Slippery Under Foot: The Shifting Political Dynamics within South African Football, 1973-1976

The landscape of professional football in South Africa was drastically altered with the arrival of the National Party's multinational sports policy in the early 1970s. While multinational football was greeted in many quarters as a successful step in breaking down previous barriers to competition between the different racial groups, the controversial nature of these highly racialised encounters led to calls for full integration on the playing field - notably from some white football administrators. This paper will argue that such calls need to be considered on the backdrop of broader developments, in particular events at FIFA's 1974 congress in Frankfurt. During the latter the future expulsion of South Africa from world football's governing body became a distinct possibility. Consequently white football administrators changed strategy and pushed for further integration from the top down. This culminated in a series of quasi-international matches played against an incoming touring team from Argentina in March 1976. The significance of this tour lay in the fact that the South African team was racially mixed, with government approval - a first for football in the country. This event is contextualised within the shifting football landscape in South Africa at the time.