Nationalism and sport

The 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin was an illustration, maybe best acknowledged in hindsight, where an ideology was developing which used the event to strengthen its spread through propaganda.

[3] When apartheid was the official policy in South Africa, many sportspeople adopted the conscientious approach that they should not appear in competitive sports there.

Many African nations boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, as a result of then New Zealand Prime Minister Rob Muldoon allowing the All Blacks to tour South Africa.

In the same vein, FC Barcelona have since the late 1990s promoted from youth ranks a series of Catalan players such as Xavi and Carles Puyol.

Indeed, the club is widely seen as the de facto representative of Catalonia, extending the Autonomous Community's reach to areas it otherwise would not be able to influence.

In Yugoslavia, NK Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade were seen as symbols of Croatian and Serbian nationalism, respectively.

On 13 May 1990, due to the rise of nationalism in the wake of the breakup of the country, an infamous riot broke out between the clubs' ultras during a league game in Zagreb.

[12] In fact, one of the players, Edward Junior Wilson, who comes from Liberia, was involved in a fight with the Indonesian police because he thought he was flying the West Papua flag.

[20] In 2022, a video showed the removal of a banner supporting the Indonesian national team at Sidolig Stadium in Bandung.