Experimental Tactics on an Uneven Playing Field: Multinational Football and the Apartheid Project during the 1970s

Within the growing body of academic literature on South African sport, there remains room for considering the close relationship between football and apartheid politics during the 1970s. Drawing on archival documentation and contemporary media reports, this analysis constitutes a contribution in this regard. The primary focus is on three high-profile football tournaments that were played within the framework of the apartheid government's multinational sports policy, devised in the early 1970s. Consequently, this represents an exploration of the complex contours of multinational football under apartheid. It will be argued that football was a significant tool for experimentation during the 1970s and a deeper analysis of these ventures is needed in order to gain an improved understanding of sport's complicated - and often paradoxical - relationship with apartheid.