Playing, winning and making a difference: sports for social change

Here’s an experiment.

Take 10 people, all with different backgrounds, experiences, beliefs and languages. Place them on a field together with no instructions, translations or directions.

Chances are, little happens.

Now give them a soccer ball. Or place them at the starting line of a race. Or give them some rackets, a net and a shuttlecock. Suddenly, they understand one another:

• I kick the ball to you, and you kick it back to me.
• Let’s run to see who’s the fastest.
• You stand on one side of the net, I’ll stand on the other, and we’ll rally the shuttlecock back and forth.

Ten people whose only common trait might be you are not like me are now working together. Playing together. Having fun together. Cheering, celebrating and congratulating each other.

And then, a subtle shift occurs.

They are no longer strangers. They are no longer identified by their differences, first and foremost.

Instead, they become people who:

• Passed the soccer ball perfectly.
• Ran beside you as fast as their legs allowed.
• Knocked the shuttlecock wildly into the net and laughed about it.

Sport does not erase difference. But at its best, it creates a structure where differences can exist without fear.

That structure, by the way, has another name:

Peace.

Can sports promote peace

As it turns out, the idea of using sports to promote peace is not new.

Before the Olympics was sponsored by one brand and brought to you by another, with promotional considerations from a third, it began with the Ekecheiria.

A truce. An armistice.

Delivered by messengers called spondophoroi, the Ekecheiria was a call for warring city-states to lay down their arms and allow safe passage of athletes and artists, supporters and spectators to Olympia.

Borders opened. Fighting paused. Rivals sat side by side in a stadium whose ruins still stand today to cheer:

• The fastest.
• The highest.
• The strongest.
• The farthest.

Thousands of years ago, Sparta fought Athens, and Corinth fought Thebes, for power, territory, resources and influence.

But the heralds of the Ekecheiria reminded Spartans, Athenians, Corinthians and Thebans they all shared something greater than their divisions: a common Greek identity expressed through sport.

Even in a fractured world shaped by conflict, sport created rare moments where people could gather peacefully around a shared experience.

And now, thousands of years later, sport still has the power to overcome borders, language and ideology.

When sports bring people together: a letter from the frontline to home

The following is a fictional account from a fictional soldier of the Christmas Truce of 1914 .

December 25, 1914: Somewhere near Ypres, Belgium

To Mom and Dad,

I’m writing to you on Christmas Day. But something remarkable happened just yesterday.

Upon waking yesterday, the Germans were the enemy. Yet, all we did was sit in frozen trenches staring at one another from No Man’s Land while exchanging endless gunfire.

Could you imagine such a thing? On Christmas Eve, no less!

When the gunfire quieted down, first, came singing. Truly! It was unmistakable. Thomas, standing beside me, whispered “They’re singing carols. Do you recognize them?”

I did.

Silent Night. O Come All Ye Faithful. I recognized every melody and knew every word. We sang to each other across No Man’s Land and I had a thought: how different are we if we all sing the same Christmas carols?

I still do not have an answer.

Next, brave souls climbed out of the trenches. One after another.

I did the same and then cautiously walked to the middle. I still feel the frozen ground and broken artillery shells beneath my boots. We laughed. We shook hands. We exchanged cigarettes. Someone handed me German chocolate which, I am now wholly unafraid to admit, is richer and sweeter than anything I’ve tasted at home.

Then, finally, somehow, a football appeared.

Yes, a football. Here!

Who produced it or who kicked it first, I cannot say. But at the sight of it, none of us needed instructions. Or orders. Or permission. We just…understood each other and what to do.

A makeshift pitch was marked out in the mud. Goalposts were fashioned from scraps of wood. And men who spent weeks firing rifles at each other, and I count myself as one among them, divided themselves into teams and began shouting for passes.

To start, it was Germans against Englishmen.

Then, we played alongside each other. Germans and Englishmen. As teammates!

We laughed at missed kicks. We slipped through the mud. We cheered good passes no matter who made them. At one point, I took quite a fall. A German soldier named Franz pulled me back to my feet with a strong grip and a smile so warm, it could have thawed the snow itself.

Mom and Dad, I must say, for a short while at least, the war disappeared.

Not completely. Not totally. It hung like a specter in the form of our rifles resting on the snow. Or the artillery that loomed beyond the fog.

And it pains me to think that yesterday, we shared laughter over a weathered, muddy football. And today, we may once again be ordered to fire at one another.

I wish I could understand why. Why must we be enemies when we can be, and do, so much more together?

I feared Christmas Day would arrive without its spirit.

But somehow it found us anyway—in the form of a weathered football and a muddy pitch.

Sincerely, your son, George

Sport does not end conflict...

Sports equipment cannot eliminate poverty or reverse climate change. A relay race cannot undo generational hunger or provide clean water. Sports balls alone do not offer gender equality or social justice on their own.

What sport can do, though, is humanize and equalize. Remember:

• The Ekecheiria reminded Spartans, Athenians, Corinthians and Thebans they shared a common Greek identity.
• An old, weathered football during the Christmas Truce briefly turned enemy soldiers into laughing teammates.

You are not like me becomes I am just like you. Even if it was only temporary.

• The power of play in one of the world's toughest spaces: From World Vision Canada to a sandy ground in South Sudan, boys and girls are brought together by a soccer ball and two words: let’s play.

...but sport can promote peace

Today, many of the world’s most fragile contexts aren’t solely shaped by a lack of resources. They’re also shaped by fractured or misunderstood relationships between people.

Between communities.

Between nations.

Sport cannot replace diplomacy, justice or peacebuilding efforts. But it can create moments of shared trust. And sometimes, those moments become something larger:

• In 1971, an American table tennis player missed his team bus and instead rode with the Chinese team, who were viewed with distrust and suspicion. Less than a year later, a historic visit to China began the process of normalizing relations between two adversaries.

• In 1995, one year after the end of apartheid, a splintered South Africa united behind the national rugby team during the Rugby World Cup. When the team won the tournament, millions of Black and white South Africans celebrated the victory and a shared vision for the country's future.
• In 2018, Olympic athletes from North and South Korea marched under a unified flag and formed a joint women’s hockey team. The Games did not unite the Korean peninsula but created a moment of connection between bitter political and ideological rivals.

Perhaps this is why Nelson Mandela once said:

• “Sports have the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sports can create hope, where there was once only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination. Sports is the game of lovers.”

Not because sport erases differences.

But because, in its purest form, it reminds us that our shared humanity can still be greater than them.