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Geopolitics
How tracksuit diplomacy can help you reach your goals
Once the preserve of men in pinstripes, international sports stars have redefined the art of diplomacy. Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff explains the new rules of the game, and how business leaders can benefit from using similar tactics.
Rapid read:
- Sports diplomacy is a highly effective tool that is built on the foundations of transparency, authenticity, and the universal language of sport.
- Sports diplomats like Mané draw on their networks and standing, as well as the goodwill they have accumulated, to ease friction, change attitudes, and shift understandings.
- Sports diplomats use representation to engage with people around their identities, about places, contexts, values, ideals, and ideas.
The art of sports diplomacy
In 2005, in the midst of a civil war, the Ivory Coast, led by superstar striker Didier Drogba, qualified for the FIFA World Cup for the first time by beating Sudan.
Immediately afterward, Drogba made an impromptu appeal for peace and forgiveness.
Speaking to camera, flanked by the team, Drogba said: “We proved today that all Ivorians can coexist and play together with a shared aim: to qualify for the World Cup. We promised you that the celebrations would unite the people. Today, we beg you on our knees. Please lay down your weapons and hold elections.”
The appeal was successful, if only for a short while.
Sports diplomats like Drogba rank among the world’s most effective communicators, negotiators, and representatives. They show agility and flexibility on and off the field.
The logistical complexity and geopolitical tensions surrounding this year’s FIFA World Cup put sports diplomacy firmly back in the spotlight.
Professionals in any field are finding it increasingly difficult to engage effectively with international colleagues and to work smoothly with impact across borders.
More than half of CEOs surveyed by EY-Parthenon in March and April 2026 reported geopolitical tensions as a major business risk. Two-thirds of CEOs reported that trust issues negatively affected their business dealings, according to PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey.
In addition, a global workforce spanning five generations makes it tricky to navigate diverse habits, cultural references, and moral perspectives.
Leaders need to be diplomats as well as decision-makers and managers. How should they approach this role, and what valuable lessons can they draw from the world of sport?
Sports diplomacy’s people project
When French ambassador to the US, J J Jusserand, who served in Washington from 1903 until 1925, sought out sports to enhance his diplomatic game, he turned to tennis.
He built a deep friendship with US President Theodore Roosevelt and, as part of the Tennis Cabinet, the two discussed business after matches.
The relationships, trust, and amitié built were later leveraged during the First World War, when Jusserand lobbied the US government and private citizens, such as Roosevelt, to help France.
Sports diplomacy is a highly effective tool that is built on the foundations of transparency, authenticity, and the universal language of sport.
It occurs when people embrace the three acts of diplomacy – communication, representation, and negotiation – through the sporting prism, engaging in cultural, technical, or knowledge transfer with others.
Like sports diplomats, business leaders can deliver impact through the art of engaging with people.
At its core, it is a people project and an investment in improving relationships. Think of it as a Swiss army knife for sporting and international relations.
It can drive trade, tourism, development, and international investment, build brand identity, and create new ways to engage with global audiences.
State-driven sports diplomacy is the most understood and spotlighted form, spearheaded by an officially credentialed government representative.
Formal sports diplomacy, as it is known, could involve hosting a mega event like the FIFA World Cup or the Olympic Games.
It could be gathering heads of state around a major sports competition, or a sporting initiative driven by a ministry of foreign affairs or embassy. More simply, it could be a national team or elite athlete representing their country in international competition.
However, non-state stakeholders, such as leagues, teams, athletes, coaches, the media, sponsors, and fans also engage in what is known as informal sports diplomacy.
For example, take how a professional football club like Borussia Dortmund, with more than a dozen international players or staff, engages in communication, representation, and negotiation to better understand one another, foment chemistry, and work together toward the larger team goal.
Three rules of the diplomacy game for leaders
Communicate like Kylian Mbappé
Sports diplomats know the importance of clearly communicating their ideals and values, and of remaining on message.
They are effective because they are authentic in how they engage with their audiences, how they seek out ways to be relatable, and how they try to inspire others.Â
Footballers in France were long said to have “une langue du bois” – a wooden tongue – during their press conferences. They rarely said much of consequence. A new generation led by Kylian Mbappé rewrote the script.
Since bursting onto the global stage at the 2018 World Cup, Mbappé has defied expectations of what a footballer should do and say.
He has become a skilled communicator since becoming captain of the national team, articulating to audiences at home and abroad what it means to be French.
In a June 2026 Vanity Fair article, Mbappé artfully discussed the national psyche and what it meant to him to represent the nation. “I think we are a fantastic country that inspires the world and conveys enormous values and inspires through its culture,” he said.
Like many diplomats, he did not shy away from tough questions that required nuanced responses.
When asked why he and other players urged people to vote during the June 2024 snap elections as the far right threatened to take power in the National Assembly, Mbappé said they were citizens first, players second.
The goal: communicating authentically, like MbappĂ©, helps professionals articulate an organization’s values, objectives, and position to internal teams and external audiences, fostering and strengthening working relationships and brand identity.Â
Negotiate like Sadio Mané
Negotiation is not just about brokering deals or signing contracts; it’s an important tool of diplomacy that can build bridges and help resolve conflict.
It is about continual dialogue between parties, using leverage and influence to work towards a common goal or agreement.
Take the way Senegalese veteran international and Al-Nassr star Sadio Mané responded to a team crisis during the January 2026 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) final against Morocco.
The drama-filled final extended into injury time, and after a video assistant referee review awarded Morocco a penalty, many of the Senegalese team walked off the field in protest.
“We have to go back and play like men,” the former African footballer of the year reasoned with his teammates. The team listened to their elder statesmen and returned to the pitch.
Mané, who won the Premier League Golden Boot during a glittering spell at Liverpool, later explained his rationale to Olympics.com: “We have to give a good image for football. I would rather lose than see something like that happen to our game.”
Sports diplomats like Mané draw on their networks and standing, as well as the goodwill they have accumulated, to ease friction, change attitudes, and shift understandings.
 The goal: negotiating like Mané can help business leaders empower their teams, engage with international stakeholders, bring everyone to the table, and encourage them to create solutions to existing roadblocks or challenges.
Represent like Mia Hamm
Sports diplomats use representation to engage with people around their identities, about places, contexts, values, ideals, and ideas.
They highlight and connect to the human condition, contribute to the community, cultivate networks, and influence others.Â
When Mia Hamm first suited up for the US women’s team in 1987, FIFA had not yet organized a World Cup for women. In the decades since earning her first cap, Hamm has become the ultimate football diplomat.
Hamm helped the US team win two FIFA world titles (1991 and 1999) and two Olympic gold medals (1996 and 2004).
“Representing your country at what we all felt was the biggest tournament we could play in was exciting, and to be the first-ever to win it was historic and enabled us to move forward and keep building the women’s game,” she told FIFA.com.
Hamm has served as the physical embodiment of the women’s game in the US. Her image was silhouetted on the logo of Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS), the precursor to the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).
She has represented the tireless effort to develop a viable women’s professional league.
A World Football Hall of Famer, she helped found Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) in 2018, four years after joining the board of directors of top Italian side A.S. Roma.
In 2020, she bought into the new NWSL expansion team, Angel City Football Club of Los Angeles.
Today, Hamm is representing Los Angeles as a community ambassador for its role as a host city for the FIFA World Cup. She says it’s, “An opportunity to inspire young players, unite fans, and highlight the tremendous growth of the sport in our region.”
The goal: representing like Hamm can help businesses grow and thrive, even in difficult circumstances. Engagement is everything when building and sustaining impactful and authentic relationships.
The dynamism of diplomacy
A dynamic set of actors contributes to different types of diplomacy. In the sports world, it is a necessary part of competition.
This dates to when sportspeople first competed across international borders more than a century ago, whether in the early Olympic Games or football friendlies.
The development of a globalized sports economy since the 1990s means diplomacy is baked into today’s sports ecosystems.
In sport, we see all three pillars of diplomacy in action.
Sportspeople represent in competition, whether for European Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain or 2022 World Cup winners Argentina, or as individuals or businesses, such as tennis player Naomi Osaka who competes in Nike-sponsored clothing.
Sportspeople negotiate different outcomes in competition, in relationships with stakeholders such as agents, coaches, teammates, and fans, as well as in different public perceptions and understandings of their sport or identities.
They communicate widely through their actions and words with international teammates, staff, officials, fans, sponsors, and media.
The ability of sports diplomacy to bring people together and facilitate discussions, the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and cultures is not a magic wand, as the Drogba example illustrated.
But it is a useful, proven tool for strengthening ties and relationships, developing international business and opportunity, and storytelling.
So, what does it take to become a sports diplomat?
Diplomats in tracksuits
Pinstripes were historically the fashion choice of government-credentialed diplomats, but today’s sports diplomats are more likely to wear tracksuits.
Take the example of former French international and three-time co-captain of the University of Washington Huskies basketball team, Katia Foucade.
The point guard developed her sports diplomacy skills while living out her American dream of playing and studying in the US. Through conversations with her US teammates, she helped them understand modern France and its diversity, shaped by its colonial history.
“I was a French ambassador, but I was also an ambassador for my culture because I am French, I was born in Paris, but I’m Black,” she says in my book, Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA.
Foucade brought traits of French basketball to her team: a mental toughness developed during her training at France’s elite national sports school, on-court maturity, and unselfish dedication to teamwork.
“I like to be a leader. But I don’t have to be the one making the last shot,” she diplomatically noted, observing how being in the spotlight seemed important to her US teammates.
“I knew my role, and I was very happy doing so.” This exchange was a two-way street. She learned the American-style mentality of hope, that anyone can win, and the dedication to work on her craft through tireless training.
It paid off. In 1993, she helped France to its first EuroBasket podium finish since 1970.
Sports diplomats like Foucade learn to become communicators who can represent and negotiate with diverse audiences, who invest in people and their communities, and can lead pathways forward even through the thorniest of scenarios.
Like sports diplomats, business leaders can deliver impact through the art of engaging with people: the ability to work well with international colleagues, to lead diverse teams, and engage with global counterparts in ways that allow individuals and organizations to thrive.
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