A 2012 paper presented by Stuart Murray, professor of international relations at Australia’s Bond University, aimed to define sports diplomacy in detail. “Sports diplomacy falls under the wide umbrella of public diplomacy,” wrote Murray, a global fellow at the Academy of Sport. The athletic variety blends the potentially grim, dry and formal nature of international relations with entertainment on a grand scale. “Morocco invested in its sports diplomacy approaches by hosting the Africa Cup of Nations football championship. Examples of this, he said, include Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup and France’s operation of the 2024 Summer Olympics.