From Battlefields to Football Fields: Turkish Sports Diplomacy in the Post-Second World War Period

Abstract

The 1945–60 period constitutes a unique era of sports history in which sports encounters were imbued with a diplomatic mission to establish cultural relations between both allies and conflicting countries. After 1945, sports were employed as a ‘soft power’, and, as Beck accurately observes, perceived as a projection of national values, strengths, and weaknesses.¹ The bold initiative of the British diplomat (who was himself a medal-winning athlete) Philip Noel-Baker to invite the Soviet football team Dinamo Moscow to Britain to ‘break down their [Soviet] isolation’ is considered to have been the starting point for postwar sports diplomacy.² The success of this tour also set the tone for diplomatic encounters through sports competitions during the Cold War era.