Only at the level of a lunchtime kick-around is sport non-political. As soon as you give a team a name, politics start. We support our pub's darts team, right or wrong, because they're mates, even if the captain is a berk. We support our local football team because it's our area, even if all its footballers need work permits. We count the medals and feel pleased when "we" win gold. And for the right to carry that name, we and our teams have to accept interference from the people who run the pub, the town or the country whose name we share. And they don't care about sport as much as we do � if they did they'd be watching sport not running things. So they make the wrong decisions. (Or not, depending on who you ask.)