Putin’s World Cup – a few words about the 2018 World Cup

This article applies to the Football World Cup, which took place in June 2018. The goal of the Mundial was not only to provide fantastic emotions to fans from around the world, but also – from the point of view of the Russian Federation - it was a tool for building the image of a modern state that is open to tourists and able to welcome them with great hospitality. In this respect, this event can definitely be considered an organizational success. On the other hand, the political actions of the Russian authorities, such as the introduction of a number of negatives commented on by citizens or unmoved matters related to the defense of human rights, have put a shadow over these positive opinions.

The goal of the research was to investigate FIFA, one of the most important international sports organisations, from the perspective of its diplomatic subjectivity. It is a case study concerning the process of selection of the World Cup hosts by FIFA, in reference to the engagement of presidents, prime ministers and other representatives of national authorities of states that hosted FIFA World Cup in bidding for the tournament within last the 30 years. The hypothesis that was verified within the research assumed that through selecting World Cup host FIFA obtains diplomatic subjectivity. This refers to research questions concerning the willingness of state leaders to engage in contacts and negotiations with sports officials and reasons for such engagement.

The paper refers to the category of sports diplomacy and aims to investigate the issue of diplomatic subjectivity of international sports organizations, by the example of FIFA and its prerogative to grant membership to national football federations. Such processes on some occasions are connected to political and diplomatic significance, particularly in relation to states without universal international recognition, for whom participation in international sport is an important tool in their struggle for legitimization. The research question that the author attempts to answer is whether membership of national sports organization in the international sports federations can be meaningful from the perspective of the state’s endeavors toward securing international recognition. The hypothesis stated that the prerogative of international sports bodies such as FIFA to recognize national sports federations enhances their diplomatic subjectivity.