WE ARE not sure when people stopped looking to clerics and philosophers for guidance in this world — if they ever started. But amid fears about the health of democracy worldwide, the democratisation of opinion is alive and well. There used to be a tacit agreement between populist influencers and their subjects, for want of a better word, that, in return for credence, the influencer would limit their message to what people wanted to hear. John the Baptist would have struggled to gain many Facebook likes — though his Twitter ban might have been lifted in the past week. Now, however, it is important for people with any sort of public profile to be adept at navigating the world of global politics. Some topics are relatively straightforward: it is obviously right to be pro-Zelensky and anti-Putin, although being pro-war poses a few more problems (“Are we pro-peace-talks? Not yet? OK, thanks”). The World Cup is clearly more of a stretch. Maluma, the Colombian singer (62.8 million Instagram followers) who performed at the opening ceremony in Qatar, told an interviewer: “I just came here to enjoy life, enjoy soccer, the party of soccer. [Human rights] is not actually something I have to be involved with. I am here enjoying my music and the beautiful life playing soccer too” — before storming out of the studio.

The belated exposure of sports fans to the troubling dilemmas of international politics is to be welcomed. The notion that sport can exist on a separate plane, so fiercely argued by FIFA, the Olympic Committee, and others, is at odds with the nationalistic trappings — the costumes, the flags, the anthems, the attendance of national leaders — that these events attract. These are not sportsmen and -women who happen to be Italian, Indian, or Indonesian; they are clearly representatives or ambassadors for their country. The Romans knew how to use sport (loosely defined) to distract the populace from political ills. To that lesson has been added the use of international sporting occasions to minimise the difference between free societies and oppressive regimes. The Qataris have embraced the concept of “sportswashing” with enthusiasm and cynicism, but there are many past examples, from the 1936 Berlin Olympics through the 1978 Argentina World Cup to the 2014 Russian Grand Prix.

There is, of course, a loss of innocence here. Individual athletes are bound together, by and large, in the struggle to improve their performance through competition, admiring of each other irrespective of national differences. And, from the perspective of Christianity, it is a matter of profound sadness when attempts to unite humanity are undermined. None the less, a widening understanding of the way political influences pervade all aspects of life, including culture and sport, is a necessary step in search for a greater and more important unity: a concerted effort to oppose oppression wherever it occurs.