ABSTRACT
The evolution of formalised sport, both amateur and commercial, lasted approximately from the initial development in the eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century. This took place before the GSOs arrived on the scene, but thereafter they played the dominant role in the international standardisation of sport. They both encouraged and facilitated sport’s global expansion on a systematic basis and away from the random bilateral international competitions that had occurred up to that point. In turn this fed directly into increasing their own legitimacy and their role as legitimising forces. Since then they have played more indirect roles in increased globalisation of commercial sport while also adding to a global civil society – although almost certainly not to the extent that they claim. Unlike the IOC from Courbetin to Samaranch, FIFA under Blatter and other GSOs, we should not inflate the role that they have played. When sport is used as a global weapon (as through Olympic boycott and the boycott of apartheid South Africa) this is not so much an example of sport’s importance, but of its convenience as a weapon and its ease of sacrifice.
