Popular events like the football world cup and other international sporting occasions are essential in easing international tensions and releasing patriotic emotions in a safe way. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
The World Cup football matches and the Olympics are held worldwide with great national support and expectations. As a fan of those competitions, I agree with the idea that sporting events can be necessary for international relations and national unity. There are several effects from these popular sports events in easing international tensions and realizing patriotic emotions in a safe way.
First of all, the World Cup, Olympics and other international games work for easing tensions among different nations. For example, South and North Korea have football games regularly which gives the two nations a chance to understand each other better. In the mid 1990s,hundreds of North Korean supporters came to South Korea with the footballers and they were very excited during the sporting events. Even if it sounds ridiculous, many South Koreans were quite surprised at that moment when North Koreans shouted and cried during the match. We all realized that they were very normal sports fans even though they were occasionally very secretive. Through the sports, two divided nations could reduce their political and ideological tensions and could feel the patriotic unity.
On the other hand, some sports matches can make international relations worse. For instance, football or baseball games between Korea and Japan are always big matches in two countries where tension often overflow. Sometimes, after the matches, the two rivals blame each other and their patriotic emotions explode in an aggressive way. A much worse scenario is that the troubles caused by losing games affect the players directly. As far as I know, a couple of Korean players in Japan have suffered from invisible discrimination after the match