Presenting Britain as a Great Nation on the World's Screen through International Football

In September 1997 Chris Smith, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in Tony Blair’s recently elected Labour government, conceded the perennial problem of defining ‘culture’ as a governmental responsibility, even if his department’s work, like that of its predecessor (i.e. Department of National Heritage), highlights the treatment of British sport as an integral part of national culture. ¹ Today, it remains difficult also to establish the actual foreign policy contribution of cultural propaganda, including specific cases where it has made a real difference, especially as compared to ‘hard power’, like economic and military strength. ² Even so, cultural propaganda, though depicted by contrast as ‘soft power’, has been perceived as an effective and powerful form of British diplomacy, as reaffirmed in the mid-1980s by the Thatcher government: ‘Our cultural diplomacy helps to make Britain and British standards better known and understood, so we may pursue British interests more effectively’. ³