ABSTRACT
Whilst for at least the last 400 years (for example, when King James I published The Book of Sports) the state has sought to intervene in sport and recreation through prohibition, regulation or promotion of various athletic pastimes, it is only in the last quarter of the twentieth century that the political dimensions of sport and leisure, at local, national and international levels, have become more widely apparent and discussed. Argument over the connection between sport and politics revolves around two broad viewpoints. There are those who argue that sport is a special form of play and as such should be seen as separate from the ‘real world’. Involved in these arguments are ideas such as sport is and should be separate from politics; sport is private and personal rather than public and political; the pursuit of the Olympic ideals is non-political.
