8/9/2019 FIFA World Cup 2010 and Public Diplomacy- Winners and
Losers
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FIFA World Cup 2010 and Public Diplomacy: Winners and Losers
By Jean Lukaz MIH
Too soon, the football fever is down and many nations that
participated in the
recent World Cup 2010 shall be evaluating the impact of their
participation in cash
and in kind.
To the winners, there is nothing like football in public
diplomacy, to the losers it is
the most uncontrollable and unpredictable channel of public
diplomacy to one
massive global audience. If public diplomacy is about government
communication
aimed at foreign audiences with goal of winning hearts and
minds, then the role of
national teams that are government-sponsored and -branded to
feature before the
foreign audiences watching the World Cup is a latent promotion
of these nationsthat has the effect of infecting foreign fans.
Countries sought to promote their nation brands in a sublime
exchange that
followed their victories and individual players boosted their
market value through
their extraordinary performances.
Regrettably, however, those countries among the best brands
could not leverage
their forlorn image in the face of defeat and the mockery that
followed their exit.
The memories shall be cast in mockumentaries for generations to
watch.
In the aftermath of the Gerard goal and Hands of Suarez, the
influence of publicopinion is beginning to shape both FIFA and its
member nations.
Governments increasingly have had to learn the hard way to
passively
communicate to mass audiences such as the football public
through an impressive
national team and leverage their national reputation amidst the
clutter of global
schisms but beyond international coalitions on political or
military issues, or beyond
competition for a share of global trade, tourism or
investment.
Recovering from a fallen image has a way of strategically
ridiculing a nation as has
happened to Nigerias ban on the national team: lets teach them a
lesson,
forgetting that the them in this case is the nation as a whole
and not some
greenly-clad undisciplined footballers. The French are still
playing musical chairs in
a blame game; the Americans have seen the limitations of world
dominance and
Obamas soft power public diplomacy has paid off with their
peaceful early exit; the
British are mocking their coach for making an appalling fashion
statement in front of
the world as a diversion as they return to their bad food in
Cool Britannia and the
Italians may not need to dissolve parliament over their past
glory. Football, after all,
was not made for Brazil.
