ABSTRACT
It has been stated that a feature of the modernisation of sport was that the establishment of continental confederations, which created a middle-tier of control between the nation and worldwide sporting bodies (FIFA), would eventually dilute the essence and centrality of nation-states in the context of sport. 1 This is now fact. A pellucid analysis of the racial, cultural and geopolitical implications of the Australian Football Association’s (AFA) migration from the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) to the Asia Football Association (AFC) recently asked presciently whether or not this type of ‘regional restructuring ultimately amounts to a geopolitical continental drift’. 2 With direct reference to ‘Soft Power Politics – Past and Present: Football and Baseball on the Western Pacific Rim’ and its foundation upon the increasing geopolitical power of the Asia Pacific region led by the ever-increasing power of its major constituents, namely China, India, South Korea and the recovering Japan along with the fecund potential of developing nations such as Indonesia and the concomitant potential geopolitical power of sport in the region, I would suggest that ‘a geopolitical continental drift’ towards East Asia is also fast becoming fact.
