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The Use of Sports as a Tool of Public Diplomacy in Regions or “Stateless Nations” The Case of the Basque Country in Contemporary Spain É Í This paper explores the use of sports as a tool of public diplomacy in the case of regions, “imagined communities” (Anderson, ), or so-called ‘stateless nations’ like the Basque Country in Spain. This paper analyzes the contribution of sport organizations to the international identity and reputation of these populations. Understood as an expression of soft power (Nye, ), sport public diplomacy meets a double objective: on the one hand, it projects positive values about any given country or region that, particularly when good sport results are produced, appears to possess values such as quality or authenticity; on the other hand, it keeps the most politically engaged segment of society active and mobilized. This article considers the positive role of sport public diplomacy in nation building for targeting external audiences as well as keeping internal audiences active and engaged. Nonetheless, there are some negative factors to consider, such as frictions and divisions that may surge between internal audiences regarding the political use of sports (for example, between Basque nationalists and non-nationalists as well as within Basque nationalists as a group). A comparison of the use of sports in the Basque Country and Catalonia, another Spanish region with a strong local identity, suggests that successful local sport organizations with players chosen regardless of their birthplace, such as Catalonia’s Barcelona Football Club or the Basque cycling team Euskadi-Euskaltel, does more for the international projection of a regions’ identity than do regional or national teams made up solely of local players.
Introduction
P
ublic diplomacy has traditionally been defi ned as “one-way communication whereby one nation uses image cultivation to build a favorable image with publics who live in another country” (Taylor, , p. ). This concept, however, has evolved due to changes in the international context as well as the emerging distinction in the communication field between terms such as “image” and “relationships.” Building
on the concept of soft power, or the ability of any given country to get what it wants through attraction rather than coercion (Nye, ), Hun Yun and Toth () have added more holistic worldviews like international liberalism and sociological globalism to an old-fashioned realist approach to public diplomacy, where the fi nal outcome is sought in state-centered terms such as policy change among foreign governments (p. ). International liberalism no longer views the state as the most important actor in world politics but acknowledges the existence of other global entities such as NGOs (and regions and cities) and envisions the role of public diplomacy to create attraction for a country’s cultural values, ideals, and policies (p. ). Sociological globalism highlights the role of migration in the st century as a source of interaction and negotiation between cultures that cannot be controlled by nation-states (p. ). Taylor () has also suggested that effective public diplomacy, through image cultivation and advertising campaigns, may lie in relationship building rather than image building. Therefore, public diplomacy is no longer the monopoly of nation-states (Arts, Noortman, & Reinalda, ). Indeed, a number of regions with identity concerns and whose governments are equipped with a high degree of autonomy — also so-called “stateless nations” (Keating, ) or “imagined communities” (Anderson, ), like Quebec in Canada, Flanders in Belgium, and Catalonia and the Basque Country in Spain — have made efforts to project a distinctive identity in other parts of the world. Anholt () has emphasized the importance of public diplomacy in the construction of the reputation of a country, region, or city. As the main factors that build the reputation of a country, what he calls the hexagon of competitive identity (p. ), he mentions tourism (the promotion of that place as a tourist destination), brands (exported), people (celebrities as well as how visitors are received locally), policy (political decisions), culture (cultural exchange and cultural activities) and investment (how the country/region/city solicits investments). The use of sports certainly squares well with this new ideal of public diplomacy because a good reputation in sports may, for example, attract tourists and increase the number of celebrities of any given country. “The way a country hosts big sporting events and competes in them can be a highly effective way of communicating warmth and depth of national character” (Anholt, , p. ). Due to its power for image cultivation and relationship building with publics, international sport communication in general, and international sport public relations in particular, supports the use of sports for public diplomacy purposes:
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Sport may be used for political ends, to bolster a nation’s pride and confidence, to enhance national identity, to unify a country in a common cause, to distract a population from political or economic crises and to improve health statistics and medical epidemiology. (L’Etang, , p. ) For small regions such as the Basque Country, which houses a population of less than million people in an area roughly the size of Delaware, sports offer a unique opportunity for visibility that cannot be attained through the presence of recognizable brands or any given foreign policy, as with big nation-states. The world of sports in the Basque Country has a long-standing tradition and a set of characteristics that can project Basque culture and identity, giving it salience for foreign audiences as a sport country, which was defi ned in the First International Sport Countries Conference as follows: Any geographically or historically delimited territory with cultural and social homogeneity, with its own political institutions, notwithstanding any international political recognition. Such a territory has its own sport system with its sport organizations that promote, manage and rule its sports, and regroup democratically the majority of federations, clubs, associations or participants of its territory. (Declaration of the First International Sport Countries Conference, Barcelona, April , ) The main purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the strategies and communication tools used in the public diplomacy efforts of the Basque Country to project the region’s identity to external publics through sports. The international reputation of the Basque region as a sport country Where sports are concerned, the Basque region has several strengths and peculiarities. First, there is a long-standing tradition of autochthonous rural sports, such as pelota vasca (Basque ball), aizkolaris (wood chopping), harrijasotzaile (stone lifting), segalaris (scything), and sokatira (tug-of-war), among others. Second, the Basque Country is one of the few places in the world where professional soccer teams consisting of an elevated number of local players remain competitive. The oldest of the top soccer teams in Spain, Basque Country’s Athletic de Bilbao, was founded in and has won La Liga García: Sports as Public Diplomacy
titles as well as King cups (during Franco times called “Copa del Generalisimo”. Also a sport society, owned by its members and not an enterprise (such as Real Madrid or Barcelona Football Club), it is currently the only all-local team in La Liga, and probably in Europe, competing at this level (it is the fi fth in the current La Liga ranking). Indeed, most of the Athletic players come from its cantera (its own soccer schools where players are recruited from very young ages), although in recent years some Basque players have been bought from other soccer clubs across the region. Real Sociedad de San Sebastián is the Basque Country’s second leading team and has a very similar philosophy to Athletic: most of the players come from their own lower ranks, but the team has adapted to the new global scenario by acquiring other Spanish and foreign players as well. Still, the team is mostly integrated by Basques ( out of players) and its two La Liga titles won in the ’s come from a time when only Basque players were on the team. Many soccer aficionados in Europe and America appreciate the idiosyncrasy of Basque teams but supporting them is not seen as a sign of protest as it was in the times of Franco (the dictator that ruled Spain from to ) (Foer, , p. ). Many soccer fans appreciate the Basque clubs’ preferencing of local players as a policy that runs counter to the excessive commercialization of soccer elsewhere, and as symbolic of the pride and authenticity of the Basque people. This is particularly true among fans from the new Eastern European states born after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia who see a referent in the Basque situation. However, in terms of projecting the Basque identity internationally, the role of Basque soccer is weaker than in the past when European soccer teams were only permitted foreign players per team. Due to the limitations of its locals-only policy, although Athletic de Bilbao may make it to the fi rst rounds of the UEFA Europa League, the second most prestigious European club football contest, it doesn’t advance further. A third peculiarity of sports in the Basque region is that, despite being such a small area, the Basque Country boasts one of the strongest road cycling fan bases in the world. A large number of cyclists and teams have their roots in this region (which houses professional, amateur, and women’s teams). The Basque regionalso hosts its own professional road cyclist races and has been doing so since . For example, the Tour of the Basque Country and the Clásica de San Sebastián are part of the International Cyclist Union Protour. Several former world champions are Basques, including women’s Tour of France and Tour of Italy winner Joanne Somarriba, and World Road Race champions Abraham Olano (in ) and Igor Astarloa (in ) (Dorronsoro & Bodegas, ). More
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over, cycling is a topic of conversation in the Basque country, where public forums, organized to debate the current state of Basque cycling, receive hefty coverage in regional newspapers (Urraburu, ), and where the regional government proposes such unusual initiatives as charging fans for attending road cycling races (EiTB, ). A considerable number of Basque fans turn out for the Tour of France, passionately exhibiting Basque flags (ikurriñas), particularly when the racers cross the Pyrenees. The “national teams” of the Basque Country Since its creation in through the enactment of the Statute of Guernica, the legal document that regulates the political system in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, the Basque government has enjoyed the greatest self-governing powers of its history — its own government, its own parliament, economic autonomy, and control over education, universities, public order, health, transportation, and communications (Fusi, ). Yet the Basque government is not responsible for other aspects such as foreign policy or, pertinent to this paper, its own representation in international sport competitions. In Spain, regional federations need the permission of the national Spanish federation to participate in competitions with a strong symbolic influence, such as the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup, where if there is one Spain team, there are no regional teams. Furthermore, these international competitions themselves are dominated by the nation-states — for example, the Olympic charter only allows states to participate in the games. This has complicated the Basque government’s sports diplomacy efforts because, despite the uniqueness of the autochthonous rural sports like Basque ball, the Basque government has worked hardest to project Basque culture and identity internationally precisely through the more influential sports of soccer and cycling. The region boasts an unofficial national soccer team (Euskal Selekzioa or Euskadi), and the creation of a renowned cycling team integrated solely by Basques, sponsored by a Basque company (Euskadi-Euskaltel) and which competes regularly in the Tour de France and other main road cycling competitions. As a proof of the awareness of the paradigmatic significance of sport’s contribution to the development and reinforcement of national identity (Xifra, a), the creation and recognition of Basque national teams in different sport disciplines has been a vociferous pledge of the Basque government in recent times. Basque regional government has worked together toward this end with different sectors of the civil society, which has García: Sports as Public Diplomacy
come to depend in one fashion or another on fi nancial support from the Basque government and local authorities for this purpose (Ormaetxea & Serraller, ). One of the main non-governmental actors has been the Pro-Basque National Teams Platform (Euskal Selekzioaren Aldeko Iritizi Taldea, or ESAIT). This organization aims to achieve international recognition for Basque national sport teams. Its most significant campaign was the presentation of a television spot in asking for the officiality of the Basque national soccer team before a match against its counterpart from the Catalan region of Spain. This cartoon spot, which caricaturized symbols of Spain and France, depicted a soccer match between the Basque and the Brazilian teams. At the start of the game, there is a Guardia Civil (Spain’s gendarmerie) holding a banner that says “Spanish Federation,” a politician with a Spanish team T-shirt, and a cock representing France holding a banner that reads “French Federation.” The characters are working to forbid the match, an allusion to the veto position of the Spanish and French federations, to the Basque Country team, according to ESAIT. In the spot, the Basque players get angry and the full stadium starts shouting against the Spanish and French characters who then have to run away quickly. The spot closes with a giant banner saying, in the Basque language, “Nazio bat, Selekzio bat” (one nation, one national team).1 In , before the celebration of a soccer match between Euskadi and Venezuela, the Basque players exhibited a banner claiming the officiality of a Basque national team (Elmundo.es, ). It was one of the most memorable moments of synergy between the Basque government and civil society associations, such as the Basque Soccer Federation (FFV), which hosted the event. The FFV, a non-profit private association, received most of the , Euros the Basque government gave in to the Union of Basque Sport Federations (UFDV) (Basque Government, ). It was the FFV which worked with the Basque government in to resurrect the national Basque soccer team, which existed before the Spanish Civil War, with a match against Ireland. Since then, it has played a total of nonofficial matches. The only one of those matches to be played outside of Basque Country was the game against Venezuela. Concerning road race cycling, the Basque government has followed a different path. In this sport the standard is commercially sponsored teams rather than national teams. Moreover, the only competition by countries that attracts public attention is the World Cycling Championship that takes place once a year for elite men in a day time frame in two modalities: road race and time trial. And, as with other international sport
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ing competitions, only nation-states can participate in the World Cycling Championship. In , the Basque government found a solution to this challenge by using Euskaltel, the privately owned but publicly promoted Basque telecommunications operator, as a commercial sponsor for a cyclist team that “participates in the most prestigious Spanish and international competitions, giving visibility to Basque sports in the entire world” (FundaciónEuskadi, ). Or, in other words, a team that would compete in the main Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) competitions such as the Tour of France, Tour of Italy and Tour of Spain. The team is dubbed Euskaltel-Euskadi and it competes internationally as a sort of Basque national cycling team. As with the main soccer teams, all of the team’s riders have to be Basque or have been formed professionally in the Basque Country (some of them like Samuel Sánchez are from other Spanish regions). This strategy has given a high level of exhibition to the brand Euskadi, an important achievement considering that TV retransmissions tend to identify the team’s riders with the Spanish flag rather than the Basque flag in countries where cycling has a wide legion of supporters, such as France, Italy, Germany, and the United States. Problems and undesired effects Although this article shows how Basque public diplomacy has found in sports an important vehicle for transmitting an identity and building an international reputation, the Basque approach also shows some limitations. Regarding the creation of a Basque national soccer team, there are a number of problems. First, so-called friendly matches in which these teams can participate generally do not attract much international attention and must be scheduled when no other official competitions are taking place, mostly at Christmas time. Second, rival teams tend to be relatively minor national teams (the last matches were against Bulgaria, Cameroon, Serbia, Catalonia, and Venezuela) because the top national teams don’t compete against unofficial teams (thereby avoiding potential diplomatic problems with Spain). These matches tend to generate limited media coverage that does not go beyond the two disputing countries or regions. In many ways, these matches have more impact among the internal publics, fans as well as players, with strong nationalistic convictions that are reinforced in an environment of national anthems and flags, rather than external publics. One added factor is that a slew of other Spanish regions, in an effort to keep pace with the Basques and the Catalans, have started their own national or regional teams (including Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Balearic García: Sports as Public Diplomacy
Islands, Canary Islands, Cantabria, Extremadura, Galicia, Murcia, Navarra, and Valencia). This crowded field arguably dilutes the sport public diplomacy efforts of the Basques and Catalans. Between and this trend seemed to be spreading to cycling, with the sponsorship by the Balearic Islands’ regional government of the Illes Balears cycling team, but private sponsors soon replaced the government. In the case of the Basque Country, a major problem has been how the different political conceptions of the Basque territory by different Basque nationalist parties have translated into sports. Since , there have been discrepancies concerning the name of the Basque national soccer team between the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), then in power, and Batasuna (a Basque nationalist party that was illegalized in for giving public monies to the Basque separatist-terrorist group ETA but which still exists as a political movement). The Basque government and the PNV supported the name Euskadi (a Basque neologism with a political connotation that includes the Spanish Basque provinces of Alava, Guipuzcoa and Biscay, Navarre and the French territories of Labourd, Lower Navarre and Soule), while Batasuna and other nationalist groups favored the name Euskal Herria, a similar concept but with a stronger cultural connotation. These discrepancies led to the cancellation of friendly matches in and when a significant part of the Basque players signed a manifesto stating they would not play with the Basque team if it were not called Euskal Herria (El Correo, ). Knowledgeable of the social and political context in the Basque region, including the threat of terrorism and street violence, Xabier Arzalluz, former leader of the PNV for two decades, suggested that “more than half of these players signed the manifesto out of fear” (Mallo, , para. ). The control of sports, among other Basque symbols, is crucial for Batasuna’s strategy for leading the nation-building process while the PNV, with its vocation of power, usually takes a more pragmatic approach. This power struggle between the PNV and Batasuna regarding the denomination of the team and other symbolic aspects is still raging. One more aspect to take into consideration regarding the use of sports as a tool of public diplomacy in the Basque region is the intrinsic plurality of the Basque society, where there is an ethnic cleavage between Basque nationalists and Basques who still consider Spain to be the primary community of reference (Lane & Ersson, , p. ). Basque support for independence of the region has remained the same over the last years: percent in both and (Euskobarometro, ). Indeed, despite the enhancement of the Basque identity through sports, as discussed in this paper, more Basques perceive the Basque Country as a region (. per
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cent) than as a country (. percent) (CIS , ). The main difference between the two sides is that for Basque nationalists the national teams should substitute the Spanish team, while for the non-nationalists they should supplement it at most. Catalonia: a comparison The use of sports for public diplomacy purposes by the Basque government can be compared with the efforts undertaken by the government of Catalonia, another Spanish region with a strong sense of local identity. However, in the case of Catalonia the projection of Catalan identity has been much more effective thanks to the existence of Barcelona Football Club (BFC), significantly a non-governmental sport organization. Successive Catalan governments have certainly made efforts in recent years to promote Catalan sports internationally through the recognition of Catalan federations of minority sports such as korf ball, pitch and putt, futsal, rugby and Australian football. Thanks to that recognition, Catalan teams in these sports have competed internationally in official competitions. However, it is worth noting these are minority sports even in Catalonia. The Catalan government, even more so than the Basque government, has also supported civil society groups such as the Pro-Catalan National Teams Platform (Plataforma Pro Seleccions Esportives Catalanes, or PSEC). In , this organization, subsidized annually by the Catalan government with . million Euros (Roger, ), promoted a campaign under the slogan “one nation, one team” to encourage Catalans to publicly demonstrate their support for Catalan teams. As in the Basque case, these two strategies have not been very effective in projecting Catalonia identity internationally. If anything, they have generated internal controversies and distracted the attention of the population from other social topics. A clear example of this was the Catalan media’s hearty coverage of the International Federation of Hockey’s denial for the formation of a Catalan national team, and around the same time the same media’s near total disregard of two reports illustrating the existence of broad class inequalities in Catalan society (Navarro, ). None of the Catalan government’s efforts to increase Catalonia’s reputation in the world can compare to the symbolic influence of BFC as the region’s main ambassador to the world (Xifra, , p. ; a, p. ; b, p. ). A sport organization with an annual budget of million Euros (a figure taken from the / season), BFC was rated the world’s top García: Sports as Public Diplomacy
most valuable soccer brand in (Pujol, ) as well as the global soccer club with more followers in Facebook, according to the market consulting company Sport + Markt (Marketingdirecto.com, ). In Spain, BFC receives twice as much media coverage outside Catalonia (. percent) as the Catalan government does (. percent) (Bañeres, ). The international dimension of BFC has helped to promote Catalonia as a tourist destination through the organization of pre-season promotional tours in Asia (with friendly matches in Seoul, Tokyo, and Shanghai in ) and in the United States in (Boston, Washington DC, and Philadelphia), (Chicago, New York, and Houston), (Los Angeles and New York), and (Los Angeles and Seattle) (fcbarcelona.cat, ). As a part of these tours, local tour operators ( in a country like Japan and in the United States) are invited to presentations on topics such as Catalan cooking wine, golf, or the obtention of visas (Xifra, a). The success of BFC as an international ambassador stands in stark contrast with the region’s national soccer team, Catalonia. Like the Basque soccer team, Catalonia usually plays once a year during Christmas season. In Catalonia played against Honduras in a half empty Montjuic stadium where only , spectators (half the seats available in the stadium) attended the match despite low ticket prices and a ton of free tickets given away (Artús, ). The Euskadi team is at least generally well followed and manages to fi ll stadiums at home. The comparison of sport public diplomacy efforts in the Basque Country and Catalonia allows us to infer that well-known sport clubs like BFC, acting as brands identified with their places of origin (Anholt, ), are much more effective at promoting the reputation and identity of regions or countries than national teams, particularly when they don’t play in big official competitions. Although cycling is a relatively minority sport and very seasonal, the role of the cyclist team Euskaltel-Euskadi in competitions such as the Tour of France and the Tour of Italy in projecting the image of the Basque Country has proven much more effective than the organization of friendly annual soccer matches with minor soccer teams such as Venezuela that only generate local media coverage. Conclusion This paper analyzes a relatively new phenomenon, the case of regions with a strong cultural identity, that use sports to project their image internationally. Through this analysis we can gain an understanding of the pros and cons of promoting unofficial national teams that compete only in
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international friendly matches or sport clubs that compete in the largest international competitions (albeit sometimes in less popular sports). Comparing the Basque case with the situation in Catalonia, where national teams have likewise been created in several sports, we can conclude that it is more effective to sponsor well-reputed sport organizations to promote the identity of a region internationally. When regional teams cannot participate in official competitions, public diplomacy efforts don’t show much effectivity and mainly function to build or reinforce relationships with internal audiences. A comparison between BFC and Atlhletic de Bilbao soccer teams also shows that, although the ethnic component, as in the Basque case, can be appreciated by some foreign audiences as a rarity, fans in other countries care mainly about sport success and are capable of making a connection between the place of origin of the team and its identity. We see this in the case of BFC, where a majority of players are not Catalan. A second advantage of this approach is that private sport organizations, such as Athletic de Bilbao or BFC, are not supported by a majority of the population as nationalist symbols. Future studies on this topic should address the utilization of sports to project identities in the cases of other non-state actors such as Quebec, Flanders, or Scotland, the latter a territory that competes with a national team in numerous sports and also boasts international sport organizations such as the Glasgow Rangers or the Celtics Glasgow. Cesar Garcia is an associate professor in the Communication Department at Central Washington University, specializing in teaching and research on public relations and communication with an emphasis in sports. He also has more than a decade of experience in the professional world of public relations for international firms such as Edelman and Pleon, where he implemented communications programs for global companies. He has published in academic publications such as Public Relations Review, Global Media Journal, Journal of Communication and Religion, International Journal of Sport Communication, and PRism, among others.
Note . This video can be accessed in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhUgq YHmGeA
García: Sports as Public Diplomacy
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