Amon Chizema delivers an insightful talk about the collective impact of sportspeople representing their nations. Citing examples from across countries–sports luminaries such as Rong Guotuan in China and Didier Drogba in Uganda–he highlights the power of sports to unite people. In this talk, he drives home the point that there has never been a better time to harness the unifying, uplifting power of sports.
About Amon Chizema:
Dr. Amon Chizema is Professor of Corporate Governance and International Business at Loughborough University and serves as the Director of Internationalisation at Loughborough Business School. He earned his PhD in Corporate Governance from the same university. He also holds an Extraordinary Professorship at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), University of Pretoria, South Africa. In addition, he held the positions of Professor of Corporate Governance and Strategy and Director of Research for the Department of Strategy and International Business at the University of Birmingham from 2015 to 2019. Follow Amon Chizema Here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-chizema-amon-10b4a15/
About INK:
INK is India’s preeminent platform for the exchange of cutting-edge ideas and inspiring stories. Known for the annual INK Conference, INK Asia, INK Salons, and programs such as INK Fellows, we are a community that accelerates the journeys of game changers. Connect with us: http://inktalks.com
Right uh like you heard my name is Amon I’m from Zimbabwe so you can trust I’m not here to spy about world cricket because we didn’t qualify anyway we have heard about how Sports develops individuals how they become successful and how they become uh icons in their own field the
Financial remuneration that comes to them but I want to talk about something different I want to talk about the collective of the sports people when they come together as a team and represent their nation and the power they have collectively to build the cycle of a Nation to build Unity within
Their country so let me start by just saying when I travel to different parts of the world the first thing I’m always interested is to learn more about the country so I’m in India now let me tell you what I’ve learned in the last few hours I’ve been
Around so I’ve come to know that India is a huge country not only in terms of its population and its geographical size but it’s also big in terms of the various languages that are in the country it is also big on the diverse religions that are in the country it is
Big on a number of things which from the outset or from The Outsider you may think there’s a lot of differences but sport has got the power to bring all these people together now picture this India is in the world World Cup final Cricket well I said when
India gets there in other words I’m not saying if you guys are getting into the final if you don’t do it it’s not my fault anymore so you picture this you are in the final what is the mood in the country on the eve of the of of the
Game go a bit forward the final is now taking place everyone in the country is anxious everybody’s watching people are sharing from their houses some are in the stadium of course but there’s one thing they’re expecting a win okay they expecting to come up with a good result 11
Men clouded in blue have got the hopes of a billion people they have to deliver and that situation you are in prior to the game and during the game brings strangers to become immediate family Sports is the ability to bring people together so in my next part of
The talk I just want to take you through a few examples that we’ve seen around the world in which sport has been used to actually build uh Nations so let’s go back to 1959 in China China in the mid 20s the first half of the 20th century I
Mean never was anywhere the success of sports it was poor it was economically weak but in 1959 something changed we had earlier a talk about table tennis and a player from China by the name wrong he won the World Championships of table tennis and Ma who was the chairman of the Communist Party
In China at the time realized there was a big opportunity to bring the whole nation together they put infrastructure into this Sport and they really rallied everybody around it here is a good example of how sport was used to try and bring everybody under a common identity surrounded around the issue of
Table tennis or pingpong as they say so we’ve had the phrase ping pong democracy I’m not going to talk much more about this because the story does not end there for some of you you may know that it was ping pong which opened the debate or the discussion between USA and China
During the Cold War like I said it’s a talk for another day moving on to the 60s we have the story of Singapore where Lee kuu used the idea of creating a rugged nation in which the idea of outdoor sports the idea of outdoor activities
I’m sure you still have some of those in our in our curriculums where you have to do a bit of gardening outside walk outside he used that to the greatest strength of Singapore to try and bring everybody together it was necessary because he realized at independence from
The British that they were the Chinese in the country they were Malay and they were the Indians how do you bring all these people together and he used the power of sport to try and and do that now closer to my own home in South Africa Nelson Mandela came out of jelly in
1994 and when he came out there was a lot of anxiety in the country one section of the population was thinking what’s going to happen to us is he going to take revenge on us for putting him in the in jail for 27 years another part of
The population was excited in fact some of them were thinking this is our chance to get back at those who have been oppressing us but what did Nelson Mandela do he demonstrated Beyond no doubt that the nation Can Come Together by The Power of sport and how did he do
That as you can see in the picture there he wore the number six jersey which was the jersey that the captain of the spring box that’s the South African rugby team war and with that the idea of coming together as a nation the rainbow Nation as they speak about it today
Became a reality let’s move on I don’t know if you can identify those guys there but the guy who is in the middle holding a mic goes by the name d drar those of you who follow football you may know that DJ Drogba was the captain of
Ivory Coast he was also the key striker of Chelsea for a long period he was a lethal for those who know him he scored goals many goals but I’m not going to talk about his footballing at Chelsea I’m going to talk about the role that he played within the national team so in
2005 his country I course was at War the Muslims from the north were fighting the Christian government from the south and it was disaster during that time but it happened that in 2005 they played a game against Sudan and they qualified for the World Cup for the very
First time and in the dressing room did Drogba picked them microphone and address the nation what he spoke about was the idea that the north the South come together look what we’ve achieved today our team is composed of Muslims Christians everybody from different parts of the country and he addressed
Them the whole nation and said drop your weapons come together let’s organize elections and move forward a few weeks later the Waring parties came to the negotiating table and they achieved peace something that they’ failed to do thank you something that had they fail
To do in the past 5 years so what do we learn from this we learned a number of things from this the first one being that there is power in sport the second thing being that Sports people take responsibility for their actions and they know the power they
Have if they really want to use it now this may appear like anecdotal evidence let me talk in conclusion about a study that was carried out by some Scholars and this work was published in the American Economic Review which is the top General economics this study looked that African
Countries when they played World Cup matches where they played matches of the Africa Cup of Nations and what they found from the study was when the team won it didn’t matter with which which stage they were playing at ethnic differences remember in Africa there’s a lot of ethnic and tribal groups tensions
Between ethnic groups went down and they went down even further if the team was composed of diverse players from different parts of the country from different parts of the religion and this just shows us that we can harness the power of sport a typical practical explanation here would be if
You do have issues in the country that are so difficult to discuss during the window where you make success in sport that’s the time to bring them to the table for discussion ladies and gentlemen I thank You