The news of Diego Maradona’s death plunged the football world into grief and deprived football fans of the existence of a unique star. If we want to express this issue with the language of a geopolitician, it will be a different perception and analysis by others.
The geopolitical orientation of sport is one of the geopolitical tendencies with an artificial nature. Because sport acts as a source of power in the relationship between actors and shapes their strategies, and because this source of power has no geographical basis, when we want to discuss it in the form of geopolitics, it means a tendency with an artificial nature. The geopolitics of sport is thus conceptualized as the knowledge, acquisition, productivity, and preservation of sport as a (geographical) source of power in local, national, regional, and global relations. In other words, the use of sport and related issues as a new (geographical) source of power to achieve goals in local, national, regional and global relations is called the geopolitics of sport.
By that definition, Maradona was a (geographical) source of power for Argentina. The geographical source of power that since the game between Argentina and England with the goal later known as “Hand of God, the goal of the century” was able to provide a new and different representation of relations between the two countries after the defeat in the Falkland War for Argentina and turn a nation sadness into happiness.
Since then, Maradona has acted as a (geographical) source of power for his country and has been able to influence power relations in designing and representing his country’s strategies. On the relations between Argentina and England; Traditional rival of Argentina-Brazil (Pele); In the internal relations of the country; Introducing his country by showing the Argentine flag and so on.
In general, it can be said that sometimes people with importance and position that they can gain in various fields of science, sports, art, etc. can become (geographical) sources of power and be effective in the relationship between actors and the design of strategies. Losing people like Maradona can deprive an actor from a valuable source of power.
