ABSTRACT
In the light of the events of 11 September and their global repercussions, an analysis relating capitalism and international relations to sport may appear perverse. In these circumstances we might be expected to remain on the traditional terrain of IR and studies of world order, which Robert Cox defines as ‘the particular configurations of forces which successively define the problematic of war or peace for the ensemble of states’, consign sport to the margins of IR and concur with the millions for whom sport is an essentially trivial distraction from more serious matters.2 Yet sport’s importance in contemporary global society suggests that our understanding of that society might benefit from an analysis of the range of social processes that sport entails. This chapter aims to provide a Marxist analysis of the nature of sport under capitalism, conceived as a global social system whose fundamental relations, processes and structures shape more local social practices.
