ABSTRACT
Any comparative analysis of sport runs the risk of comparing like with unlike. No development of sport can be fully understood apart from a country's size and traditions, climate and culture, military and international considerations, social and economic needs, as well as the ideals of a political order. There is therefore no single model of capitalist or socialist sport, however similar may be many of the structural features. It would be as mistaken to posit the British and Soviet models as representative of capitalist and socialist development as it would to export them unadapted. Both of course have been tried.
