Populist Tactics: Ramzan Kadyrov’s use of football as a political tool during the 2018 FIFA World Cup

The rise to prominence of populists claiming to represent the interests of the ‘people’ in their bid to overcome the repressive ‘elite’ has proved to be one of the key political issues of modern times (Caiani and Della Porta, 2011). To increase their appeal and shape public discourses in their favour, right-wing populist leaders have attempted to harness the potential of popular socio-cultural domains. As the most popular sport in the world, football is one such domain that leaders in Turkey, Hungary and beyond, have made considerable efforts to exploit for their political benefit (Goldblatt, 2019). Although football’s connections with politics have been widely examined, the sport’s relationship with right-wing populism has only recently begun to receive serious scholarly attention (Molnar and Whigham, 2019). Therefore, this paper first evaluates several ways in which right-wing populist leaders have attempted to utilise football’s mass appeal to further their political agendas. The establishment of this broader context facilitates a closer analysis of the relationship between football and right-wing populist politics in Chechnya during the 2018 FIFA World Cup. To do so, this paper discusses the strategic use of football by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov during the tournament. Though rarely categorised as a right-wing populist himself, Kadyrov has however commonly employed ‘populist tactics’ to increase his popularity and project a favourable public image, both domestically and on the international stage (Rodina and Dligach, 2019:96). This analysis aims to position Kadyrov’s approach within a wider framework for examining the use of football as a political tool by leaders employing right-wing populist ‘tactics’ in a range of contexts.