After their qualification for this year’s World Cup, the Ivory Coast’s national team, including players from the north and south, addressed all of their fellow citizens, asking the warring factions to lay down their weapons and to put an end to the conflict that has shattered their country. After Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown a few years ago, Brazil’s football team acted as an ambassador for the United Nations’ Brazilian-led peacekeeping forces.