There is a headline on the front page of the state newspaper this morning which says, "Premier cheats". For a moment I actually hoped that they had finally seen reason with respect to a certain politician but it turned out to be concerned with some football club or other which had been cheating.
I am not sure what the fuss was about. Any 'sport' where millions of dollars are involved, where players are bought and sold like slaves in a marketplace, where more than mere dollars are bet on the outcome of a match, where immense salaries need to be paid to non-playing executives and where there is a general culture of corruption is bound to have some cheats. This is big business. However it is portrayed it is not a game. It is certainly not a friendly game. Television ratings and advertising revenue depend on the entertainment value as much as the supposed skill of those involved.
Yes, there is some skill attached. There is some skill attached to a lot of things but, for some reason, society values the capacity to kick a bit of leather around more highly than most things. It has always been like that. Once it actually mattered. Your very survival depended on your ability to outrun danger or catch your dinner. I would have been dead long ago, if indeed I had survived at all.
Obviously it still matters - but for the wrong reasons. National or state pride should not depend on the ability of a very few to kick a bit of leather around. It should not depend on how many gold medals are obtained at international sporting events - and gaining those should not depend on performance enhancing drugs, other forms of cheating or huge salaries or endorsements.
Further inside the paper there is an article about Juan Antonio Samaranch, late President of the International Olympic Committee. Under his stewardship the Olympics descended even further into a commercial, drug ridden crevasse where bribery and corruption is now rife. How can there be any national pride in participation in something like this.
It is a sort of war - a war we would be better off losing than winning.
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5 comments:
There might be some real news in the papers somewhere - on about page 11 - I get so sick of sporting stuff counting as 'news'. Now a Premier cheating - that might count as news!
Sorry, but I disagree with you here. News is what interests people, not what an elite minority considers important. This is a huge story and affects the fabric of Australian society and our ethics. It will induce a lot of people to have a good long think about the idea of winning at all costs (which can only be a good thing). Sport is a major part of the economy, and this scandal will also potentially put jobs at risk, both through the risk of the club folding in Melbourne and from longer-term implications for the image of rugby league elsewhere on the east coast. I think this is 'newsworthy'.
You don't have to apologise Tony! I don't agree with you but you are entitled to your opinion.
From my point of view sport should be sport - not busines. People should not be paid horrendous sums to encourage other people to be couch potatoes.:-)
I almost agree with Tony: it affects the fabric of our society, and will induce a lot of people to have a good long think about the idea of "winning at all costs".
At that stage, most followers will agree that if dishonesty is required to win kudos, then dishonesty is ok by them. "Winning at all costs" is what they are about.
Sport in Australia is disgusting: all these old men profiting from young men's bodies.
That is the economy that Tony is defending.
One of the things that puzzles me is that this actually goes on all the time. There seems to be a culture of "it's all right as long as you do not get caught/court".
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