The Gleneagles agreement was designed to ensure that the integrity of sport in the commonwealth was not jeopardised by the apartheid that had been introduced to South African sport following its ability to self govern as part of the British Empire.1
The apartheid was designed to split peoples up into groups of black, white, coloured and Asian, it stripped black Africans of their right to vote within white communities, allowing them only to have citizenship rights within “reservations” that were set up specifically for them.
It was decided unanimously by Commonwealth Prime Ministers and Presidents that, as part of their continuing campaign against apartheid, competitions or activities in the interests of sport would be depressed between any teams or individuals from South Africa. It was seen that, by allowing any activities to go ahead, the publics' opinion towards racism may be altered, especially with regards to the young, or it may be seen as being in support of racism, which is contrary to what the Commonwealth Nations had laid out in the Singapore Declaration of Commonwealth Principles (1971), where it was agreed that they (as the members of the commonwealth) should seek “understanding among nations, assist in the elimination of discrimination based on differences of race, colour or creed, maintain and strengthen personal liberty”.
The agreement was used to put pressure on South Africa to change its policies on how it treated races individually. This meant that all Common wealth countries should not visit South Africa in order to participate in sport, however, New Zealand accepted an invitation to tour in 1976 which was met with wide criticism. This was due to comments by their Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, who suggested that he could not restrict the freedom of his people to travel abroad and that he believes that sport and politics should be kept separate.2
This raises an interesting perspective, as sport can be defined by the dictionary as an 'amusement, diversion, fun, a game … pastime, esp. an athletic or outdoor pastime', it does not describe it as being a policy influence or that something that has a place in politics. However, it is perfectly reasonable, that on an international level, the Commonwealth may wish to keep its image as one that see sport as being a tie that can connect every human in understanding each other. With the apartheid, the South African Government have left out and diminished the freedoms of its people and it appears that the international community has used the Gleneagles Agreement to let them and the world know that they did not support this policy.
The agreement seems to have been used as a catalyst to give backing to the resistance groups (non-violent or otherwise) to oppose apartheid on all grounds; during many years of this, the negotiation to stop apartheid happened in 1993.
This agreement has also accomplished the maintained idea that racism within sport is very unwelcome, and that any country that wishes to proceed in the abomination that degrades humans everywhere will not be tolerated by the international sporting community. It helped sport become a place in which racism would not be tolerated and would be free from such intolerances.
