The Relationship Between Sport and Politics in the International Arena of the Modern and Contemporary Period

Abstract

For a long time in the theory of international relations, the role of sport in promoting and developing relations between different states was neglected, which attracted criticism from specialists such as, for example, Trevor Taylor. The need for studies on the role of sports movement in the development of international relations was pointed out by Peter Beck, who pointed out that the theory of international relations has kept an appreciable distance from sport. In this paper I want to fill this information gap based on a series of unprocessed documents, primary sources, found especially in the Balkan region. Sport overcame the barrier of behaviors and social processes that are based on spending free time, succeeding through the involvement of politics to become a "player" in the arena of international relations.