By Peter H. Koepf

So they’ll take place after all. The Euro 2012 football championships in Poland and Ukraine – the latter being a country where a jailed opposition leader fears she won’t survive her incarceration and the human rights of many other government critics are violated with impunity. Even players like Germany captain Philipp Lahm and coach Joachim Löw expressed their outrage at the abuses in the host country when Yulia Tymoshenko’s injuries became public. Swiftly, some members of the political class used the general outrage as a welcome opportunity for grandstanding.

Despite it all, 16 football matches will soon be held in Lviv, Kharkov, Donetsk and Kiev, including the final on July 1. That’s a good thing, because boycotts of sporting events for political reasons are just as shortsighted as the decisions of sport associations to award these events to dictatorships.  

Would fewer people have been killed, if the 1978 World Cup had been canceled? The Soviet Union withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988 had nothing to do with the boycott of the Moscow Olympics eight years before. When France’s foreign minister stayed away from the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Olympic Games, he probably harmed his country more than he awed the Chinese.

Still, some politicians have announced they won’t travel to Ukraine. Members of the EU Commission will stay away from matches in Ukraine, as will Germany’s president and an array of his counterparts. Most likely we’ll see fewer politicians in the stands than normal at such events, and that’s a good thing.

Among the worst aggravations at sports events are the politicians who (often equipped with free tickets) just hang out in the VIP section. They don’t really care about football – but more about the photos showing their presence. Politicians and their entourages should donate their tickets to the fans and do the jobs they were elected to do.

Taking the Ukrainian case to the European Court of Human Rights would be a useful step, though one entailing lots of work. Traveling to Ukraine (without entering a stadium) to reason with the regime and speak with the opposition would also be a task for politicians, and not only during Euro 2012. Indeed, rapping international sports officials on the knuckles before they make their sometimes politically and always commercially motivated decisions would also be a job for our elected officials.

Politicians belong in the arena of political decision making. Once they have done their job, football players can concentrate on what they do best in the sporting arena – playing the beautiful game.