By investing in a sporting event the magnitude of the FIFA World Cup as part of its public and cultural diplomacy exercise, South Africa was able to promote the country’s passion for an international game and to portray South Africa as a hospitable nation and host to the world.

...There can be no doubt that chipolopolo’s victory is a victory for Southern Africa and in that respect the region also feels and owns the Africa Cup." Chipolopolo’s triumph has significantly enhanced Zambia’s visibility everywhere in the European communities as a major tool for the country’s public diplomacy with rave reviews in the media.

Gradual though South Africa's rise may be, Miller Matola, chief executive of Brand South Africa, which is tasked with projecting a positive image of the country, does not take it lightly. He said it was one of the reasons South Africa was entering 2012 in a "position of strength".

More than just being an element of post-Cold War soft power or as part of a country’s diplomatic strategy, a closer study into the game of football throws up several important characteristics that could inform our understanding of the political paradigm of the ASEAN community and its relations with the rest of the world.

And the Gulf state of Qatar — an obscure patch of sand in 1971 — is emerging as an international sports giant with a relentless appetite for headline-grabbing events, including hosting an updated edition of table tennis-as-political icebreaker.

Hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup was supposed to provide an unalloyed boon to Brazil’s global image. Yet tournament preparations have highlighted many structural weaknesses in Latin America’s largest country, and predictions that the World Cup will deliver enormous economic benefits should be treated with skepticism.

As the government slowly ousts the traffickers and regains the upper hand — part of an organized cleanup ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro — companies are starting to understand that there is cash in what was once chaos. Taking products, services and jobs back into the pacified favelas is the latest challenge facing a city hoping to reverse decades of neglect as it prepares to host not just the Olympics but also the soccer World Cup final in 2014.

The link between football, identity, unity and nationhood is so strong that many newly-found states, or states divided by war, have used the soft power of football to achieve hard political aim.