ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the theory and practice of sports anti-diplomacy. The dualism of the Rodman case illustrates an acute problem when thinking of sports diplomacy. The great diplomatic theorist James Der Derian is described anti-diplomacy as something resulting from a 'techno-strategic' triad of virulent surveillance through spying, terrorism and speed, all of which were compounded by a type of global, 24/7 media. Sports anti-diplomacy tears down rather than builds good relations, increases isolation and estrangement, and represents an archaic, uncivilised type of behaviour. Sport, nationalism and diplomacy are also inextricably, and detrimentally, linked. Football became politicised and, as such, contradicted one of the fundamental principles of both diplomacy and international sport: the minimisation of friction in international affairs. During the second Greco-Persian War, Ephialtes of Trachis was a Greek that betrayed his homeland, in hope of receiving some kind of reward from the invading Persians.
