We shouldn’t expect World Cup players—or any athletes—to be activists

Since 2020, in nearly every sport, players now kneel before games. Storied franchises turn over their social-media feeds to activists so they can demand federal legislation, as the Yankees and Rays did earlier this year.

For the last two years, the National Football League has allowed its players to choose from one of six pre-selected messages to wear on their helmets. Those messages are: “End Racism,” “Stop Hate,” “It Takes All of Us,” “Black Lives Matter,” “Inspire Change” and “Say Their Stories.”

Recently, in response to a mass shooting in Buffalo, NY, it added a seventh: “Choose Love.” 

One does not have to disagree with any of these messages to grasp the many problems with this scheme. To cajole athletes into making broad political statements is, invariably, to weaken those statements considerably.

Then there’s the problem of bias. The NFL contends that the mottos it has chosen are related to important “social justice” causes. And, indeed, they are. But they are not the only social justice causes in America. They’re the ones in which the NFL — and our elites — happen currently to be interested. Under the rules that the NFL has set, players may opt out completely, but they are unable to wear messages protesting for or against abortion, or complaining about prison conditions at Riker’s, or raising awareness about sex trafficking at the border, or highlighting anything else they consider a big deal.

Perhaps, on balance, you think those other issues are less important than the NFL’s choices. But that’s not the point. The point is that the NFL is urging its players to get political, and then telling them in what ways they can do it.

It’s manipulative.

This form of selective expectation has been on full display at the 2022 World Cup, which ends today — and has become rife in soccer in general. As has become customary before big games in the English Premier League, the England international team made a big show of kneeling down before their opening World Cup game against Iran, to send a message “that inclusivity is very important.”

That, apparently, was fine. But, when the teams from seven participating nations tried to wear an armband protesting the anti-gay policies of host-country Qatar, FIFA informed them that its rule against “political, religious or personal messages or slogans” would be strictly enforced, and offered the teams the chance to wear an alternative armband that said, “No Discrimination” — which, for reasons that can presumably not be explained, does not fall under the rubric of “political, religious or personal.”

As a personal matter, I dislike the mixing of sports and current affairs, but, as a free speech guy, I accept there is nothing intrinsically wrong with an athlete opining on politics. The expectation, however, that players will protest — and protest only in a way that is deemed acceptable — has become downright weird and even cynical. 

The Iranian soccer team’s refusal to sing their national anthem during the group stages of the World Cup was powerful precisely because the players who staged it were not supposed to do so — and because their conduct could have led to lethal repercussions. This is not the case with, say, NFL players snapping on a slogan that was written and chosen by somebody else, and then endorsed by the most influential people in the land.

Sports leagues typically justify their activism by saying they are obliged to “raise awareness.”

But that’s not really true, is it?

There’s plenty of awareness about politics in America, and beyond. And there’ll still be plenty to go around if we stop forcing our athletes to be activists.

Charles C. W. Cooke is a senior writer at National Review.