From Battlefields to Football Fields: Turkish Sports Diplomacy in the Post-Second World War Period

The 1945–60 period constitutes a unique era of sports history in which sports encounters were imbued with a diplomatic mission to establish cultural relations between both allies and conflicting countries. After 1945, sports were employed as a ‘soft power’, and, as Beck accurately observes, perceived as a projection of national values, strengths, and weaknesses.1 The bold initiative of the British diplomat (who was himself a medal-winning athlete) Philip Noel-Baker to invite the Soviet football team Dinamo Moscow to Britain to ‘break down their [Soviet] isolation’ is considered to have been the starting point for postwar sports diplomacy.2 The success of this tour also set the tone for diplomatic encounters through sports competitions during the Cold War era.