well placed to receive high level advice about ways of retaining membership, as well as support for their position.

The South African Government's response is indicative of the general policy towards sportsmen who have dared to oppose racialism in sport. They are not only condemned by the apartheid sports bodies but systematically victimised by the Government authorities. To advocate open sport is to invite speedy and direct persecution. Numerous leaders of non-racial sport have had to endure severe penalties within South Africa for their determined efforts.

The fact that FASA was suspended in 1964, only a year after having been reinstated, was due not so much to any material change in the situation within South Africa as to the fact that more Afro-Asian members were present at the FIFA congress in Tokyo where the Olympic Games were held. Because of the high cost of international travel, many members from African and Asian countries are usually absent at meetings of international bodies. But on those occasions when the international federations have held meetings simultaneously with major gatherings such as the Olympic Games, attendance has been better. It is at these meetings that the majority of members are able to voice their opposition to apartheid sport, and that every manoeuvre and trick has been used by friends of white South Africa to keep it in international sport.

The pressure grows

By the end of 1956, non-white sportsmen had applied for international recognition in several other sports. The Imperial Cricket Conference received an application from representatives of non-white cricketers asking for full international recognition. The South African Weight-Lifting and Body-Building Federation wrote to the Olympic Games Governing Council asking to be admitted to the 1960 Games. There were also moves within rugby clubs to form a federation so as to apply for international recognition. Non-white sportsmen had established a South African Coordinating Committee for International Relations in Sport to coordinate their applications for international recognition.

These early developments led the Minister of the Interior, Dr. T.E. Donges, to make a Government announcement on June 27, 1956, to the effect that while the Government was most sympathetic towards and anxious to help "legitimate Non-European sporting activities", these must accord with the policy of "separate development". Whites and non-whites should organise their sporting activities separately, there should be no inter-racial competitions within the Union, mixing of races in teams should be avoided and sportsmen from other lands should respect the Union's customs as she respected theirs. Within that framework non-white sportsmen from outside would not be barred from entering South Africa to compete with non-whites.

He went on to say that the Government would prefer non-white sports organisations seeking international recognition to do so through the aegis of white associations already enjoying recognition. It would not support non-white sporting activities designed to force the country to abandon its traditional racial divisions by any process of squeezing white South Africans out of international competitions. Dr. Donges concluded by announcing that no travel facilities would be granted to people guilty of such subversive intentions.

This was the first time that the Government felt it necessary to stipulate the framework within which it expected sport to be conducted by all its citizens. Those sportsmen committed to promoting non-racial sport were given a clear warning that their efforts would be considered "subversive" and that henceforth they could expect retaliation from the Government if they persevered with their efforts.

The apartheid sports bodies, on their part, had to make some concession to the growing pressures at the international level. The formula which was adopted in most cases was to invite non-white sporting bodies to affiliate to the existing white bodies as subservient members with either no representation at all on the governing body or token representation. Some controlling bodies also promised to send white and non-white teams for overseas tours in alternate years as an alternative to selecting national representative teams drawn from all South African sportsmen.

They succeeded in creating some division among non-white sportsmen. Some who wished to obtain the benefits of gaining official recognition with the possibility of international competition, albeit on apartheid principles, were prepared to join racial non-white organisations which in turn would affiliate as inferior members to the controlling white body. However, a large number chose to forego these benefits and remained firm in their stand against racial discrimination in sport. For example, when the 1958 Stockholm meeting of FIFA failed to recognise the non-racial Soccer Federation, the latter issued a press statement to the effect that refusal of full status by FIFA was preferable to the acceptance of a subservient associate membership through FASA. It pledged to continue its fight for international recognition. 2

The Olympics campaign begins

The campaign to gain recognition for non-white sportsmen reached a new level in 1959 with the establishment of the South African Sports Association (SASA), with Dennis Brutus as its Secretary. At its inaugural meeting in January 1959, its patron, Alan Paton, said that the object of SASA was to secure proper recognition for non-white sportsmen and "to do this on a non-racial basis".

SASA had affiliates from a wide range of sports representing about 70,000 members. The first major campaign of the association was to secure recognition of the right of non-white sportsmen to participate in international Olympic sport. This involved making representations to the International Olympic Committee and international bodies governing specific sports. Inside South Africa, it required consolidation of national non-racial organisations and entering into negotiations with white controlling bodies. It was hoped that, faced with the prospect of international isolation, the white bodies would agree to end the enforcement of racial discrimination.

But the persistent efforts of Dennis Brutus and other officials of SASA did not produce any meaningful response on the part of the white organisations. By the end of 1959, the South African Olympic Games Association (SAOGA), which practised apartheid, was still a member of the ICC and there were no indications that it would agree to an end to racial discrimination in sport under its control.

The SAOGA officials, however, saw the dangers inherent in the growing frustration of non-white sportsmen and the likelihood of international isolation. They devised elaborate methods to prevent mixed sport within South Africa and encouraged non-white sportsmen to join subservient non-white bodies in order to be considered for selection. This would mean that if any non-white sportsman wished to participate in international sport, he had to accept racial separation before having an opportunity for selection. Even if selected, he would have to participate internationally as an 'individual' and not as a member of the national team.

Sportsmen all over the world realise that it is only in open competition that they are able to attain high standards. It is vital to have good facilities: in South Africa non-whites usually have virtually no facilities or wholly inadequate ones. They are also from the majority section of the population that works hardest for the lowest pay and as a result have very little time for recreation and little finance to purchase equipment. They are allowed membership only in inferior sports bodies. Then, in separate trials, if they happen to record better times than white athletes, they may be permitted to participate in international sport.

These conditions make a travesty of the fundamental principles of all truly representative sport. Since trials have to be separate and along racial lines, how can the best representative be selected? For example, how is the best boxer determined between a white and a non-white contender? And even in the case of athletics, separate trials at separate times and different tracks mean competition under unequal conditions. Every athlete knows that it is by competition with others in his class that he can record better times. As if this system is not sufficiently objectionable, there is still no guarantee that even if a non-white athlete records better time than a white competitor he will be selected. The white controlling bodies cannot be trusted even to behave according to racial rules of their own making.

Black athletes left out

In 1962, a South African team had to be selected for a tournament in Lourenco Marques. By this time one of the two athletic bodies with non-white members had decided to affiliate to the white controlling body, while the other refused to accept subservient status. The affiliated South African Amateur Athletics and Cycling Association was given an assurance that if any of its members recorded better performances than whites, then they would be selected. The white trials were held at Queenstown and special African trials were arranged for the following week at Welkom. As it turned out, two African athletes succeeded in bettering the times of white athletes. Bennet Makgamathe returned a time of 13.8 seconds faster than the best white athlete the previous week for the three miles. The other, Humphrey Khosi, ran the half-mile one-tenth of a second faster than the best white half-miler.

A few days later the president of the controlling body announced that the two African athletes would not be included in the South African team. The official reason given was that Makgamathe's time had been beaten by a white athlete at a gathering a week after the official white trials and that Khosi did not have a good enough record to deserve selection. A few weeks later it was revealed that the selectors had in fact chosen the African athletes, but that the executive committee of the white South African Amateur Athletics Union had refused to approve the decision.

Even white journalists condemned this decision, since it had been agreed at the beginning that selection would be based on timing at the two official trials. An African journalist wrote in the Johannesburg Star of May 12, 1962:

"The only reason that Africans could find for the exclusion of the athletes was their colour. If this was not the case, why then was the verdict of the stopwatch not upheld? "

The truth is that the white controlling bodies have always voluntarily practised racial discrimination. The complicated formulas proposed by white bodies to give the impression of some progress to non-racial sport is at best tokenism designed to stave off international isolation. But, even if the system of separate sport is implemented honestly, it amounts to a further refinement of apartheid rather than its elimination.

SAN-ROC formed

By 1962 it became clear to SASA that no further progress was possible by making representations to the white controlling bodies. In May a letter was sent to the IOC urging that South Africa be expelled and stating that SAOGA and the Government were guilty of practising racial discrimination and making the country unfit to take part in the Olympic Games. A meeting of the IOC in June 1962 warned SAOGA that if the policy of racial discrimination was not changed, it would be suspended in 1963.

This decision caused considerable reaction within South Africa. White sportsmen and sports-loving public realised that unless real progress was made quickly, South Africa would be excluded from the Olympic Games. Even organisations such as the white Athletics Union, which had earlier violated its own rules by excluding African athletes, were now passing resolutions to demonstrate their fitness for international sport. At one of its meetings held in Pretoria in January 1963, the Union decided that if any non-white athletes reached the required standard of performance, they would be selected for the Olympic Games, in which case South Africa would not compete on a team basis, but on the basis of individual competition. Other controlling bodies adopted similar resolutions. (The Government had made it clear that no mixed team would be permitted to represent South Africa abroad; hence the reference to participation as individuals rather than as members of a national team.)

In August 1962 SASA announced a plan to establish a non-racial Olympic body which would seek international recognition in place of the apartheid SAOGA. The inaugural meeting of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SAN-ROC) took place in January 1963. SASA remained in existence, but the battle for Olympic recognition passed on to SAN-ROC with Dennis Brutus as its President.

The untenable case of the apartheid sports bodies

The case of the SAOGA was that the white controlling body had to obey the laws of the country which prohibited mixed sport. But this was clearly not true. Mary Draper of the South African Institute of Race Relations, in an article entitled, "Custom and policy - not law - bar mixed sport", in the Johannesburg Star of January 31, 1963, summarised the position in the following way:

"Sportsmen of different races may lawfully compete with one another provided (a) members of the 'wrong' race groups do not make use of club facilities, and (b) the body or person controlling a 'public' sports ground has not laid down conditions restricting its use on racial lines."

It was not illegal for teams composed of `mixed' races to play against each other or to hold matches between teams or individuals of different races. However, persons of one racial group may not enter club buildings in an area zoned for persons of a different colour. That is why, in 1963, the Indian golfer, Sewsunker (Papwa) Sewgolum was awarded his prize for winning the South African Open Golf competition in pouring rain outside the club-house while the white competitors celebrated inside.

In October 1962, the Natal Supreme Court ruled that it was not illegal for persons of different races to play football together. In other words, the provision excluding mixing across the colour-line did not extend to the playing fields themselves. As Mary Draper concluded in her article:

"It is true that the policy of the present Government is hostile to inter-racial sport. There is, however, a big distinction between law and policy. Laws have to be observed, and are enforceable by the courts. Compliance with policy is a matter for choice on the part of individual citizens and organisations."

An examination of South African sports history shows clearly that the official controlling bodies in each branch of sport have voluntarily practised racial discrimination over the years. Several of them, including the white Football Association, even had colour-bar clauses in their constitutions. In this particular case the all-white body deleted this clause in 1956 when representatives of FIFA visited South Africa, but maintained that they would continue to follow the laws and customs of South Africa. 3

The 1963 Olympic conference

SAN-ROC had intended that its President, Dennis Brutus, and Chairman, John Harris, should represent the organisation at the meeting of the International Olympic Committee at Baden-Baden in October 1963. The SAN-ROC memorandum to the IOC stated:

"Due to the actions of the South African Government, Mr. Brutus is at present in prison after having been shot. Mr. Harris is now unable to leave South Africa as he was detained by the South African police and his passport was withdrawn."

A new element had also entered the debate by 1963. Since early 1962, the British Anti-Apartheid Movement had taken a keen interest in working for the elimination of apartheid sport from the Olympic Games. Its annual report for 1962-1963 stated:

"We have sent material to 118 national Olympic Committees and other sports bodies about racialism in South African sport. We are hoping that the South African Olympic Committee will be excluded from the International Olympic Committee this year. We are sending a representative to the IOC conference in Baden-Baden in October 1963."

The interest of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement was evidence of the growing international concern at the practice of racialism in sport. This concern was not limited to sportsmen alone, for persons from all walks of life supported the AAM representations.

At Baden-Baden the delegates were given lengthy documents by the white South African Olympic Games Association. It pleaded that it would need to go on practising racial discrimination inside South Africa, as well as in selecting participants for international competitions, as this was Government policy. It offered that non-whites of merit would be selected, but without any direct competition with white candidates.

Even if separate trials for athletes of different racial groups were acceptable, how would one select the best representative, if two athletes of different colour achieved the same times? The reply of SAOGA was contained in a curious annex No. 9, submitted by Dr. P. Leary of the Chamber of Mines Applied Physiology Laboratory, which stated:

"By the use of objective tests of physiological and psychological capacity we hope to help with the final assessment of material available for selection in 1964...

"Thus should a situation arise in which two sportsmen of like ability vie for the final place available in our athletics or cycling team, this laboratory will be able to recommend which of the two performers should be selected. This will exclude the possibility of racial discrimination completely and ensure that merit alone counts."

Tests by "physiological and psychological capacity" conducted by a medical laboratory were to be used as a substitute for allowing sportsmen of different races to vie in competition with one another for selection!

Despite the diligent efforts of the South African security police, however, evidence was sent out of South Africa by SAN-ROC, including a special message to the IOC from Dennis Brutus in prison.

The AAM representative at the Baden-Baden conference was joined by a white South African who had managed to leave the country to represent SAN-ROC. Both acted on behalf of SAN-ROC and found that senior officials of the IOC were strongly committed to keeping white South Africa in the Olympic Games despite open violation of the Olympic Charter. South Africa enjoyed extensive support among representatives of most Western countries. It was only by the coordination of the efforts of the Afro-Asian representatives, supported by the Socialist countries and one or two officials from Western Europe, that apartheid sport was excluded from the Olympic Games.

The Afro-Asian national Olympic committees made it clear that they would not feel able to participate in Olympic sport if one of the IOC members practised racial discrimination. It was this firm stand that led the IOC to adopt the following resolution:

"The National Olympic Committee of South Africa must declare formally that it understands and submits to the spirit of the Olympic Charter and particularly articles 1 and 24. It must also obtain from its Government, before December 31, 1963, modification of its policy of racial discrimination in sport and competitions on its territory, failing which the South African NOC will be forced to withdraw from the Olympic Games."

Persecution of Dennis Brutus

This was the first major victory against apartheid sport. But it had been achieved at some considerable cost. Dennis Brutus, one of the most persistent campaigners against racialism in sport, became a special target of the South African regime.

From the early days when SASA was formed he was closely watched by the security police. In 1960, when a state of emergency was declared following the Sharpeville killings, security officials raided the homes of SASA officials and took away all the documents they could find. None were returned. Dennis Brutus was placed under severe personal restriction. Banning orders served on him prevented him from attending gatherings of more than two persons. Anything he said or wrote could not be printed, published or distributed. He was also banned from teaching and journalism, which deprived him of the means of earning a livelihood.

Despite these restrictions, Dennis Brutus still carried on his work. In 1963 he went with a few colleagues from SAN-ROC to the white Olympic Committee offices to meet Mr. Balsiger, a Swiss journalist visiting South Africa, who intended to report his findings to the IOC. The meeting was interrupted by security officers who entered the offices of the white Olympic Committee and arrested Mr. Brutus allegedly for violating the terms of his banning order by attending a gathering of more than two persons.

While awaiting trial, Dennis Brutus escheated bail and left South Africa in an effort to reach Baden-Baden for the Olympic conference. He was detained by the Portuguese security police in Mozambique and secretly handed over to the South African Government. When outside Johannesburg police headquarters, he attempted to escape in order to draw attention to his whereabouts. He feared for his life if the world at large did not know of his arrest and detention. At point-blank range a police officer shot him in the stomach in a busy Johannesburg street.

After recovering partially in the prison hospital, he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for contravening the terms of his banning order. When he completed his term of imprisonment, Dennis Brutus left South Africa on an "exit permit", which prohibits his return to his country. He went to England and continued the work of SAN-ROC in exile.

At no point did any of the white sports officials or organisations protest to the Government at the victimisation of Mr. Brutus. Indeed the arrest inside the office of the white Olympic Committee did not provoke even the mildest criticism, with the result that many non-white South Africans felt that the Committee was itself involved.

The case of Dennis Brutus is just one example of Government action to intimidate and silence sportsmen who work for non-racial sport.

Developments after the Baden-Baden meeting

South Africa's friends did not rest after the adoption of the 1963 resolution. They almost succeeded in having the suspension withdrawn and enabling South Africa to take part in the Mexico Games. It became clear that as long as South Africa remained a member of the IOC it could move from suspension to membership and vice versa depending on whether South Africa's friends happened to be in the majority present at any particular meeting.

Once again it was the action of the Afro-Asian countries which resulted in the Mexican organising committee not inviting South Africa rather than face a boycott from a large number of national Olympic committees. In May 1970 the IOC took the inevitable decision of expelling the white body from South Africa from the Olympic movement altogether.

Action outside international organisations

So far we have examined the battle against racial discrimination at the level of international sports organisations. But this is not the only level at which international opposition to racialism in sport has been expressed. The white Commonwealth countries and France have sports bodies which continue to exchange visits with apartheid teams. It is in these countries that individual citizens have organised national campaigns against maintaining links with white South Africa which only serve to strengthen racialism in sport.

Rugby and cricket teams from Australia, New Zealand and Britain have continued to exchange tours with white South African teams. So have rugby teams from France and Ireland.

Over the past few years opposition to these tours in Australia and New Zealand has led to the establishment of national bodies of protest which have extended their area of concern to the apartheid situation as a whole. Massive campaigns have been organised on a nation-wide basis when white South African teams have visited these countries and before their national teams have gone to South Africa to play under apartheid conditions.

In the Scandinavian countries there has been extensive opposition to holding tennis competitions with white South Africans. These events have had to take place at secret venues because of the strength of public reaction.

But it is Britain that has the closest links with apartheid sport and it is there that the most significant victory so far has been achieved by the cancellation of the 1970 all-white South African cricket tour.

Anglo-South African cricket links

The all-white South African Cricket Association (SACA) lost its membership of the Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC) when South Africa left the Commonwealth in 1961. This did not, however, produce any change in the attitude of the MCC towards racist cricket. Representations by the non-racial Cricket Board of Control were met with the advice that they develop a separate "all-coloured" cricket organisation!

For over a decade the Anti-Apartheid Movement has been campaigning for an end to British links with apartheid sports bodies. Because of the long historical links between the two countries, it was always difficult to obtain publicity via the media for information on the operation of racialism in South African sport. Many looked upon the AAM campaigns as being solely motivated at isolating South Africa on political grounds and argued that politics should not be introduced into sport. But this argument was effective only because the public did not know about the operation of racialism in sport in South Africa.

Because of the persistent efforts of the AAM to educate public opinion, more and more people learnt the facts and joined the battle against apartheid sport.

In 1960, when a South African white team toured England, the English Test cricketer, the Reverend David Sheppard, refused to play against the tourists. He said at the time:

"I do not regard cricket in South Africa as a non-political game. South Africa has never yet played against the West Indies, or against India or Pakistan. There are 20,000 non-white cricketers in South Africa. Because they are non-white, they will have no opportunity of playing in a club side, in a province side or in a Test match. I believe at this moment that cricket is touching on the most important single issue in the world. And I believe that as a cricketer and a Christian, I would be wrong to keep silent."

In 1965, when a white South African team toured England, demonstrations were held in many centres where the tourists played and the public was asked to boycott the games. The Queen was asked not to attend the Test match at Lords, particularly since, as Head of the Commonwealth, Her Majesty should not be seen to be supporting apartheid cricket. She stayed away, but this was ignored by the press. The Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Wilson, also responded to the AAM call. This was the first time in cricketing history that the Crown and the Prime Minister had stayed away from a cricket Test match. Thousands of leaflets were distributed outside the cricket grounds as well as in shopping areas in cities which staged the matches with the apartheid team.

The D'Oliveira affair

But it was not until 1968 that the public at large had the problem of apartheid in cricket brought home to it in a dramatic way over the "D'Oliveira affair".

Basil D'Oliveira is an outstanding South African all-rounder, who could never hope to play representative cricket for his country of birth because he is Coloured. He left South Africa in 1960 and played in English county cricket; he was first selected for English Test matches in 1966.

An English cricket team was to be chosen in 1968 for a tour of South Africa and there was considerable speculation as to whether the team would be permitted to enter South Africa if Basil D'Oliveira were a member. As early as January 1967, over 200 Members of Parliament had called on the MCC to cancel its proposed 1968-1969 tour of South Africa, since South Africa's Interior Minister, Piet le Roux, had been reported as saying that the Coloured cricketer would not be allowed into the country. The MCC, however, insisted on going ahead with the tour.

When the touring party was announced at the end of the English cricketing season in 1968, Basil D'oliveira was omitted and this provoked one of the sharpest controversies in the history of English cricket. His outstanding performance against Australia at the close of the season was more than adequate to win selection for an English touring team. Most people believed that he was dropped because the MCC did not wish to embarrass the South African authorities by selecting him. A public opinion poll published in the London Daily Mail of September 12, 1968 revealed that two out of every three people deplored the omission of D'Oliveira and believed that he was dropped because he was Coloured. The MCC was completely taken aback at the uproar that followed their decision.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement sought a meeting with the Minister of Sport, Mr. Dennis Howell, and saw him on 12 September. As the delegation - composed of Mr. Jeremy Thorpe, M.P. (Leader of the Liberal Party), Bishop Ambrose Reeves (former Bishop of Johannesburg) and Mr. Abdul S. Minty (Honorary Secretary of AAM) - left the Minister's office, they were informed by waiting journalists that D'Oliveira had just been invited to join the MCC party in place of an injured player. On the following night, Premier Vorster told a Nationalist Party meeting in Bloemfontein that the MCC team was no longer welcome in South Africa. He claimed that "the team as constituted now is not the team of the MCC, but the team of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the team of SAN-ROC, and the team of Bishop Reeves".

The MCC was left with no alternative but formally to call of the tour.

Nothing before had been so effective in getting across to the British public the full implications of exchanging sports tours with apartheid teams. Even right-wing Conservative Members of Parliament were forced to condemn both the MCC decision to omit D'Oliveira and the action of the South African Government in banning the tour. The weight of public opinion was strong enough to force several leading defenders of South Africa to condemn the two decisions.

It became clear that if the MCC proceeded with its invitation to the all-white South African Cricket Association to tour England in 1970, that tour would be actively opposed by people all over the country. But the cricketing authorities at Lords remained adamant and went ahead with their plans for the tour.

The 1969-1970 ruby tour

The British public had scarcely recovered from the D'Oliveira affair when the all-white South African ruby tour of Britain and Ireland began in 1969. This provided an opportunity to people in Britain to show their disapproval of invitations to racialist teams. The Rugby Board had ignored the many requests for the cancellation of the tour. There was no choice but to organise nation-wide protests and demonstrations at every match.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement mobilised its branches, members and supporters all over the country and printed thousands of leaflets and posters for the campaign.

The Stop-the-Seventy-Tour Committee, which was established in September 1969 to protest at the forthcoming cricket tour, began by mobilising support against the rugby tour. The STST Committee was sponsored by eight organisations, including the AAM. Mr. Peter Hain led the new Committee as its Chairman.

The first game was due to be played at Oxford, but because of the strength of opposition from all sections of the local community, including staff and students at the university, it was switched to Twickenham and the venue was only announced on the day of the match. Well over a thousand people turned up at Twickenham to protest outside the ground despite the short notice.

From then onwards the movement of protest began to develop its own momentum. The AAM organised demonstrations outside rugby grounds, while STST asked its supporters to enter the grounds and, if necessary, disrupt the game.

Virtually every match thereafter was played in an atmosphere of siege; large numbers of police had to be summoned to protect the grounds and rows of policemen encircled the playing fields to prevent demonstrators from invading them. Barbed wire fences were erected inside and outside the grounds and police dogs were brought in and held in reserve at strategic points.

Clashes between the police and demonstrators took place at several matches, the worst at Swansea where almost 150 young demonstrators claimed to have been beaten by rugby vigilantes and the police.

The national press calculated that at least 50,000 people took part in the demonstrations held at every match that was played. Police costs alone amounted to well over £ 50,000.

The white South African team could never feel at ease throughout the tour. On the field matches were interrupted; off the field demonstrators protested outside their hotels. One student almost succeeded in driving away the coach full of white South African players, as they were about to set off from their hotel for a match.

When the white team reached Dublin, they met with even more widespread opposition. Mr. Corrie Bornmann, manager of the white rugby team, admitted at the end of the tour that he had thought of calling it off as a result of the protests in Ireland. The Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement obtained massive support for its campaign against the visit of the white ruby team to their country. Large numbers of rugby fans boycotted the game, which had a very small attendance for an international match.

As a result of the new public interest, anti-apartheid groups emerged in areas where there were none before and plans were made for even greater demonstrations during the 1970 cricket tour.

The 1970 tour stopped

From January 1970 onwards individuals and organisations called on the Cricket Council to cancel their invitation for the all-white South African cricket tour due to begin on May 2.

On January 22, a deputation from the AAM, including three Members of Parliament, handed in a letter to officials of the Council and early the following month the Movement delivered a petition with over 12,000 signatures objecting to the tour. Many other organisations made similar representations.

Spontaneous action was taken by individuals and prominent leaders. The press reported on January 21 that grounds all over the country had slogans painted on walls, sightscreens, scoreboards and pitches. In Cardiff a four-inch hole was dug in the pitch.

Members of country clubs called on them not to play against the white South African team and many resigned their membership when the clubs refused. For example, the Archbishop of Wales, Dr. Glyn Simon, a cricket supporter for more than 40 years, told the Glamorgan Cricket Club that he would terminate his membership if the Club played the apartheid team.

However, on February 12, the Cricket Council approved the tour and announced drastic cuts in its duration. Originally the tour was to last for four months with 28 matches on 23 grounds. Now it was to be completed in eleven weeks with 12 matches on the eight grounds which were the easiest to protect: the barricades would go up around the grounds and each one would have an artificial pitch, in case the turf wicket was damaged by demonstrators. All the grounds were to be defended and patrolled for the next four months. At some grounds, such as Leicester, day and night patrols were carried out by police with dogs. The Council was determined that the tour would take place - even under siege conditions.

The Council proved to be insensitive to appeals from community relations organisations which felt that the tour would damage race relations in Britain. Mr. Frank Cousins, Chairman of the Community Relations Commission, wrote to the Home Secretary in February warning of the "untold damage to community relations" that the apartheid tour would cause. The Right Reverend David Sheppard, former Test cricketer and now Bishop of Woolwich, said:

"Few, if any, members of the MCC Council live in areas of racial tension and they do not understand what deep feelings are raised by this tour of a racially selected team."

By April, opinion against the tour reached a new peak. Trade unions announced that they would support those members who felt obliged to boycott the tour and refuse to service the players. Television technicians urged the BBC to cancel its contracts for coverage of the tour. John Arlott, the world's foremost cricket commentator, informed the BBC that he would not broadcast on the matches arranged for the white South African team. Granada Television announced that it would not screen any of the play during the tour.

In May the Fair Cricket Campaign was launched by the Bishop of Woolwich with a view to drawing in even more people to support the campaign. The Bishop was elected Chairman and the two Vice-Chairmen were Sir Edward Boyle, Conservative Member of Parliament and ex-Minister, and Mr. Reginald Prentice, former Labour Minister for Overseas Development. Thus, in addition to the AAM, two other organisations - the Fair Cricket Campaign and the STST Committee - were working for the cancellation of the tour.

However, even an appeal by the Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Wilson, urging the Cricket Council to reverse its decision, had no effect on the Council members.

One other factor then entered the situation. The Commonwealth Games were due to take place in Edinburgh in July when the South African team would be touring England. The AAM made representations to most of the participants invited to the Games that they should not come to Britain at the same time as a visiting racialist team from South Africa. Representations were also made to several Commonwealth Governments. On May 5, India announced that it would not attend the Edinburgh Games if the South African tour went ahead. At least 13 African countries threatened to do the same. There were also reports that participants from the West Indies would refuse to go to Edinburgh.

The Commonwealth Games were threatened with total disaster, as the majority of the Commonwealth decided to boycott them if the cricket tour went ahead. As a result, the Government was forced to call upon the Cricket Council to cancel its invitation to the apartheid team.

The success of the campaign was due not only to the work of the various British organisations, but also to the swift action of Commonwealth countries. The STST Committee, spearheaded by Mr. Peter Hain, and the Fair Cricket Campaign, under the leadership of the Bishop of Woolwich, added fresh resources to the work of the AAM, which had been campaigning for over a decade against international collaboration with apartheid sport. SAN-ROC played an invaluable role in effectively representing the views of South Africa's non-white sportsmen.

Continue boycott of all apartheid sport

The victories against apartheid in sport have led to re-thinking among white South African sportsmen who have until recently been active supporters of racial discrimination in sport. Their reactions have been interpreted in some quarters as being a genuine change of heart. If there has been such a change, it has come about not so much because of the long years of international contact with apartheid sport, but from the threat of international isolation. Many individual white sportsmen, such as golfer Gary Player, have begun to make public pronouncements against apartheid sport, whereas only a few years ago they were open defenders of this system.

But while international isolation has forced some white sportsmen to voice their protests inside South Africa, that was never the sole purpose of the boycott campaigns. More important is the impact made on the oppressed African, Coloured and Indian people, who have been enormously encouraged by the protests and demonstrations all over the world against the system of organising sport on the basis of skin colour.

The British campaign has shown people in other parts of the world that it is possible to stop their national bodies from continuing to exchange tours with apartheid teams. Already campaigns are under way in Australia and New Zealand - two countries with long-established links with apartheid sport.

The South African Government has also learnt certain lessons in the past two years. In future it is likely to be more flexible in permitting non-white members to be part of overseas teams visiting the Republic. But that cannot justify exchanging tours with white South Africa.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement has always urged that the outside world should boycott all apartheid sport. All links with racialist bodies should be abolished until sport inside South Africa is conducted on the basis of merit alone and not of colour. This may not be possible until white domination itself is ended in South Africa. Until there is a non-racial society which will permit open sport, we may have to exclude South Africa from all international competitions. For it is wrong to support racialism in any form. And apartheid is not a game.

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Olympics Boycott essay

The Olympics boycott of 1980 was one of the major sports event of the 20 th century that revealed the full extent to which politics influenced the world sports and Olympic movement. At the same time, being driven by morally just reasons, the Olympics boycott of 1980 became the failure of the US because the US made the move that put under a threat the survival of the Olympic Games as one of the few international events that united sportspersons and nations globally, regardless of their political background. In addition, the boycott had failed to become a truly global decision. Instead, the boycott was virtually forced on close allies of the US but it had never been fully supported in the world, while its effects were negative not only for the USSR but also and mainly for American sportspersons, who were deprived of an opportunity to participate in the main sports event of their life which they fairly deserved, because of political concerns of Jim Carter’s administration.

The Olympics boycott was triggered by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as the USSR deployed its military to support the pro-Soviet, communist regime in Afghanistan (Mertin 235). In response to the military intervention of the USSR in Afghanistan, the US and its allies introduced sanctions, among which the boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow was a part of sanctions. The military intervention of the USSR into Afghanistan was apparently the unfair and challenging decision but this political and military move was not new in international politics, taking into consideration the Soviet troops deployment in 1968 in Czechoslovakia, Hungary in 1956 and threatened to deploy its troops in Poland in 1980, while even the US deployed its troops to reach their geopolitical ends, as was the case of Korea in 1953 or Vietnam in 1956-1975. However, neither of the aforementioned conflicts did result in sanctions affecting sportspersons and major sport events like the Olympics.

At the same time, the expansion of sanctions on the Olympics evoked controversial responses not only in the world community but also among allies of the US. In fact, many countries were unwilling to support the Olympics boycott initiated by the US. Therefore, even allies of the US were not willing to support the Olympics boycott, while countries that took the position close to neutral were even more unwilling to join the boycotting cohort. As for social states, they were neither willing nor capable to boycott the Olympics in Moscow, especially in light of the extensive deployment of the Soviet army in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Obviously, socialist states were not willing to trigger the outrage of Moscow which threatened the deployment of troops against states that manifest their disloyalty.

Nevertheless, the US conducted the large scale campaign aiming at the support of the boycott. The US attempted to use celebrities to persuade the public and political leaders along with national committees of other countries to support the US Olympics boycott. For instance, Muhammad Ali’s voyage to Africa before the 1980 Olympics aimed at persuading leaders of some African countries and their national Olympic committees to support the boycott.

The alternative Olympics Boycott Games were conducted in the US. In fact, this was the weak attempt to save the Olympics for those, who supported the boycott because the alternative Olympics were not recognized by the International Olympic committee or by the international community as the Olympic Games. As a result, there were just regional games, a sport event that involves some popular sportspersons but could never be viewed as a large scale, major event of four years period as the Olympics normally are.

Many countries refused to support the Olympics boycott, while many US allies, such as West Germany, had to apply a considerable pressure to persuade their national Olympic committees to support the boycott. At the same time, some countries, which officially refused to participate in the Olympics, still sent their sportspersons, although they participated under the Olympic flag and did not use their national flags and anthems. For instance, French, British and other sportspersons participated in the Olympics in such a way.

Remarkably, the Soviet television did not show the sportspersons under the Olympics flag to maintain the general impression of the worldwide participation and involvement into the Olympic Games. In such a way, the Olympics boycott had failed to defeat the Soviet propaganda since the population of the USSR was just fed up with the Soviet propaganda and the average spectators watching the Olympics in the USSR on TV did not even notice that something went wrong but the absence of the American sportspersons, whom they perceived as enemies and did not really care about their absence.

The Olympic boycott was generally perceived as the failure because even the allies of the US participated in the 1980 Olympics, although their participation was informal. Other countries just refused to support the boycott (Corthorn 51). Even though sixty-five countries did not participate in the Olympics at all, the boycott did not reach its main goal, which it was launched for. The USSR did not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. The public image of the USSR did not suffer much because its response to the boycott was predictable as well as the boycott itself. In addition, the USSR had the powerful propaganda machine that shaped the public opinion in the USSR as the ruling regime wished. Hence, the boycott could not have any significant effects on the public opinion and the population of the USSR and Jim Carter’s administration expected.

On the other hand, sportspersons of those countries, which supported the boycott, suffered the most, whereas the boycott did not affect the USSR much (Cousineau 76). Therefore, the boycott has not reach its main goal to raise the public opinion in the USSR as well as internationally since the USSR public remain basically ignorant or indifferent to the boycott, while the world community was rather willing to participate in the Olympics than support the boycott initiated by the US out of political reasons and concerns.

The aftermath of the Olympics boycott was the deterioration of international relations between the US and the USSR and their allies. In response to the Olympics boycott in 1980 in Moscow, the USSR responded with the boycott of the Olympics of 1984 in Los Angeles (Sarantakes 121). The USSR was supported by thirteen socialist states, which were allies of the USSR. At the same time, there were only two states that supported both boycotts and did not participate in neither Olympics, these states were Albania and Iran.

In fact, the Olympics boycott of 1980 was rather a failure than success. The US failed to make the boycott global. In this regard, undemocratic, socialist states naturally ignored the boycott and participated in the Olympics in Moscow. Moreover, even close allies of the US did not really support the boycott because, in spite of the formal support, sportspersons of the US allies still participated in the Olympics. At the same time, the boycott had a negative impact on the development of sports in the US because the entire generation of sportsperson was deprived of the possibility to participate in the Olympics, which they prepared for during four years. As a result, the refusal of the US Olympic Committee to participate in the Olympics in 1980s in Moscow deprived American sportsperson to participate in the Olympics which was the only lifetime chance for many sportspersons to participate in the Olympics.

Thus, the Olympics boycott of 1980 was rather a failure than success. The politically driven sanctions did not have desirable effects on the USSR and its allies, while the extrapolation of the political struggle between the two superpowers on the Olympic movement contradicted to fundamental principles of the Olympics which always stood on the ground of the peaceful competition between all sportspersons from all over the world.

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The Sunday Essay December 12, 2021

The sunday essay: the 1976 montreal boycott.

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Trevor Richards, one of the founders of Hart (Halt all racist tours), recalls how an All Black rugby tour of South Africa disrupted international sport and brought shame to New Zealand.

The Sunday Essay  is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand

Original illustrations by Julia Murray

I. Drama at 35,000 feet. 

It was early afternoon, September 8, 1977. I was on a British Airways flight somewhere over the Indian Ocean, en route from my favourite African country, Tanzania, to the Seychelles. 

The previous four months had been hectic. From May until August, I had worked in New York assisting the United Nations in drawing up an International Declaration Against Apartheid in Sports. Then it was on to Lagos, Nigeria, for the UN’s World Conference Against Apartheid. This was followed by discussions with government officials in Tanzania. Now, it was home time. 

I was feeling good, relaxing, enjoying an ice-cold rum and coke – and then it happened. The first sensation was a burning pain on the top of my head. The book on my knee fell to the floor. Someone was grabbing me by my hair and yanking me out of my seat. The man was in his 50s, florid faced and smelling strongly of whisky. He started shouting “Traitor! This man is a traitor!” I was introduced to fellow passengers as “someone not fit to be called a New Zealander”. A steward quickly appeared and ordered the man back to his seat.

Looking perplexed, she asked me what it was all about. “He’s a fellow New Zealander who has different political views from me,” I responded. I could have said, “he believes that I was one of those responsible for the boycott at last year’s Montreal Olympics”, but thought it best to keep my response simple, and believable. 

Earlier this year there was much reminiscing marking the 40th anniversary of the 1981 Springboks tour. Almost forgotten is 1976 and its much bigger global story – the walkout, by more than 30 countries, from the Montreal Olympic Games. How great were the passions generated by the events of 1976? Not even after 1981 was I accosted at 35,000 feet.

In 1976 the first major boycott of the modern Olympic era wasn’t the result of a stoush between the Soviet Union and the United States. Those boycotts came later, at Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984. The Montreal boycott had an unlikely source – a small South Pacific nation with a prime minister who, personality-wise, was an early prototype of Donald Trump. Robert Muldoon did not want to make New Zealand Great Again, but he was nostalgic for a time when the values of the empire were recognised and respected.

His outspoken support for sporting contacts with apartheid South Africa brought New Zealand into an ultimately unwinnable conflict with the emerging postcolonial world order. 1976 was a time when the New Zealand government took on the world, Hart took on the New Zealand government, and the country faced a major foreign policy crisis.

II. The Halt all racist tours movement (Hart): international good citizens or despicable traitors? 

Hart had always been good internationalists. For many of us, it was part of the legacy of growing up in the 1960s. In a world where the internet was still to be invented, where emails and social media had yet to put in an appearance – even fax machines did not become popular until the 1980s – Hart built a web of inter alliances with governments, international agencies, sporting bodies and national anti-apartheid movements. These networks were to become a critical part of the movement’s activities aimed at ending New Zealand’s sporting relations with apartheid South Africa.

No campaign in history received more global support than that waged against apartheid. Hart was able to tap into an existing set of powerful networks. Intergovernmental agencies such as the United Nations, the Organisation of African Unity and the Commonwealth Secretariat already had strong policy in this area.

The UN was a major international focus of our activities from the beginning. Hart was formed in July 1969. In Auckland, our first street demonstration was held to mark United Nations Day (October 24). Africa was also a focus. For our 1970 Sharpeville Day activities, we sought messages from every African head of state. Just before Sharpeville Day a very supportive cable arrived from Siaka Stevens, president of Sierra Leone, a West African member of the Commonwealth. Another cable was also received from the president of the Organisation of African Unity. For most of the country – the government, the NZRFU, the newspapers – it was all a big yawn. I cannot recall being more thrilled to receive any pieces of mail, before or since. 

Internationally, however, Hart faced difficulties. To gain relevance and influence, we needed to establish our credentials. The best way to do this was face to face, but New Zealand’s geographic location, more or less at the bottom of the world, made this difficult. European and US anti-apartheid activists had ease of access to many of the major influential governmental and non-governmental movers and shakers. Influence develops from such access. 

The core of Hart’s international network was established over two international trips in the period between 1972 and 1974. The first, in March 1972, was an invitation to New York to attend meetings organised by the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid.

This trip was the beginning of a long, hands-on relationship with the UN. Between 1972 and 1985, attendance at UN meetings became a regular feature of Hart’s international activities. The meetings themselves were often unremarkable and tedious. Their benefit lay in what was able to be achieved outside of the meetings. Contacts were made. Relationships were formed. Networks were built. 

These meetings were also important in other respects. They afforded Hart the opportunity to travel to places of current relevance at little extra cost. In 1972 I had returned from the New York meeting via London, where a Hart branch was established. In 1975, a UN meeting in Paris had enabled me to travel there via New York, Toronto and Montreal, and home via Rome, Dublin, London, Lagos, Dar es Salaam and Lusaka. 

While it was always likely that Hart would be drawn into the UN international anti-apartheid circuit, establishing close, high-level personal contacts with African governments was seen as much harder to achieve. The breakthrough came in Tanzania in 1973/74. The purpose of the visit was to investigate how New Zealand might best support the southern African liberation movements operating in South Africa, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), South West Africa (Namibia), Mozambique and Angola. In 1973, Labour prime minister Norman Kirk had cancelled the 1973 Springbok tour of New Zealand, and Hart had thought that the battle to end our sporting relations with South Africa had largely been won. Time to move on to other issues.

In Sydney, on our way to Tanzania and Zambia, we met Australian-based Zimbabwe activist Sekai Holland, whom we had got to know during her 1971 New Zealand speaking tour. Over four hours at Sydney airport she presented us with her “crucial list” of more than a dozen people with whom we had to meet. It was the most useful briefing I have ever received – on any subject, at any time. Sekai’s “must see” list included relatives, personal friends and family contacts. On it were present and future leaders of the region and, although not known at the time, owing to the fact that he was only eight months old, a future Australian rugby captain (George Gregan’s mum, Jenny, was one of Sekai’s closest friends). 

Among those with whom Sekai was on very good terms was Tanzania’s foreign minister, John Malecela. She promised to send him a cable advising of our visit. On our arrival in Dar es Salaam, we were met at the airport by an officer from the protocol division of the ministry of foreign affairs. Meetings followed, the most significant of which was with Tony Nyakyi, the head of Tanzania’s foreign ministry. A critical African relationship had been established.

The New Zealand to which we returned was hosting the Commonwealth Games. Numerous Commonwealth sporting officials were present, including leading Nigerian sports administrator Abraham Ordia, president of the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa (SCSA). Established in 1966, the SCSA was a specialised agency of the OAU established to coordinate matters relating to African sport with particular emphasis on the campaign against apartheid in sport.

I met Ordia in the foyer of the Clarendon Hotel in Christchurch, then one of Christchurch’s better, more sedate hotels. It was probably among the most enthusiastic welcomes the hotel had seen. As I went to shake his hand, two arms wrapped themselves around me, and I was lifted from the ground and swung around. “Thank you,” he said, “for Hart’s campaign against the 1973 tour.” It was the beginning of a lengthy personal and political friendship. Maintaining and developing these relationships were critical. To this end, whenever I was attending UN meetings I always tried to make sure that I flew home via Lagos and Dar es Salaam.

Muldoon never appreciated the depth of the relationships that Hart had established with African governments and their political leaders. At their core was trust, respect and a joint commitment to the ongoing fight against apartheid. It was a part of the world of which Muldoon had no understanding. For the prime minister, Africa was irrelevant: a continent populated by Tarzan and Jane, jungle, mud huts and petty dictators. The growing international importance of issues relating to race was not something that was on his radar. His only interest in race was finding ways in which it could be exploited for his political benefit.

Following the election of the Muldoon government in November 1975, Hart’s international activities changed significantly. The new imperative was to advise interested international governments and agencies of political developments inside New Zealand. From the outset, Muldoon’s government spoke with two voices. Speaking to New Zealanders, the government’s voice was rabidly supportive of sporting relations with South Africa. To the international community, a more restrained voice emphasised New  Zealand’s opposition to apartheid. The government thought that it could say one thing at home, and something completely differently overseas, and get away with it. 

Central to our response was the Hart international backgrounder . Distributed on an irregular basis to our international networks, these backgrounders consisted of copies of newspaper clippings and transcripts of New Zealand radio and television news stories, accompanied by a commentary analysing recent developments in New Zealand. Copies of our backgrounders were always released to local media. These reports assumed critical importance. Tony Nyakyi told me, when I was interviewing him in 1998 for my book Dancing on Our Bones , that Hart had been “absolutely critical”. 

“You sensitised people in New Zealand and you informed us outside. It made all the difference.”

The international backgrounders were to become as controversial, and to earn Hart as much notoriety and opprobrium, as anything that happened in 1981. A furious prime minister, unable to get away with speaking with two voices, would accuse us of “acts bordering on treason”. 

III. Playing fast and loose with reality: New Zealand stands with its back to the future, confident that the past is the way forward. 

It was Labour prime minister Kirk’s decision to stop the scheduled 1973 South African rugby tour of New Zealand that sowed the seed for the 1976 turmoil. That cancellation had been strongly condemned by many around the country. Muldoon sensed that opposition to the tour’s cancellation could be a political winner. In the lead-up to the November 1975 general election, he enthusiastically supported the resumption of New Zealand’s sporting contacts with apartheid South Africa. Kirk had made his 1973 decision based on what was in the best interests of New Zealand. Muldoon’s unqualified support for the 1976 All Blacks tour of South Africa was made on the basis of both his own prejudices and what he perceived to be his own best political interests.

Muldoon was fond of saying that New Zealand was in good company in breaking the apartheid sports boycott. This was not true. Even in Europe, and in the”‘old, white Commonwealth countries” – the UK, Canada and Australia – sport was not divorced from foreign policy considerations. While in 1976 a number of international sporting federations still accepted South Africa as a member and permitted members to participate in sporting exchanges with Pretoria, government support for these contacts was unheard of. That is, until the election of the National Party in New Zealand in 1975. 

In late January 1976, South African softballers arrived in New Zealand for an international tournament. It was the first time in five years that a South African team had set foot on New Zealand soil. African nations were appalled.

In early March, Ordia wrote to the New Zealand Herald sports writer TP McLean with the first unambiguous indication that serious trouble lay ahead. “If New Zealand persists in its support for racist South Africa … we will not take part in any competitions including the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games if New Zealand is also taking part in the same competitions.” The statement hit New Zealand like a thunderbolt.

Hart’s attitude towards any African boycott was clear: we were not going to argue against it. We believed that any decision to boycott New Zealand would be of benefit to the anti-apartheid cause. It was important, however, that the reason for the boycott be understood. New Zealand was being targeted because (1) we were the only country whose government enthusiastically and aggressively supported sporting relations with South Africa, and (2), because we were giving South Africa the All Blacks, the sporting team it most wanted. Ahead of the SCSA’s meeting in Nairobi in late April, where it was to finalise its policy regarding New Zealand and the Olympics, I wrote a lengthy letter to Ordia discussing these matters.

At the conclusion of the SCSA meeting, a confident Ordia announced that should the 1976 All Black rugby tour of South Africa proceed, “we have unanimously decided to call on all African countries to boycott sports events in which New Zealand takes part in at the Olympic Games”. The boycott was on. 

At a UN meeting in Havana, Cuba in late May, the prospect of the looming Olympic boycott was discussed. Ordia, in his address at the meeting, was moderate. The prospect of an African boycott was not linked to whether the rugby tour proceeded, but to the policy position of the New Zealand government vis-a-vis the tour. In the letter to TP McLean in March, Ordia had noted something similar, but its significance had not been understood. Africa wanted the tour abandoned, but what was of most significance to Africa was the attitude of the New Zealand government towards apartheid sport. 

Following Havana, Ordia was flown to New Zealand to participate in TV2’s current affairs programme, Friday Conference . The weekly scandal rag Truth , in its advance billing of Ordia’s arrival – “Blackmail Boss Coming from Cuba” – set the tone for what was to follow. The prime minister announced that neither he nor any other government MP would be appearing on the programme. As far as he was concerned, Ordia could “stew in his own juice”. Sports minister Allan Highet called Ordia “a little Caesar”. The National government was unrestrained in its attacks.

The television programme itself – Ordia, the interviewer and a studio audience of 200 – was, according to one newspaper columnist, “a Roman circus: a cauldron of prejudice, hatred, racism, irrelevancy, bitterness, stupidity and bad manners”. The next day Muldoon said he believed Ordia’s importance in Africa was overrated in New Zealand; he was not a member of government or a diplomat, “just some sort of sports administrator”. Ordia cut short his disaster visit. He was not going to stay to be insulted.

In mid-June 1976, just as the All Blacks were making final preparations to embark on their three-month tour of the republic, South African police shot dead hundreds of protesting black students in Johannesburg. In New Zealand, opposition to the tour swelled. For the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU) and the government, this presented no problem. Dead school children had nothing to do with rugby. The tour was proceeding.

An angry Hart issued a statement lamenting that “the rugby tour is going to do nothing but convince those at the trigger end of yesterday’s guns that in times of insecurity and worldwide condemnation, they can still count on New Zealand support”.

At the official farewell for the All Blacks, the under-secretary for sport and recreation, Ken Comber, repeated the government’s support for the tour. On the same day that Comber was farewelling the All Blacks, foreign minister Brian Talboys was writing to all Commonwealth governments stating the government’s opposition to apartheid. In Christchurch, The Press editorialised: “ If the government believes that it has a strong case to put abroad, it has extraordinarily bad judgement when it allows a spokesman to say exactly the opposite at home.” 

On June 22, the All Blacks left for South Africa.

At the end of June, ahead of the critical OAU heads government meeting, Talboys sent a message to African leaders spelling out the government’s position on sporting contact with South Africa. There was of course no mention of Comber’s farewell speech to the All Blacks, or of an interview given recently by Muldoon to a South African newspaper journalist in which he said that if he was still prime minister he would welcome the Springboks in 1981.

Over the next four weeks, as international anger, censure and threats of boycotts mounted, the country’s fate was in the hands of the prime minister and New Zealand’s IOC delegate, Lance Cross, someone who was just as enthusiastic about involving the country  in apartheid sport as the prime minister. Cross had continually told New Zealand that the Africans were bluffing over the boycott. 

Africa’s hatred of apartheid was intense. By 1976, the apartheid issue was the well-established litmus test by which Africa judged who was with it and who was against. In 1976, the Nationalist Party had been in power in South Africa for 28 years. During that period, internal repression had intensified. The liberation struggle had produced more martyrs and heroes than it had victories. The feeling within Africa was one of frustration and impotence. But there had been one bright star: victories against Pretoria on the sports field. This momentum needed to be maintained. After the Soweto uprising, Africa was looking for – demanding – much more concerted, international action.

IV. Montreal Walkout: the final countdown 

Thursday, July 1: OAU foreign ministers meet in Mauritius. OAU spokesperson Peter Onu says the IOC “must choose between New Zealand and us”.

Tuesday, July 6: Bad news for foreign minister Talboys. The response to his Commonwealth initiative has been poor. The media reports that only two replies have been received. A copy of one of these, from Tanzanian foreign minister Kaduma, arrives in our letterbox. Nyakyi thought that we might like to see it. “Your organisation may discretely use our reply in some effective way should you so desire.” 

Minister Kaduma writes “South Africa may be one of the best countries where rugby football is played, as pointed out in your letter. It is also one of the best markets for selling arms. Both these ‘best qualities’ do not guide international opinion on apartheid.” 

The Chinese ambassador in Australia announces that the badminton tour of New Zealand is cancelled. China has responded to the SCSA’s call for Africa’s friends to boycott New Zealand.

Thursday, July 8: Following an earlier decision to send Hart’s London-based international research officer to Montreal, Har sends him his final “riding instructions”. The line he is told to emphasise is the government’s duplicity, its “two voices”. 

Friday, July 9: Cross begins a campaign “to inform his fellow IOC members of New Zealand’s attitude to apartheid and its resentment at being singled out by black African nations for a boycott”. 

Saturday, July 10: The dam breaks. Tanzania announces it will boycott the games. 

Monday, July 12: With New Zealand’s participation in the Games in the balance, the critical final week before the opening ceremony begins in confusion. The New Zealand Herald reports “Canadian newspapers have carried reports of there being ‘quite a push on’ among African nations to get New Zealand banned, but according to the news editor of one Canadian daily, the situation remained ‘foggy’.” 

Cross indicates that he will seek strong action from the IOC against Tanzania for withdrawing. 

Abraham Ordia arrives in Montreal on the attack. “The Muldoon government has turned the clock back.” New Zealand journalists are surprised by the political weight Ordia carries. 

Muldoon, when asked if he feels events in Montreal are tarnishing New Zealand’s image, replies, “Unquestionably, and unfortunately, it is being deliberately tarnished by certain New Zealanders … [who] have done a very good job of tarnishing the image of their own country.” 

Tuesday, July 13: OAU UN representative Mustafa Sam arrives in Montreal with the final text of the OAU resolution. Instead of endorsing the SCSA’s call for a selective boycott of New Zealand, the OAU calls on the IOC “to bar New Zealand from competing at Montreal” and on all member states “to reconsider their participation … if New Zealand participates”. 

Wednesday, July 14: Tension grows. “Anti-New Zealand moves inevitable,” says the New Zealand Herald.

Somalia announces its withdrawal from the Olympics. 

Thursday, July 15: New Zealand officials believe the longer it takes the IOC to resolve the other controversial issue of the games – Taiwan’s participation – the easier it will be for New Zealand to survive the forthcoming African challenge.

Congo announces its withdrawal from the Games. 

Friday, July 16: Cable arrives from Wickham: “Orblems. Letter follows.” We assume that “orblems” are “problems” and wait for the letter.

Dominating the IOC agenda is whether or not to allow Taiwan to compete in the Games. Now, with only one IOC session scheduled before the opening of the Games, Africa makes its move. Sixteen African states petition the IOC to bar New Zealand from the Montreal Olympics. If the IOC fails to heed their call, “the national Olympic Committees of Africa reserve the right to reconsider participation in the Games”.

Having just told Taiwan it can’t compete, the IOC is not in a mood to bow to further “political demands”. Cross’s “explanation” of the New Zealand government’s position receives sustained applause. IOC president Lord Killanin rules that “from where I am sitting the decision is unanimous”.

Lance Cross expresses his deep concern about “distorted facts” being distributed around the world about New Zealand. As is later to be revealed, it is Cross himself who on multiple occasions has played fast and loose with the facts. For example, he tells Denmark’s IOC delegate that he does not consider the election of the National government to have brought about a change in New Zealand’s sports policy. 

Within minutes of the IOC’s decision, the Nigerian team’s chef de mission, Major General Olufemi Olutoye announces that Nigeria is withdrawing from the Games. Wickham, standing at the back of the packed press conference, is amazed by Olutoye’s grasp of the situation.

Saturday July 17: The prime minister says on television that the All Blacks have gone to South Africa with the government’s blessing and goodwill. 

Sunday July 18: Along with probably half the country, I stumble out of bed to watch the Games’ opening ceremony – the first live Olympic telecast beamed worldwide by satellite. As Greece leads the athletes of the world into the stadium, we still do not know which nations will be participating, and which will not. The tension lasts until the last two teams – Zaire and Zambia – do, or in this case, do not, enter the stadium. Africa has closed ranks. Twenty-six countries listed to compete in the Games – most of them in the African and Arab blocs – are absent from the opening ceremony in protest against New Zealand’s participation. By the end of the day two more countries that marched in the opening ceremony have withdrawn. 

Was a boycott inevitable? The “orblems” to which Wickham referred related to divisions over the boycott within the African continent. These were born of the complexities of international geo-politics, differences within and between regions, between French and English speaking Africa and the inevitable political disagreements based on personality clashes. The decision to boycott was made by most African states at the last minute. Nyakyi believed that this worked in its favour. With time, he believes, some states may have “discovered” reasons for not supporting it. 

Sir Lionel Luckoo, manager of the departing Guyana team from Montreal, told New Zealand television: “What we wanted was some declaration from the New Zealand government that they would not approve of teams going to South Africa.” Tony Nyakyi says “a clever leader could have divided Africa. If … [Muldoon] had said ‘I am opposed to sporting contacts with South Africa, and I am calling on sporting bodies … etc’ it would have caused us a lot of trouble.”

This was the first mass boycott of the Olympic Games, and it was New Zealand that caused it. The UK Sunday Times had thundered that New Zealand “was guilty to a man”. In one Commonwealth country New Zealanders were described as “a dubious species of humanity”. The Egyptian charge d’affaires in Wellington warned New Zealand that it faced action against it by non-aligned nations at international forums, and might be classified in the same category as Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. 

Not everyone in New Zealand of course saw New Zealand as the problem. The prime minister, Lance Cross and sports journalists, most with little interest in or knowledge of the political dimensions of the issue, continued to blame the anti-apartheid movement for the boycott. In an attempt to divert attention away from both his government’s and his own personal culpability, the prime minister’s attacks on the anti-apartheid movement became more strident. Previously he had said that we were misleading African countries by telling lies about the government’s policies. In a snap debate in parliament a few days after the walkout, Muldoon increased the seriousness of his allegations. The activities of certain “dissident” New Zealanders, such as Hart and Care, he said, bordered on treason. (In 1976 treason was the only crime in New Zealand punishable by death.) Sports and recreation minister Allan Highet said that it was the opinion of everyone on the government side of the House that Hare and Care were traitors to the country. 

It was not New Zealand media’s finest hour. It is said that in any war, the first casualty is truth. As passions at Montreal reached elevated levels, media objectivity disappeared. Headlines in New Zealand newspapers told the story: “Phew – You’ll Do Us Lance”; “HART Spread Lies – Coach”. So supercharged was the atmosphere that Dave Wickham, in Montreal, had to work hard to avoid a punch-up with one senior New Zealand journalist. 

For New Zealand, Montreal was not the end of the matter. Muldoon remained essentially unchanged, continuing in his role as world number one cheerleader for apartheid sport. Boycotts continued: Nigeria walked out of the 1978 Edmonton Commonwealth Games because of New Zealand’s presence. Gratuitous insults on African leaders continued. In 1981 New Zealand support for apartheid sport saw it stripped as the venue for a major Commonwealth meeting. Africa campaigned successfully against New Zealand’s 1982 bid for a seat on the UN Security Council. Then in June 1984, a drunk Muldoon called a snap election and was defeated at the polls. Only then was it possible to deal effectively with the legacy of 1976. 

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Don't Scrum with a Racist Bum!

SOUTH AFRICA EXPELLED FROM THE OLYMPICS

By 1990, South Africa had been expelled from every major world sports federation. In the 1960s the Anti-Apartheid Movement worked with the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) to get South Africa excluded from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

South Africa was expelled from the Olympic movement in 1970. Rugby and cricket were the biggest sports played by whites in sports-mad South Africa. From the mid-1970s international teams included token black players, but sport within South Africa was strictly segregated.

STOP THE SEVENTY TOUR

In Britain the turning point came in 1969–70. The AAM and Stop the Seventy Tour organised demonstrations and direct action at every match played by the Springbok rugby team on its 23-game tour of Britain. Faced with widespread disruption, the following summer’s cricket tour was cancelled.

South Africa’s all-white rugby board had close links with the British rugby establishment. In the 1970s and 1980s they worked together to break the boycott. In Wales, the Welsh Rugby Union finally agreed to sever all links with apartheid rugby in 1989 after a long campaign by Wales AAM.

THE GLENEAGLES AGREEMENT

Commonwealth countries played a big part in the isolation of apartheid sports teams. The 1977 Gleneagles Agreement pledged Commonwealth governments to discourage their citizens from competing against sportspeople from countries where sport was organised on a racial basis.

The campaign provoked debate about bringing politics into sport. The AAM argued that apartheid ran counter to the sporting ethos: that all should be eligible and that the best team should win.

CLICK HERE FOR SPORTS DOCUMENTS & PICTURES

Spo01. south african cricket tour, 1960.

Leaflet listing the fixtures in the South African Springbok cricket team’s 1960 tour of England. The leaflet asked people to protest to the South African Cricket Association at its selection of a whites-only team. There were protests at many of the games, including Sheffield, where activists planned to paint anti-apartheid slogans on the walls of the stadium.

mem04 Andrew Burchardt

The all-white South African Springbok cricket team that toured Britain in the summer of 1960 met with widespread protests. Andrew Burchardt remembers the dramatic events of the night when protesters in Sheffield took action against the Yorkshire v Springboks game scheduled for 6 August 1960.   

spo34. Wales Tourist Board statement on South African Bowling team, 1964

Letter and press statement from the Welsh Tourist Board stating that it would not entertain members of an all-white South African Bowling team on their visit to Wales in 1964. The decision was in response to a campaign organised by the South Wales Anti-Apartheid Movement.

pic6403. Protesters at Wimbledon, 1964

AAM supporters protest at a match played by a white South African tennis player at Wimbledon. On the right is Dorothy Robinson, Anti-Apartheid Movement Secretary in the early 1960s. Also in the photograph is AAM founder member Rosalynde Ainslie.

spo32. South African rugby tour, 1965

An all-white South African rugby team toured Scotland and Ireland in 1965. This press statement, issued by the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, listed British MPs and others who supported an appeal by 50 prominent Irishmen and women for a boycott of the matches. They included composer Malcolm Arnold, philosopher Bertrand Russell and actor James Robertson Justice.

spo30. South African cricket tour press release, 1965

Press release announcing details of the AAM’s campaign for a boycott of the all-white South African cricket tour of England and Wales in 1965. 

spo36. Letter from Michael Foot MP, 1965

Letter from Ebbw Vale MP Michael Foot expressing support for the campaign against the Springbok cricket tour of England and Wales in 1965. South Wales Anti-Apartheid Movement Chair David Shipper wrote to every MP in Wales asking them asking them not to attend the Springboks game against Glamorgan County Cricket Club at St Helen's Ground, Swansea, and to oppose the tour.

Pic6505. Protest against the South African cricket tour, 1965

AAM supporters in London called for a boycott of the all-white Springbok cricket team’s tour of England and Wales in 1965.

po193. ‘It’s Not Cricket’, 1965

Poster calling for a boycott of the 1965 South African Springbok cricket tour. Demonstrations were held at every game. The AAM sent a delegation led by Labour MP David Ennals to the MCC on the first day of the test match at Lords. The Queen and Prime Minister Harold Wilson broke with tradition and did not attend the game.

spo37. Letter from G Elfed Davies MP, 1965

Letter from Rhondda East MP G Elfed Davies expressing support for the campaign against the Springbok cricket tour of England and Wales in 1965. South Wales Anti-Apartheid Movement Chair David Shipper wrote to every MP in Wales asking them not to attend the Springboks game against Glamorgan County Cricket Club at St Helen's Ground, Swansea, and to oppose the tour.

spo02. ‘Apartheid isn’t Cricket’, 1965

Leaflet calling for a boycott of the 1965 South African Springbok cricket tour. Demonstrations were held at every game. The AAM sent a delegation led by Labour MP David Ennals to the MCC on the first day of the test match at Lords. The Queen and Prime Minister Harold Wilson broke with tradition and did not attend the game.

pic6503. Protest against the South African cricket tour, 1965

AAM supporters asked spectators to boycott the Springboks v Glamorgan cricket match at St Helen’s ground, Swansea on 31 July 1965. They handed out leaflets outside the ground and balloons with anti-apartheid slogans. Inside the ground the all-white South African cricket team was playing Glamorgan. The AAM in South Wales protested against the attendance at the match of Swansea's Mayor, Alderman F C Jones.

pic6504. Protest against the South African cricket tour, 1965

This young anti-apartheid supporter was asking cricket fans to support an arms embargo against South Africa outside St Helen’s ground in Swansea on 31 July 1965. He was one of around 30 protesters who handed out leaflets to spectators and balloons with anti-apartheid slogans. Inside the ground, the all-white South African cricket team was playing Glamorgan County Cricket Club. South Wales AAM protested against the attendance at the match of Swansea's Mayor, Alderman F C Jones.

spo31. Letter to MCC President Sir Alec Douglas-Home

In 1967 the Secretary of the MCC, Billy Griffith, visited South Africa and called for the country to be readmitted to the International Cricket Conference. This letter from AAM Hon. Secretary Abdul Minty to MCC President Sir Alec Douglas-Home asked the MCC to cancel all future tours by all-white South African teams and to support South Africa’s exclusion from the ICC.

pic6917. Davis Cup tennis protest, Bristol, July 1969

Protesters from the National League of Young Liberals and Young Communist League stopped play in the Britain v South Africa Davis Cup Inter-Zone semi-finals on 17 July 1969. The demonstrators ran onto the court with banners and leaflets and then sat down, delaying the game for several hours. Eventually they were carried off by police.

spo26. STST press release

Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) was set up to campaign against the all-white South African tour scheduled for the summer of 1970. This press release announced the launch of the group at a press conference in Fleet Street on 10 September 1969. The cricket tour was preceded by an all-white South African rugby tour of Britain and Ireland in 1969–70. STST organised direct action against the tour.

spo03. ‘Why Watch the Springboks?’

Anti-apartheid supporters protested at all 24 games played by the South African Springbok rugby team in their 1969/70 tour of Britain and Ireland. The demonstrations combined direct action which disrupted some of the games, co-ordinated by Stop the Seventy Tour (STST), and mass marches organised by the AAM. 200,000 copies of this leaflet were distributed outside the grounds.  

int21t. Ernest Rodker transcript

Ernest Rodker was active in Stop the Seventy Tour and helped organise direct action against the Springbok rugby tour of Britain in 1969–70. He was arrested on several occasions and was part of a group that organised undercover action to disrupt the tour. He was very active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in its earliest years and in the anti-nuclear Committee of 100, as well as in the campaign against the Vietnam war.

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out as part of the ‘Forward to Freedom’ AAM history project in 2013.

int21a. Ernest Rodker interview clip

In this clip Ernest describes his involvement in a protest at Twickenham as part of the Stop the Seventy Tour campaign.

int12a. Alan Brooks interview clip

Alan Brooks was the Anti-Apartheid Movement’s Organising Secretary, 1967–70 and Deputy Executive Secretary, 1987–91. In 1988 he organised the Nelson Mandela Freedom March from Glasgow to London. He also worked as the head of the International Defence and Aid Fund’s research department and for the Mozambique Angola Information Centre (MAGIC). In the early 1960s he served two years as a political prisoner in South Africa.

In this clip Alan Brooks talks about the campaign against the all-white South African rugby and cricket tours in 1969–70.

int11t. John Sheldon transcript

John Sheldon was the General Secretary of the Public and Civil Service Union. As a student at Ruskin College, Oxford, he helped set up the Ruskin College Kitson Committee to campaign for the release of gaoled trade unionist David Kitson and took part in the demonstrations against the 1969–70 South African rugby tour.

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out by Christabel Gurney in 2000.

int11a. John Sheldon interview clip

In this clip John Sheldon describes his involvement in a plan to stop the first game of the South African rugby Springboks tour of Britain, against Oxford University on 5 November 1969.

pic6905. Springboks v Oxford University

Police removed demonstrators from the pitch at the Springbok v Oxford University game at Twickenham on 5 November. The game was moved from Oxford after the police found out about plans to disrupt the game. Throughout the match demonstrators taunted the players with Nazi salutes and chanted ‘Sieg Heil’. There were protest demonstrations at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springbok tour of Britain and Ireland.

pic6921. Springboks v Midland Counties East

Thousands joined a march to Welford Road rugby ground in Leicester on 8 November 1969, to protest against the Springboks game against Midland Counties East. They included students and a big contingent from Leicester’s Afro-Caribbean community. Later, demonstrators tried to stop the game by running onto the pitch and two people were wounded in clashes between the police and protestors. There were anti-apartheid protests at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springbok tour of Britain and Ireland.

pic6907. Springboks v Midland Counties East

Outside Welford Road rugby ground before the Springboks v Midland Counties East game at Leicester on 8 November. Thousands joined a march to the ground before the match. There were anti-apartheid protests at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springbok tour of Britain and Ireland.

pic6918. Springboks v Midland Counties East

Demonstrators tried to break through a police cordon around Welford Road rugby ground in Leicester before the game between the Springboks and Midland Counties East on 8 November 1969. Two people were wounded in clashes between the police and protestors. Thousands joined a march to the ground before the match. There were anti-apartheid protests at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springbok tour of Britain and Ireland.

pic6906. Springboks v Midland Counties East

Police drag a protester off the pitch at the Springboks v Midland Counties East game at Leicester on 8 November. Thousands joined a march to the ground before the match. There were anti-apartheid protests at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springbok tour of Britain and Ireland.

int41 Peter Loewenstein

Peter Loewenstein was born in South Africa, grew up there and then in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where he became involved in liberation politics and later lived in Zambia in exile. From 1966 to 1969 he was a student at Nottingham University, and was the chairperson of the university’s student Anti-Apartheid Group and was active in the national Anti-Apartheid Movement. In November 1969 he helped organise the demonstration at the Springbok match against Midland Counties East in Leicester and was forcibly removed by police after protesting inside the ground. Two weeks later he took part in action to halt the Spingboks’ game against North West Counties in Manchester and lodged a formal complaint against police brutality against student activists.

This is the transcript of an interview conducted by Geoff Brown for ‘Apartheid is Not a Game: Remembering the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign’ by Geoff Brown and Christian Høgsbjerg, a Redwords pamphlet published on the 50th anniversary of the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign in 2019.   

pic6908. ‘Stop the Springboks’

Anti-apartheid members handed out leaflets outside Cardiff Arms Park on 11 November 1969 asking rugby supporters to boycott the Springboks rugby tour. The Springboks were scheduled to play Newport next day. There were anti-apartheid protests at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springbok tour of Britain and Ireland.

pic6909. Springboks v Swansea

Stewards dragging a protester off the pitch at the Springboks v Swansea rugby match at St Helen’s ground on 15 November 1969. Police turned a blind eye while stewards assaulted demonstrators and many were badly injured. There were demonstrations at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springbok tour of Britain and Ireland.

spo25. STST briefing

The Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) committee organised direct action at many of the games played by the all-white Springbok rugby team on their 1969–70 tour. This briefing was for demonstrators attending the Springboks game against London Counties at Twickenham on 22 November. Protesters ran onto the pitch and interrupted the game.

pic6910. Springboks v London Counties

Police lined the pitch at Twickenham at the Springboks game against London Counties on 22 November.

po184. ‘Springboks Piss Off!’

More than 7,000 people took part in a march to protest against the South African rugby Springboks game against North West Counties on 26 November 1969. Many of the marchers were students from Manchester and Liverpool Universities. This poster was produced by Manchester students. Around 2,000 police were deployed to stop protesters running onto the pitch. There were anti-apartheid protests at all 24 games in the Springboks 1969/70 tour of Britain and Ireland.

pic6920. Springboks v North West Counties

Members of the rugby club at UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) joined the 7,000-strong march at the North West Counties v Springboks game in Manchester on 26 November 1969. The march also included local priests and members of the university Conservative Association. It was led by students carrying a coffin painted with the words ‘Remember Sharpeville’.

mem07 Nick Chudley

The 1969 Springbok rugby tour of Britain and Ireland was met with demonstrations at every game. Nick Chudley, then a member of Manchester University Institute of Science and Technology rugby club, remembers how he joined the protests at the Springboks match against North West Counties in Manchester on 26 November 1969 and how an undercover police provocateur encouraged demonstrators to run onto the pitch. 

pic6911. Springboks v Scotland

Police carry a demonstrator off the pitch at the Springboks v Scotland rugby match at Murrayfield on 6 December 1969. There were anti-apartheid protests at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springbok tour of Britain and Ireland.

pic6912. Springboks v Cardiff

Thousands of anti-apartheid supporters set out from Cardiff Civic Centre to march to Cardiff Arms Park in protest at the Springboks v Cardiff rugby match, 13 December 1969. There were anti-apartheid protests at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springbok tour of Britain and Ireland.

pic6913. Springboks v Cardiff

Anti-apartheid supporters marched from Cardiff’s docks area of Bute Town to protest at the Springboks v Cardiff rugby match, 13 December 1969. On the way to the ground they joined up with marchers from Cardiff City Centre. There were anti-apartheid protests at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springbok tour of Britain and Ireland.

pic6914. Springboks v Cardiff

Anti-apartheid supporters on the march to Cardiff Arms Park to protest at the Springboks v Cardiff rugby match, 13 December 1969. At the junction of Castle Street and Westgate Street they were barred by police to stop them reaching the rugby ground. There were anti-apartheid protests at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springbok tour of Britain and Ireland.

spo07. ‘Twickenham Rejects Apartheid!’

Leaflet advertising a meeting near the England rugby ground at Twickenham a few days before England’s game against South Africa on 20 December. The rugby Springboks played 24 games during their tour of Britain and Ireland in 1979/80. There were big demonstrations at every match. The protests combined direct action to disrupt the games, co-ordinated by Stop the Seventy Tour (STST), and mass marches organised by the AAM.

pic6919. Springboks protest

An anti-apartheid protestor chained himself to the steering wheel of the bus bringing the Springbok rugby team to Twickenham for their international against England on 20 December 1969. He was removed from the bus by the driver and a policeman, the chain still attached to his wrist.

pic6915. Springbok sit-down, 1969

Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) supporters blocked the coach taking the Springbok rugby team to Twickenham for their international against England on 20 December 1969. Earlier the team returned to their hotel after a protester chained himself to the steering wheel

spo27. Springbok cartoon

This cartoon showing two members of the Springbok rugby team on their 1969/70 tour of Britain appeared in the December 1969/January 1970 issue of Anti-Apartheid News.

spo28. Springbok cartoon

This cartoon showing the Springbok rugby team on their 1969/70 tour of Britain appeared in the February 1970 issue of Anti-Apartheid News. Thousands of police were drafted in to stop demonstrators disrupting the games and there were anti-apartheid protests at every game.

po142. No South African Rugby XV 1969–70

Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) organised direct action against the 1969–70 Springbok rugby tour of Britain. Protesters ran onto the pitch and held up play, and harassed the South African team on their arrival at Heathrow Airport and in their London hotel. Although the tour went ahead, the protests helped secure the cancellation of the Springbok cricket tour planned for 1970.

po143. No White South African Cricket Tour 1970

Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) planned direct action to stop the Springbok cricket tour scheduled for the summer of 1970. The threat of disruption, together with mass demonstrations planned by the AAM and opposition from churches, trade unions and race relations councils, forced the cancellation of the tour.

pic6916. ‘Wales Rejects Apartheid’

Masked anti-apartheid supporters protest before the Springboks v Wales game in Cardiff, 24 January 1970. There were anti-apartheid protests at all 24 games in the Springboks 1969/70 tour of Britain and Ireland.

po006. Stop Racist Sport

Poster advertising a march at Twickenham before the final match of the1969–70 Springbok rugby tour. Together with Stop the Seventy Tour (STST), the AAM organised protests at all the 24 games in the tour. The protests included mass marches and direct action. They involved a wide range of participants – students, trade unionists, ethnic minority organisations and political parties. Although the tour was completed, the demonstrations paved the way for the cancellation of the Springbok cricket tour in 1970.

po007. ‘If you could see their national sport, you might be less keen to see their cricket’

With Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) and the Fair Cricket Campaign, the AAM won a big victory in 1970 by forcing the Cricket Council to cancel a planned all-white South African cricket tour. This poster helped mobilise opposition to the tour.

int18a. Lord David Steel interview clip

David Steel was first elected to Parliament as the Liberal MP for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles in 1965 and was the Leader of the Liberal Party, 1976–88. He served as President of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1966–1969 and as a Vice-President until its dissolution in 1994. He now sits in the House of Lords as Lord Steel of Aikwood.

In this clip Lord Steel talks about how he nearly lost his parliamentary seat in the 1970 general election because of his opposition to the 1969 Springbok rugby tour.

pic7001. Stop the Seventy Tour

The planned tour of England by an all-white Springbok cricket team in 1970 sparked widespread protest. The photograph shows protesters outside Lord’s cricket ground. On the left is Chris de Broglio from the South African Non-Racial Olympic Commttee (SANROC) with AAM staff member Alan Brooks. After a campaign involving threats of direct action from Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) and mass protests co-ordinated by the AAM, the Cricket Council cancelled the tour in May 1970.

pic7006. Stop the Seventy Tour

The planned tour of England by an all-white Springbok cricket team in 1970 sparked widespread protest. The photograph shows an AAM delegation at Lord’s cricket ground to present a petition to a meeting of the Test and County Cricket Board asking it to cancel the tour. Left to right: Chris de Broglio from the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC), Labour MP James Dickens, AAM staff member Alan Brooks and AAM EC member Vella Pillay. After a campaign involving threats of direct action from Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) and mass protests co-ordinated by the AAM, the tour was cancelled in May 1970.

pic7007. Stop the Seventy Tour press conference

Peter Hain at a press conference called by the Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) campaign on 7 March 1970. The planned tour of England by an all-white Springbok cricket team in 1970 sparked widespread protests. After a campaign involving threats of direct action from STST and mass protests co-ordinated by the AAM, the tour was cancelled in May 1970. Left to right: Jeff Crawford, Secretary of the West Indian Standing Conference, England cricketer Mike Brearley, STST member Mike Craft and STST Chair Peter Hain.

spo05. 'Springboks Sports Tours - Why All the Fuss?'

In 1970 Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) threatened to disrupt the South African cricket Springbok tour of England and Wales. This leaflet made the case for boycotting the all-white South African team. As a result of the STST campaign, and the opposition mobilised by the AAM and the Fair Cricket Campaign, the tour was called off on 22 May.

spo04. ‘If you could see their national sport …’

In 1970, together with Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) and the Fair Cricket Campaign, the AAM won a big victory by forcing the Cricket Council to cancel the South African cricket tour of England and Wales. This leaflet lists the tour fixtures and reproduces a poster that played a big part in mobilising opposition to the tour.

spo35. All Wales conference and rally, 30 May 1970

Letter of invitation to an all-Wales conference in the Patti Pavilion, Swansea to mobilise opposition to the Glamorgan v Springboks cricket match scheduled to take place in Swansea on 25 July 1970. The letter was sent to a wide range of organisations, including trade union branches and miners’ lodges, religious, social and political groups, students, co-operatives and sporting associations. The conference was organised by the ‘Wales Rejects Apartheid Committee’. The Springbok cricket tour was cancelled in May 1970.

spo06. ‘Stop the Apartheid Cricket Tour’

This leaflet advertised a march to Lords cricket ground to protest at the first game of the Springbok cricket tour planned for the summer of 1970. It was expected to be the biggest demonstration ever organised by the AAM. The demonstration did not take place because the tour was called off on 22 May.

70s05. Kitson Committee march

In the early 1970s the Ruskin College Kitson Committee organised an annual march from Oxford to London over the Whitsun holiday. The group campaigned for the release of political prisoner David Kitson, a member of the trade union DATA, who was serving a 20-year sentence in South Africa. This leaflet publicising the march was printed just before the cancellation of the 1970 Springbok cricket tour.

pic7008. ‘Down with Racist Sport’

Anti-apartheid protesters at the Surrey Grass Court Tennis Championships in Surbiton, Surrey on 11 June 1970. They were protesting against the participation of a South African player in the tournament.

bdg54. Stop the 71 tours

The Springbok rugby tour of Australia, June–August 1971, met with huge protests all over the country. The first two games, played in Adelaide and Perth, were disrupted by students. In Sydney, members of the building workers trade union tried to saw down the goalposts. Queensland’s provincial government declared a month-long State of Emergency in response to the protests. Because of the scale of the demonstrations, the Springbok cricket tour, scheduled for September 1971, was called off. This badge was produced by the British AAM to show its support for the protests.

pic7205. South Africa rugby tour protest

A protester being carried away by police after trying to block a coach carrying the England rugby team to the airport en route to South Africa on 12 May 1972. Demonstrators formed a human barrier in front of the coach. Others disrupted a training session. The England team played seven matches in South Africa against segregated teams, including an international against the all-white Springboks in Johannesburg on 3 June 1972.

pic7306. Stop All Racist Tours

The umbrella group Stop All Racist Tours (SART) was launched at a press conference on 31 July 1973. It was set up to campaign against the British Lions rugby tour of South Africa planned for 1974. Its sponsors included the AAM, ANC, SANROC, National Union of Students (NUS) and the Catholic Institute of International Relations (CIIR). In the photograph are Ron Taylor, Dennis Brutus and Wilfred Brutus.

spo08. British Lions tour of South Africa

The British Lions 1974 rugby tour of South Africa went ahead despite widespread protests. This leaflet exposed South Africa’s new ‘multi-racial’ sports policy as window-dressing for apartheid. It was produced by Stop All Racist Tours (SART), an umbrella group set up to oppose the tour. The leaflet was distributed outside the England v Wales match at Twickenham on 16 March. 

pic7401. Demonstration against the British Lions, 1974

Anti-apartheid demonstrators asked rugby players not to take part in the British Lions tour of South Africa in 1974. The photograph shows a protest at the England v Wales match at Twickenham on 16 March. Other protesters displayed banners on the roof of the RFU’s headquarters. Welsh international John Taylor refused to take part in the tour.

pic7402. ‘Stand by South Africa’

Counter-demonstration by members of the far-right National Front at Twickenham, 16 March 1974. Anti-apartheid supporters were protesting against the British Lions tour of South Africa.

spo20. The Gleneagles Agreement

In 1977 Commonwealth Heads of Government made the Gleneagles Agreement on sporting contacts with South Africa. They agreed that Commonwealth governments should do all they could to discourage competition with sporting organisations, teams and individuals from South Africa. This leaflet reproduces the text of the agreement. In the 1980s the Conservative government did nothing to implement the Agreement.

spo09. 'Stop the Barbarians'

The South African Barbarians rugby team’s tour of Britain in 1979 was part of an attempt by South Africa to get back into world rugby. This leaflet explained that although the team included African and Coloured players, rugby within South Africa was still racially segregated. The team played eight games against minor British sides. The Sports Council, TUC, British Council of Churches, and Labour and Liberal Parties all called for the cancellation of the tour.

spo10. Wales Campaign against the ‘Barbarians’ tour

The South African Barbarians rugby team’s tour of Britain in 1979 was part of an attempt by South Africa to get back into world rugby. This leaflet was distributed to Welsh rugby supporters outside the Barbarians games against Cardiff and Llanelli. Like all the material produced by Wales AAM, it was written in both Welsh and English.

pic7907. March against the Barbarians rugby tour

Anti-apartheid demonstrators marched through Exeter to protest at a visit by the South African ‘Barbarians’ rugby team in the autumn of 1979. The team’s game against Devon was part of an eight-match tour of Britain. There were protests at every match. The Sports Council, TUC, British Council of Churches, and Labour and Liberal Parties all called for the cancellation of the tour.

lgs02. Coventry v Barbarians

The South African Barbarians rugby team’s tour of Britain in 1979 was part of South Africa’s attempt to get back into world rugby. This leaflet publicised a protest at the team’s fixture against Coventry organised by the local anti-apartheid group. It appealed to British trade unionists to support their fellow workers in South Africa.

pic7916. Coventry v Barbarians

Demonstrators protested in Coventry on 17 October 1979 against a visit by the South African ‘Barbarians’ rugby team. The eight-match tour of Britain was part of South Africa’s attempt to get back into world rugby. There were protests at every match. The Sports Council, TUC, British Council of Churches, and Labour and Liberal Parties all called for the cancellation of the tour.

apd29. South Africa: Racism in Sport

‘Racism in Sport’ tells the story of the campaign to exclude apartheid sports teams from international sport from 1946, when black weightlifters protested to the British Empire Games Weightlifting Federation, to the eve of the cancellation of the 1970 Springbok cricket tour. Its author, Chris de Broglio, was the co-founder of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC). It was one of many pamphlets published by the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and distributed by the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

spo13. Stoke Mandeville Games

In 1981 disabled sportspeople called for the exclusion of South Africa from the Stoke Mandeville International Games, forerunner of the Paralympics. This leaflet publicised a demonstration outside the stadium. After a four-year campaign South Africa was finally expelled from the Games in 1985.

pic8112. Stoke Mandeville Games

Disabled AAM supporters picketed the opening day of the International Stoke Mandeville Games, forerunner of the Paralympics, in July 1981. They were calling for South Africa to be barred from the Games. The following year a new group, Disabled People Against Apartheid was formed with support from all the main organisations representing disabled people in Britain. South Africa was expelled from the Games in 1985.

spo14. New Zealand rugby protest

In 1981 the South African Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand provoked mass opposition and the biggest demonstrations in New Zealand’s history. New Zealanders in London picketed the New Zealand High Commission to show their support for the protests back home. 

gov18. Memorandum on British Sporting Relations with South Africa

Memorandum asking the British government to enforce the Gleneagles Agreement on sporting links with South Africa.

po071. Apartheid Disables

Disabled People Against Apartheid was formed in 1981 after the Paraplegic Sports Society banned sportswoman Maggie Jones for distributing anti-apartheid leaflets at the European Paraplegic Table Tennis Championships. This poster advertised a demonstration in July 1982 calling for South Africa to be excluded from the Stoke Mandeville International Paraplegic Games, forerunner of the Paralympics. South Africa was expelled from the Games in 1985.

spo12. Apartheid Rugby: The Facts

In the mid-1970s the apartheid government announced a new sports policy that allowed ‘multi-racial’ teams to pay in international competitions. This pamphlet showed how sport was still segregated within South Africa. It argued that the new policy was a ‘veneer’ and called for the continuation of the sports boycott.

pic8401. South African youth rugby tour

In 1983–84, South Africa made a determined effort to get back into world rugby, starting with a Welsh Rugby Union sponsored youth tour of Wales. The South African team was invited by the Welsh rugby union to tour South Wales in December 1983–January 1984. Several Welsh local authorities refused to allow them to play on their grounds. Wales AAM supporters occupied the pitch during the game against Gwent in Monmouth.

pic8402. South African youth rugby tour march

In 1983–84, South Africa made a determined effort to get back into world rugby, starting with a Welsh Rugby Union sponsored youth tour of Wales.  There were widespread protests and several local authorities refused to allow the games to take place on their grounds. At the final game in Llanelli on 7 January, over 300 people marched through the town to the ground.

spo22. 'Stop Welsh Rugby Collaboration with Apartheid'

The Welsh Rugby Union had close ties with the all-white South African Rugby Board. In April 1984 it invited South African rugby boss Danie Craven as its guest of honour at a game between Wales and the President’s XI. Three Springboks played in the President’s team. The invitation provoked huge opposition, with a ‘Charter Against Apartheid’ in the Western Mail signed by former prime minister and local MP James Callaghan, most Welsh MPs, church leaders, writers and trade unionists. The Welsh Rugby Union finally severed its ties with the South African Rugby Board in 1989.

spo23. Racism & Sport

Black British sportspeople were especially active in sports boycott campaigns. The main speaker at this conference was Paul Stephenson, the only black member of the British Sports Council. The conference was organised by the Communist Party’s Afro-Caribbean Organisation.

gov30. Letter from Trevor Huddleston to Margaret Thatcher

Letter from AAM President Bishop Trevor Huddleston to Prime Minister Thatcher asking her to stop the English rugby tour of South Africa in 1984. The government refused to intervene and the tour went ahead in spite of widespread protests.

pic8405. Protesting against apartheid rugby, Cardiff

Over 1,000 protesters marched through Cardiff to Cardiff Arms Park on 7 April 1984 to protest against the Welsh Rugby Union’s invitation to South African rugby boss Danie Craven to be guest of honour at a game between Wales and the President’s XI. Three Springboks played in the President’s team. The invitation provoked huge opposition. A ‘Charter Against Apartheid’ was signed by former prime minister and local MP James Callaghan, most Welsh MPs, church leaders, writers and trade unionists.

po078. Stop the Tour in ’84!

Poster advertising a demonstration outside the John Player rugby cup final at Twickenham in protest against the Rugby Football Union’s tour of South Africa in May–June 1984. Student activists demonstrated at Heathrow on the day of the team’s departure. The tour went ahead in spite of a long-running campaign against it. The Conservative government expressed its opposition to the tour but took no action to stop it.

pic8406. England rugby tour protest

Demonstration outside the John Player rugby cup final at Twickenham on 28 April in protest against the Rugby Football Union’s tour of South Africa in May–June 1984. Student activists demonstrated at Heathrow on the day of the team’s departure. The tour went ahead in spite of a long-running campaign against it. The Conservative government expressed its opposition to the tour but took no action to stop it.

spo11. An Appeal to the Welsh Rugby Union

Wales AAM ran a long campaign to persuade the Welsh Rugby Union to break off its links with the South African Rugby Board. This pamphlet made the case for a complete break with apartheid sport. The Welsh Rugby Union finally severed its ties with South Africa in1989.

spo16. ‘Apartheid Disables!’

Disabled People Against Apartheid campaigned for South Africa’s exclusion from the Stoke Mandeville International Games, forerunner of the Paralympics. The group was formed in 1981 after sportswoman Maggie Jones was banned from the European Paraplegic Table Tennis Champonships for distributing anti-apartheid leaflets. This leaflet advertises a demonstration against the South African team at the 1985 Games. Later the same year South Africa was suspended from future Games.

spo24. ‘No Links with South African Blood Sports’

Leaflet publicising a demonstration at a game between the British Lions and a ‘rest of the world’ squad in Cardiff on16 April 1986. The world squad included six Springboks sponsored by the whites-only South African Rugby Board. The Welsh Rugby Union had close ties with South Africa. After a long campaign by Wales AAM, it finally severed its ties with the South African Rugby Board in 1989.

pic8602. ‘Racist Rugby Out!’

Demonstrators at Twickenham protested against the inclusion of Springbok rugby players in one of the teams in the International Rugby Board centenary match on 19 April 1986. Springbok supporters came from South Africa to Twickenham and Cardiff Arms Park for the centenary. In Cardiff, Wales AAM organised a big protest at the centenary game held on 16 April.

pic8603. Springbok supporter at Twickenham, April 1986

A South African Springbok rugby supporter taunts anti-apartheid demonstrators at Twickenham. The demonstrators were protesting against the inclusion of Springboks in a team taking part in the International Rugby Board centenary match on 19 April 1986. The Springboks were sponsored by the all-white South African Rugby Board. Springbok supporters came from South Africa to Twickenham and Cardiff Arms Park for the centenary.

spo17. 'Stop the Springboks!'

Leaflet publicising a demonstration at the International Rugby Union’s centenary celebrations at Twickenham on 19 April 1986. The ‘rest of the world’ squad included several Springboks sponsored by the whites-only South African Rugby Board. The demonstration was organised by the AAM, SANROC and the British Black Conference against Apartheid Sport. There was also a demonstration in Cardiff, where the British Lions played a world squad on 16 April.

pic8628. Frank Bruno v. Gerry Coetzee

Anti-apartheid supporters protested outside the Wembley Arena in 1986 when British boxer Frank Bruno fought South African Gerry Coetzee. Britain’s welterweight champion Lloyd Honeyghan later gave up his world title rather than break the sports boycott by fighting a South African. The protest was backed by the Black British Conference Against Apartheid Sport, chaired by former Sports Council member Paul Stephenson. World boxing champions John Conteh and Maurice Hope also wrote to Frank Bruno asking him to call off the fight.

pic8801. ‘Apartheid on the Run’

Tyneside AA Group supporters told Zola Budd she should not run for England at Gateshead Stadium on 30 January 1988. The sprinter continued to live in South Africa but obtained a British passport to get round the sports boycott against apartheid.

gov47. Letter from Trevor Huddleston to Margaret Thatcher

An English cricket team, led by Mike Gatting, planned to tour South Africa in 1990. This letter from the AAM’s President Archbishop Trevor Huddleston expressed dismay at Prime Minister Thatcher’s failure to implement the Commonwealth Gleneagles Agreement, committing governments to do all in the power to end sporting relations with South Africa.

po119. Stop the Tour! Boycott Apartheid Cricket!

The AAM campaigned to stop the 1990 rebel cricket tour of South Africa, led by Mike Gatting, picketing over 40 county cricket matches involving members of the team. This poster advertises a demonstration at the NatWest Final held at Lords cricket ground on 2 September 1989.  The tour was cut short by protests inside South Africa and made a big financial loss.

pic8921. Protesting against the cricket tour of South Africa, August 1989

The AAM campaigned to stop the 1990 rebel cricket tour of South Africa, led by Mike Gatting. It picketed 40 county cricket matches involving members of the team. These demonstrators are outside the Oval. The tour was cut short by protests inside South Africa and made a big financial loss.

spo18. 'Stop the Gatting tour'

In 1990 a rebel cricket tour of South Africa, led by Mike Gatting, broke the international boycott of South African cricket. This petition was presented to the Test and County Cricket Board and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. AAM supporters also picketed 40 county cricket matches involving members of the team. The tour was cut short by protests inside South Africa and made a big financial loss.

spo33. Protest against the Gatting cricket tour

In 1990 a rebel cricket tour of South Africa, led by Mike Gatting, broke the international boycott of South African cricket. AAM staff members Paul Brannen (pictured here) and Karen Talbot protested at the photocall and press conference held on the day the team left for South Africa. AAM supporters also picketed 40 county cricket matches involving members of the team. The tour was cut short by protests inside South Africa and made a big financial loss. 

spo19. 'Demonstrate for non-racial rugby!'

In the early 1990s there were moves to desegregate sport in South Africa and South Africa was readmitted to the International Olympic Committee. But the new non-racial National and Olympic Sports Congress withdrew its support from this all-white rugby tour of Britain. This leaflet advertised a demonstration in support of non-racial rugby outside the Twickenham rugby ground.

spo21. Dulwich College leaflet

Leaflet publicising a demonstration at a rugby game between Dulwich College and an all-white South African team.

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Sports protests: A look at how athletes have boycotted for social justice throughout history

Wednesday's boycotts certainly weren't the first in sports history.

The Milwaukee Bucks boycotted Game 5 of their playoff series against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, refusing to come out of their locker room. This decision was made to send a message following the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. As a result, the game was postponed. Afterwards, the two other NBA playoff games that were schedule were also not played.

In the wake of the NBA's decision, three WNBA games, three Major League Baseball games, and five MLS games were postponed as a result of the situation concerning racial equality and police violence in the United States.

This is not the first time athletes have protested. In 2016, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose to sit on the bench during the national anthem of a preseason game to protest racial equality. It eventually led to Kaepernick taking a knee rather than sitting on the bench.

In 2014, NBA players were planning on boycotting first round playoff games after Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling made racist comments. However, the boycott never happened because NBA Commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling for life and forced him to sell the Clippers. But even long before 2014, NBA players made a monumental statement at the 1964 All-Star Game .

All of those examples are different than what were are currently witnessing, however. A league-wide protest by NBA players that has halted games is its own kind of history. Here's a look at other notables boycotts in sports history:

1980 Summer Olympics 

President Jimmy Carter boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympic in Moscow as a result of the Soviet Union invading Afghanistan. Carter initially attempted to urge the International Olympic Committee to move the 1980 Summer Games, but that never happened. Just months earlier, the United States men's team, which was known as the "Miracle on Ice," upset the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.

1984 Summer Olympics

As a result of President Carter boycotting the 1980 Summer Olympics, the Soviet Union returned the favor during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Even with the Soviet Union boycotting the 1984 Summer Games, a record 140 countries still participated.

1976 Summer Olympics

More than 30 countries ended up boycotting the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal as a result of the IOC refusing to ban New Zealand. Countries wanted New Zealand banned after their national rugby team had toured South Africa earlier that year despite the United Nations calling for a sporting embargo. The countries that boycotted were against the racial segregation and discrimination that was happening in South Africa. 

1973 Wimbledon

In total, 81 of the tennis world's top players  -- including Arthur Ashe, John Newcombe and Stan Smith -- ended up boycotting Wimbledon in 1973. It resulted from a situation between the union of professional tennis players and ATP. This came after Niki Pilic was suspended by the Yugoslavian tennis federation for not playing in a Yugoslav Davis Cup against New Zealand. Wimbledon ended up honoring Pilic's suspension and didn't allow him to play in the grand slam tournament.

Serena Williams, Venus Williams boycott Indian Wells for 14 years

From 2001-2015, Serena and Venus Williams boycotted the Indian Wells tournament as a result of allegations of racism. In March 2001, Venus Williams withdrew from her semifinal match against her sister due to tendinitis. Elena Dementieva then speculated that their father, Richard, fixed the last-minute pullout. During Serena's final round matchup with Kim Clijsters (which Williams won), she was constantly booed by a predominantly white crowd. Richard even said he heard racial slurs while walking through the crowd with Venus at one point. As a result, the sisters did not play in the tournament for another 14 years. 

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MLB | Column: Bill Veeck boycotted both Chicago…

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MLB | Column: Bill Veeck boycotted both Chicago ballparks in the last year of his life — but you shouldn’t do the same

Back in another era, Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck used to sit in the front row of the center-field bleachers at Wrigley Field with some of his friends, including Otto “Dutch” Denning.

This was in 1983, when Veeck was boycotting Comiskey Park over a perceived slight by then-Sox President Eddie Einhorn, who said he and partner Jerry Reinsdorf would make the club a “high-class operation” after taking over the team from Veeck.

Veeck, in his retirement years as a normal Cubs fan, would bring a basket full of food to eat and had every kind of suntan lotion and sunblock imaginable. He would look at a person’s skin and tell them which one to apply for the perfect tan. Denning, a Lane Tech catcher who had a two-year career with Cleveland in 1942-43 and went on to manage several minor-league teams, wore a big sombrero for reasons never explained. Whenever Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray excitedly said: “Hey, look at the guy in the sombrero,” he was usually referring to Denning.

Veeck and Denning were like characters from an old 1930s movie and they spent the entire game telling stories to anyone who would listen. The Cubs were still one year away from becoming a national story, so it wasn’t hard to find a last-minute ticket to watch them play out the string and get a history lesson at the same time. We didn’t know how lucky we were.

According to Veeck, he famously was in charge of planting the ivy and bittersweet vines on the outfield walls, and he oversaw the construction of the bleachers and manual scoreboard in 1937 and invented the exploding scoreboard at old Comiskey Park. He also had the Sox wear shorts on occasion in 1976 and approved the Disco Demolition Night promotion in 1979 that ended in a field-destroying riot.

No one was a bigger innovator in baseball and few owners were more beloved. After he announced he was selling the Sox in 1980 to a group led by Reinsdorf and Einhorn, the team held a “Bill Veeck Day” in which fans could come down to the field, shake his hand and tell him thanks or good riddance. Veeck was open to all opinions.

Like I said, it was a different era.

Sitting in the Wrigley bleachers with a baseball legend and his wacky friend did not seem abnormal to me and my friends. I interviewed Veeck only a few times at what he called his “outdoor office,” choosing to let him enjoy the game.

The last time happened during the final home game of the 1983 season for a Tribune story headlined: “Cubs Fans Never Lose Hope.” Veeck was answering questions from young fans about the playoff-bound White Sox and the hopeless Cubs. Someone asked Veeck if he would be the next Cubs general manager.

“I was out here before your father was born,” he said. “You think I don’t have enough trouble?”

I became a full-time reporter at the Tribune in 1984 and was unable to loiter in the bleachers regularly as Wrigley’s attendance exploded with the arrival of Rick Sutcliffe and those Cubs. I didn’t get to spend much time in the Veeck seats during the so-called Sandberg Summer, and after the great financial success of the ‘84 Cubs, the team’s owners — Tribune Co. — decided to do away with the decades-old policy of reserving bleacher tickets for day-of-game sales, allowing presales that would benefit the team and enrich the local scalpers.

In 1985, Veeck boycotted the Cubs, too, meaning he was a man without a ballpark in the final year of his life. He died in January 1986.

Veeck’s wife, Mary Frances, told me later that Bill, who started as an $18 office boy at Wrigley Field, was so upset about the Tribune Co.’s bleacher decision he felt obligated to make one final stand.

“It did bother him,” she said. “But he was definitely a man of integrity and principles. Bill felt the bleachers were the last bastion of the common man and woman. It wasn’t just a matter of picking a quarrel with the Tribune (Co.). I think he looked on (the presale of bleacher tickets) as being a little greedy and he just didn’t like that.”

Boycotting a team you love is never an easy decision. And for someone who loved baseball as much as Veeck, it had to be hard to give up going to games on either side of town.

Forty years after he attended his final baseball game in Chicago, I hear a lot from Sox and Cubs fans who tell me they plan to boycott the ballpark for the final two months of this stomach-churning season.

It goes without saying why they would want to boycott the Sox, who are on pace for the worst record in modern-day history and just blew the biggest trade-deadline opportunity in team history, making stars Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr. go down with the ship.

Some Sox fans already have decided to stop going. The team closed off the upper deck for a few games during the last homestand because of a lack of interest, and antipathy toward Reinsdorf continues to accelerate as he hints at moving the team without public funding for a new ballpark. Many are hoping the Sox break the season record of 120 losses to spite ownership and management for its head-scratching decisions.

On the North Side, Cubs fans are clamoring for President Jed Hoyer’s head and tuning out a team that talked big in spring training but failed to back it up. All the revenue-enhancing measures the team implemented over the last decade to supposedly ensure an annual contender have only enriched the owners: the Ricketts family and its limited partners, including the family of Betsy DeVos, the former secretary of education under Donald Trump.

Politics and baseball don’t mix, which is another reason some won’t give the Rickettses their money.

The revenue streams from the Cubs-owned Marquee Sports Network , including the channel’s nonstop Prevagen ads between innings, haven’t helped the team compete. The ever-annoying sponsorships of every baseball moment crammed onto the radio broadcasts  — “That foul ball is sponsored by your source for foul-odor protection …” — haven’t elevated the Cubs in the National League Central standings either.

And on Thursday the Cubs revealed their latest money grab: an “M” jersey patch for a sponsorship with Motorola, not the word “miserable.”

“Through this partnership, we’re aligning two iconic Chicago brands through innovation and tradition,” said Alex Seyferth, the Cubs vice president of corporate partnerships, in a press release.

Sure. But the sad truth is the Cubs lack innovation, trotting out most of the same team from 2023 and expecting better results, just like bringing back the same “Take Me Out To the Ball Game” singers year after year.

The Cubs’ idea of innovation is changing sponsors.

And the few traditions remaining at Wrigley are mostly ones Veeck helped bring about — the scoreboard, bleachers and the “W” or “L” flags raised after games, which originally were green for wins and red for losses.

Those traditions are why Wrigley Field remains on most baseball fans’ bucket lists, whether the team is in last place or not. Because that will never change, any idea of a boycott by local fans is meaningless. Like The Bean or Navy Pier, Wrigley is a Chicago tourist trap.

It’s going to be a rough two months at Chicago ballparks as the Cubs play out the string on the periphery of a wild-card race and the Sox try to avoid making history. No one can convince you otherwise.

But if you can focus on why you fell in love with the game while blotting out all the reasons you shouldn’t give your hard-earned money to the Rickettses or Reinsdorf, it’s still worth it to venture out and watch a game.

Life’s too short to give up the things that still give you pleasure. The older you get, the more you realize that truism.

So get some sunblock, make your own sandwich and enjoy yourself at the ballpark of your choosing.

The sombrero is optional.

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IOC: Female boxers were victims of arbitrary decision by International Boxing Association

The ioc on thursday criticized the international boxing association and said it is "saddened by the abuse" two female boxers are receiving..

PARIS – The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says two female boxers at the center of controversy over gender eligibility criteria were victims of a “sudden and arbitrary decision" by the International Boxing Association (IBA) in 2023.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan both were disqualified from the 2023 women’s boxing world championships after the IBA claimed they had failed "gender eligibility tests." The IBA, which sanctions the world championships, made the announcement after Khelif and Lin won medals at the event in March 2023.

The IBA, long plagued with scandal and controversy, oversaw Olympics boxing before the IOC stripped it of the right before the Tokyo Games in 2021. Although the IBA has maintained control of the world championships, the IOC no longer recognizes the IBA as the international federation for boxing.

Citing minutes on the IBA’s website, the IOC said Thursday, “The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedures – especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top level competition for many years."

The issue resurfaced this week when the IOC said both Khelif and Lin were eligible to compete at the Paris Olympics, and a furor erupted on social media Thursday after Khelif won her opening bout against Italy’s Angela Carini . Khelif landed one punch – on Carini’s nose – before the Italian boxer quit just 46 seconds into the welterweight bout at 146 pounds. Lin is scheduled to fight in her opening bout Friday.

With the likes of Jake Paul and J.K. Rowling expressing outrage over Khelif competing against other women, the IOC issued a statement later Thursday addressing the matter.

“The IOC is committed to protecting the human rights of all athletes participating in the Olympic Games," the organization said in a statement issued on social media . "… The IOC is saddened by the abuse that these two athletes are currently receiving."

The IOC said the gender and age of an athlete are based on their passports and that the current Olympic competition eligibility and entry regulations were in place during Olympic qualifying events in 2023. Both Lin and Khelif competed in the 2021 Tokyo Games and did not medal.

The IOC pointed to the IBA’s secretary general and CEO, Chris Roberts, as being responsible for disqualifying Khelif and Lin after they had won medals in 2023. Khelif won bronze, Lin gold before the IBA took them away.

Khelif, 25, made her amateur debut in 2018 at the Balkan Women's Tournament, according to BoxRec. She is 37-9 and has recorded five knockouts, according to BoxRec, and won a silver medal at the 2022 world championships.

Lin, 28, made her amateur debut in 2013 at the AIBA World Women's Youth Championships, according to BoxRec. She is 40-14 and has recorded one knockout, according to BoxRec, and won gold medals at the world championships in 2018 and 2022.

On Thursday, the IBA issued a statement saying the disqualification was "based on two trustworthy tests conducted on both athletes in two independent laboratories.''