Is it Abbott and Dutton who are politicising the grand final by getting worked up about a mild song by a moderate mainstream artist that contains zero blue language and has a positive message about letting people be free to be?

They’ve set the scene for the poor bloke to get booed on Sunday. Or maybe it will go the other way and people will get behind the rapper (who’s apparently straight).

The 177,400,000 people who watched the official version of Same Love on YouTube certainly had no problem with it.

Muhammad Ali’s decision not to fight in Vietnam remains the emblematic study of a sportsman using his position for a political statement.

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?” asked Ali, who copped hell at the time but not enough of it to bother him.

African-American runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s protest at the 1968 Olympics 200m medal ceremony came to symbolise the Black Power movement entering the mainstream.

The boycotts of both the 1980 Moscow Olympics (protesting the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan) and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics (a tit-for-tat response by eastern bloc nations) were furiously debated, as many athletes in their prime lost the opportunity to achieve their dreams.

Likewise, when Cathy Freeman first draped herself in the Aboriginal flag after winning the 200m at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, some took the view she had denigrated the Australian flag. Freeman got support from unexpected quarters.

“I remember saying that if she’s comfortable in embracing her own flag, then she’s entitled to do it,” recalls Jeff Kennett, then Victorian premier, who is less comfortable about the AFL’s support for same-sex marriage, saying they “should not be the leaders of social policy in Australia”.

However, anti-racism stances taken by St Kilda’s Nicky Winmar, Essendon’s Michael Long and Sydney’s Adam Goodes all had powerful remedial effects on society, with both codes leading social policy change with their annual indigenous rounds, designed to confront ugly attitudes within the crowds.

These games are not resented as black armband political events but warmly embraced celebrations.

Anthony Mundine’s refusal to stand for the anthem before his fight with Danny Green earlier this year — “It’s a racist anthem and doesn’t represent our people,” he said — got a colder reception, probably because Mundine, though heartfelt, comes across as an attention seeker.

His simultaneous condemnation of Jessica Mauboy singing the national anthem before the bout — “They are just using her because she is black” — carried a strain of venom for which there was no antidote.

Mundine was trying to localise the stance taken by black NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and teammate Eric Reid, who last year sat back and didn’t stand for the anthem to highlight the killing of black citizens by police.

Their protest was little noticed but Kaepernick did explain at the time that he believed police were “getting away with murder”.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of colour,” he said.

Kaepernick and Reid decided to take it further by lining up for the anthem but taking to their knees, heads bowed.

As Reid wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Times this week: “We chose to kneel because it’s a respectful gesture. I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy.”

This occurred before Donald Trump was elected president, but then came the 2017 Charlottesville riots, in which Trump refused to outright condemn the white supremacists.

A few more players began to kneel, or raise their fists, but it was hardly a movement.

And it had little to do with anti-Trump sentiment — until last week, when Trump was campaigning for a conservative senator in Alabama.

Apropos of nothing at all, except trying to generate himself a patriotic ratings spike, he launched himself at the negligible band of kneelers and, in doing, elevated it into an all-consuming national debate.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s fired,’” said Trump in his opening volley.

This was followed by Trump slamming NFL players as rich and privileged elites. He claimed ordinary Americans were staying away from games “because they love our country” and didn’t want to be confronted with such anti-American sentiment.

The outcome was that from the start of last weekend, up to 200 players used pre-game anthems not in support of Black Lives Matter, but to reject Trump’s attempt to dictate the terms of what it means to be a good American.

Trump retweeted a photo of a seated American serviceman who had lost both his legs in war, with the line: “I wonder what this BRAVE American would give to stand on his OWN two legs just ONCE MORE for our #Anthem?”

By then Trump was in an unprecedented — even for him — Twitter frenzy, accusing the protesting players of sullying the memory of fallen soldiers: “Courageous Patriots have fought and died for our great American Flag — we MUST honour and respect it! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Cincinnati Bengals, Los Angeles Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs, New Orleans Saints, Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, Baltimore Ravens, Jacksonville Jaguars, Cleveland Browns, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Miami Dolphins all got involved in some way.

Trump claimed this caused “tremendous backlash against the NFL and its players for disrespect of our Country”, and said when the Dallas team dropped to its knees the booing “was the loudest I have ever heard. Great anger”.

The wiser heads of Australian politics have kept out of getting too close to linking the Yes/No campaign to this weekend’s finals, but Trump believes he has hit upon something that serves him well, politically, by calling out sportsmen for what he sees as un-American activities.

At a White House press briefing during the week, spokeswoman Sarah Sanders found that the US teetering on the brink of war with North Korea was a side issue.

Asked why Trump was incessantly tweeting about the NFL but had zero tweets for Puerto Rico, a US territory that had just been shredded by a hurricane, Sanders said: “He’s not emphasising sports. You’re missing the entire purpose of the message. He’s emphasising something that should be unifying. Celebrating and promoting patriotism in our country is something that should bring everybody together.”

Alex Smith, the (white) Kansas City Chiefs quarterback, stood for the anthem last week, but did not think Trump was unifying the nation. “It’s the same guy who couldn’t condemn violent neo-Nazis,” he told the Kansas City Star. “And he’s condemning guys taking a knee during the anthem.”

How deep do these waters really run? Some of the US players have said they do not intend to routinely disturb anthem ceremonies, saying it was limited to last weekend.

And America, after all, has such a beautiful anthem. Black artists Jimmy Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, Jennifer Hudson and Beyoncé Knowles have all belted out big versions of The Star-Spangled Banner.

Yet it’s not about the anthem; it’s not even about the flag. And it’s especially not treason. It’s just an exercise of expression, a treasured American right that the audience can choose to accept or reject.

Says Kennett: “You’ll remember when politicians used to present cups at games? They got booed.”

He says we should remember that sport is about “the millions who support one club or another, who are often low-income earners who go to games to get away from the drudgery of life”.

At this weekend’s kick-off and bounce down, those with tickets will care about nothing but which end the ball’s heading.