Sport in global coordinate system: new challenges and opportunities

Фотографии: 

ˑ: 

Dr.Hab., Professor N.V. Parshikova1
Dr.Hab. S.I. Izaak2
G.V. Kovalenko3
Ministry of Sport of Russia, Moscow
Institute of World Civilizations, Moscow
T.K. Zhurgenov Kazakh National Academy of Arts, Alma-Ata, Republic of Kazakhstan

 

Keywords: sports, international sport system, sustainable development, human potential, peacemaking, peaceful rivalry, international communication.

Background. The modern world has set a global life quality and comfort advancement trend based on the sustainable development policies with their key components (economic, social and environmental) being duly balanced. The seventeen sustainable development goals (SDG) set forth by the UNO for the period up to 2030 are intended to facilitate, in the nearest 15 years, a global progress in different fields with an emphasis on the following five aspects: people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership [12]. The interrelated and integrated SDG are generally established to mobilise the global human potential with due priorities to the following: human dignity and equality in healthy environments (“people” category); satisfying the needs of the leaving and future generation (“planet” category); prosperity and wellbeing (“prosperity” category); building a peaceful, fair and social-barriers-free society (“peace” category); and establish a renewed Global Partnership to facilitate the global sustainable development (“partnership” category).

Modern sports may be ranked among the key tools to attain the SDG and a specific field of socio-cultural activities within the frame of modern sport disciplines with their competitive and athletic training policies and practices [11]. Sports are known to facilitate education, social cohesion, health improvement initiatives, contribute to the underage and teenage growth and personality development processes, build up healthy lifestyles and prevent negative processes in the young people’s communities [2, 4, 5, 6, 8].

Objective of the study was to analyse the role of sports in a global context with an emphasis on their global cooperation promotion missions.  

Study results and discussion. Modern sports with their multiple types, forms, tools and institutional designs increasingly contribute to the human potential development [9] and peaceful society building initiatives. In addition to the commonly acknowledged national missions of modern sports (competitive, entertainment, recreational, economic etc.), we also have a few global sport missions increasingly prioritized by the modern world leaders including peacemaking, peaceful rivalry and communication missions.

Peacemaking mission

It is the UNO that plays a leading role in the global peacemaking efforts since the organisation was established, among other things, with the following purposes: advance global tolerance to help the people live together in peace and good neighbour relationship; unite their efforts to maintain the global peace and life safety; and enjoy due support from the relevant multilateral institutions for the economic and social progress of all nations in the world [10]. 

Global partnership with due contribution from every nation including Russia to the peacemaking process is ranked among the top priorities of the foreign policies pursued by every nation and one of the key tools for certain geopolitical aspirations: see Figure 1.

In its most inclusive and objective definition, peacemaking implies not only the military and law-enforcement components of the process. And it is the global sports that are considered, due to their high peacemaking potential, among the key global development and peacemaking instruments in the UNO activities. Sports viewed as a popular socio-cultural activity largely contribute to a variety of the fundamental human values including peace, friendship, mutual respect, understanding, tolerance, non-violence etc.

Figure 1. Sports in the international cooperation system

Peaceful rivalry mission

Rivalry may be described as a natural and integral part of life that mobilises individual powers and facilitates the human potential development process. Rivalry in modern sports is designed to make the highest competitive success in compliance with certain rules of competitions and is driven by the athletes’ genuine self-improvement agenda with the desire to win and improve their sport accomplishments in practical contests with other people irrespective of their national or racial affiliation. The sport rivalry is generally geared to satisfy the self-fulfilment and social recognition needs and pursue the life prosperity focused strategies.

Global peaceful rivalry is encouraged and contributed by the global sports with their increasing role in the international system in the context of the growing competitiveness in elite sports. Most of the world nations highly appreciate national participation and accomplishments in the top-ranking global sport competitions as national success in the global relations; as a manifestation of the national ability to concentrate available resources (economic, research, human, technical etc.) for success on global arenas; and as a chance to instate own nation among the leading sport nations of the world.

Communication mission

Communication may be interpreted as a free flow of information and senses in between two and more people that plays an increasingly important role for every individual life and society on the whole. Communication process may also be viewed as an integrative tool for many institutionalised activities to be joined and harmonised, with the process being an important component of any system consolidation initiative [3].

The global communication system is designed to facilitate friendly relations of the world nations governed by the equality and self-determination principles and initiatives including the Global Partnership for sustainable development [12] and the efforts to promote constructive dialogues and partnerships to support harmony and mutual enrichment of different cultures and civilisations.

Modern sports appear to be more sensitive to well-developed and efficient communication than any other socio-cultural sector, particularly in the international domain. Peacemaking and peaceful rivalry in sports imply the initiatives to cultivate peace and understanding the world over with demonstration of practical opportunities for and benefits of the peaceful cooperation model in the global competitive environments.

Global communication in the sport sector may be viewed as the integrity of multiple bilateral and multilateral communication forms and mechanisms naturally emerging in the vocational activities of sport communities the world over. The global sport communications building process is governed by the following principles: due targeting; priority of multilateral cooperation; due institutionalisation of the global communication entities; developmental agenda; governance of law; effective feedback capacity; growing role of information in the sports sector; and elimination of barriers for the global communication process [3].

Thus, the efficient global communications in the sport education and sport science domains are designed to attain the following goals:

- Improve the quality and quantity of the global educational and research projects;

- Contribute to the global mobility of students, educators and researchers including fellowships at foreign education and research establishments;

- Increase the flows of foreign students into the national vocational sport education systems;

- Facilitate cooperation in the initiatives to organise and host international conferences, forums, sport events etc. [7];

- Support participation of the national research and education specialists in multilateral and foreign institutional activity; and

 - Encourage engagement of the national research and education specialists in the international research associations by a variety of tools including social networks and Internet communities [1].

It is natural that many communicational barriers are still found in the global human cooperation due to a variety of natural, economic, social, political and other factors and considerations. The barriers for the global sport communication still hamper progress in the above sport missions being fulfilled including the communicative, peacemaking and peaceful rivalry ones. Therefore, the barriers for the global sport communication need to be minimised or removed by the efforts to improve the communication process efficiency and advance the modern sport diplomacy toolkit viewed as one of the most promising mechanisms for the global progress in this domain – that may help step up the role of global sports the world over within the frame of the global sustainable and balanced development.

Conclusion. Having considered the global sports in the global coordinate system in the context of their peacemaking, competitive and communicative missions, we have grounds to state that they:

  • Make a valuable contribution to the global sustainable development in the following five aspects: people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership, i.e. facilitate the UN goals being attained in the sustainable development domain;
  • Contribute to the peacemaking efforts of Russia in many foreign policy matters including the peace and global security assurance; advance the international cooperation; ensure governance of law in defending athlete’s interests;
  • Secure high living standards; facilitate the human potential and human capital mobilisation and facilitation efforts;
  • Contribute to the Russian national interests and strategic national priorities being defended; strengthen the Russia’s global positions as one of the global leaders; and
  • Advance the Russian foreign policies in the humanitarian domain including the initiatives to popularise the national culture and historical heritage.

References

  1. Izaak S.I. Mezhdunarodnye svyazi Rossiyskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta fizicheskoy kultury, sporta i turizma [International relations of Russian State University of Physical Education, Sports and Tourism]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2007, no. 11, p. 79.
  2. Izaak S.I. Sostoyanie fizicheskogo razvitiya i fizicheskoy podgotovlennosti detey, podrostkov, molodezhi na osnove tekhnologii populyatsionnogo monitoringa (na primere Rossiyskoy Federatsii) [State of physical development and physical fitness of children, adolescents, youth based on population monitoring technology (case study of the Russian Federation)]. Izvestiya VUZov Kyrgyistana, 2016, no. 9, pp. 153-156.
  3.  Izaak S.I. Mezhdunarodnye kommunikatsii v nauchno-obrazovatelnoy srede [International communications in scientific and educational environment]. Nauchnye issledovaniya i razrabotki. Sovremennaya kommunikativistika, 2017, no. 2.
  4. Izaak S.I., Volodkovich S.D. Aktualnye problemy sokhraneniya zdorovya studencheskoy molodezhi v Rossii i Belorussii [Actual problems of students' health preservation in Russia and Belarus]. Chelovecheskiy kapital, 2016, no. 5 (89), pp. 8-10.
  5. Mutko V.L., Parshikova N.V., Chistyakov V.A. Dopolnitelny urok fizkultury: opyt realizatsii [Additional physical education lesson: experience of implementation]. Fizicheskaya kultura: vospitanie, obrazovanie, trenirovka, 2007, no. 1, pp. 20-21.
  6. Parshikov A.T., Vinogradov P.A., Parshikova N.V. Fizkulturno-sportivnaya deyatelnost v organizatsii profilaktiki narkomanii sredi detey, podrostkov i molodezhi. Metod. posobie dlya obscheobrazovatelnykh uchrezhdeniy i uchrezhdeniy dopolnitelnogo obrazovaniya sportivnoy napravlennosti [Physical culture and sports activities to prevent drug abuse among children, adolescents and youth. Guidance for general and additional education sports institutions]. Moscow: Montes Invest publ., 2002, 112 p.
  7. Parshikova N.V. Normativno-pravovoe obespechenie organizatsii i provedeniya XXVII Vsemirnoy letney universiady 2013 goda v g. Kazani [Regulatory Support of Organization and Staging of XXVII World Summer Universiade 2013 in Kazan]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2014, no.1, pp. 3-4.
  8. Parshikova N.V. Menedzhment, pravo, normativy [Management, law, standards]. Doshkolnaya i shkolnaya fizkultura. Fizkultura i sport [Preschool and school physical education. Physical education and sports]. Moscow: Sovetskiy sport publ., 2015, pp. 5-6.
  9. Parshikova N.V., Izaak S.I. Razrabotka strategicheskogo prognoza razvitiya fizicheskoy kultury i massovogo sporta na period do 2030 goda [Development of a strategic forecast for development of physical culture and mass sports for the period until 2030]. Chelovecheskiy kapital, 2016, no. 4 (88), pp. 10-12.
  10. Ustav OON [Charter of the United Nations]. Available at: http://www.un.org/ru/charter-united-nations/index.html (Accessed: 14.02.2017).
  11. Federalny zakon ot 04.12.2007 # 329-FZ (red. ot 22.11.2016) «O fizicheskoy kulture i sporte v Rossiyskoy Federatsii» [Federal Law No. 329-FL December 4, 2007 (as amended on November 22, 2016) "On Physical Culture and Sports in the Russian Federation"]. Available at: http://sudact.ru/law/federalnyi-zakon-ot-04122007-n-329-fz-o (Accessed: 15.02.2017).
  12. Tseli ustoychivogo razvitiya [Goals of sustainable development]. Available at: http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/ru/sustainable-development-goals (Accessed: 15.02.2017).

Corresponding author: fizkult@teoriya.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to analyse the role of sports in the global context with an emphasis on their international cooperation promotion functions. The article considers the global sports in the context of their peacemaking, competitive and communicative functionalities and finds that they make a valuable contribution to the global sustainable development related interests in the following five aspects: people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership, i.e. facilitate the UN goals being attained in the sustainable development domain; contribute to the peacemaking efforts of Russia in many foreign policy matters including the peace and global security assurance; advance the international cooperation; ensure governance of law in defending athlete’s interests; secure high living standards; facilitate the human potential and human capital mobilisation and facilitation efforts; contribute to the Russian national interests and strategic national priorities being defended; strengthen the Russia’s global positions as one of the global leaders; and advance the Russian policies in the humanitarian domain including the initiatives to popularise the national culture and historical heritage.