Sports personalities carry great power and influence over the millions of fans who follow and admire them and their skills. They are powerful influencers.
Many Barbadians will recall how it became fashionable to wear shirts with the collar up, a trend made popular by the world’s greatest all-round cricketer and National Hero Sir Garfield Sobers.
Michael Jordan, for example, remains one of the most admired basketball idols, and though he retired from the game more than two decades ago, his Air Jordan branded shoes remain a global trendsetter.
Sportspersons have also been successful in carrying over their star power from various arenas to political platforms and political office.
In cricket for example, Pakistani legend Imran Khan who led his country to World Cup success in 1992, became that country’s president in 2018.
Then there was Sri Lankan Arjuna Ranatunga, who became a Minister in the country’s government. Much closer to home, is Barbadian fast bowling icon Sir Wesley Hall, who became a popular Minister of Tourism in a Democratic Labour Party administration.
Sportsmen and women have also become entangled in social justice issues and matters of conscience. As a result, some of them have paid the price with their careers cut short and the expectations of financial gains pulled from under them.
American football star Colin Kaepernick sought to draw attention to civil rights violations and police brutality being perpetrated on fellow black Americans. His decision to take a knee rather than stand for the American national anthem, as a show of defiance, caused the 6ft 4in tall quarterback to lose his lucrative football career.
In 2017, then United States president Donald Trump called on National Football League owners to fire any players who protested or kneeled during the playing of the national anthem.
Even after the Kaepernick episode and the George Floyd protests of 2020 that reverberated around the world directing to the critical role of social activism, athletes are still being ordered to remain silent.
A white presenter on the far right American television network, FOX called on basketball superstar Lebron James to “shut up and dribble” as he brought his star power to issues of racism and police brutality in the United States.
In other words, sports personalities are expected to simply perform and entertain; that this should be the sum of their contribution to society.
Such a posture clearly emanates from a position of fear that sports and entertainment icons have such influence and that their voices have the capacity to sway public opinion.
The ongoing fight for civil rights and justice in various parts of the world demands that people of conscience and influence shine a light on them to hasten change.
It is for these reasons that we were flabbergasted by the decision of the International Automobile Federation (IAF), operators of Formula One, to punish drivers who make any “political statements” without the prior written permission of the body.
In a sport that has very few drivers of colour and only one in the top tier of Formula One, it is difficult to see how this ruling is not be viewed as targeting the sport’s lone black, socially conscious driver, Lewis Hamilton.
The rule takes effect from the next season in 2023.
Hamilton, who only this week raised his voice in support of black French Football World Cup players who were specifically targeted for racial abuse over the country’s football final loss a week ago.
Hamilton called the online abuse “unacceptable” which targeted black players Tchouameni, Muani and Coman after the game and none of their white comrades.
The motorsport governing body, in a statement said it had added a new clause regarding “the general making and display of political, religious and personal statements or comments notably in violation of the general principle of neutrality promoted by the IAF under its statutes”.
It is difficult to comprehend in a world where women in Afghanistan are being denied access to higher education, women are being subjugated by sexist morality rules in Iran, people are being targeted for abuse in the United States and across Europe, this rule is simply stupid and harmful.
With so many ills confronting marginalised groups, it seems unfathomable that the governing body for an international sport would introduce such a rule.
Frankly, it is backward, and the IAF should itself be strongly condemned.
