Editor's Blog Jun 20th 2012
The Not So Beautiful Game
What’s is the point of watching twenty-two grown men running after and kicking around an air filled sphere, made out of porcine dermis for ninety minutes? Ninety minutes of your life gone, on something that ultimately does not give you any financial gain or enrich you academically or even teaches you any life lessons.
The thing about football (not the American idea of football, as in that game the ball is oval and is carried) is that it is followed by millions, if not billions of people, of which I am not one of them.
Why don’t I follow football? I guess it’s because I cannot stomach what the game has become. Over paid under performing falling over for no apparent reason. The modern footballer has become a well-manicured ridiculous hairstyle sporting Prima Donna, who burst into tears at the first miss of a penalty shot.
And that is just the footballers, other people that are on the list are the managers, self centred egotistical unable to take criticism, who pander to the nouveau riche. Managerial boards, that their sole aim in life is to squeeze every single penny they can from the paying masses.
The ruling bodies are corrupt and ruled by an Iron Fist, covered in a velvet glove that is only extended to pick up paycheques or give a back hand slap to anyone who dares question their motives.
The moment football became about the money and not the game, that’s when it became apparent to me, like all games that can be betted on, that match fixing either by referees who sit in the pockets of the highest bidders or the actual players throwing the game.
Corruption in professional sports is not limited to football, but has transcended into cricket (never known how that works) and boxing, which has seen top-flight bouts ticket sales and following wane over the last 20 years, almost spelling the death knell for the sport.
Cheating has no limits for countries; I recall Spain’s basketball team for the Para Olympics, where they fielded a team whose only disability is a total lack of morality in the quest to profit from the gold medals and ultimately money.
Sports that have been infiltrated by syndicates are evident, when goals are disallowed and decisions go against the better man or woman. They are so blatant that it’s almost comical.
No, give me a sport where two competitors can beat each other to a pulp so the evidence is plain to see. I will go one step further and call for the revival of Gladiatorial games, where the loser dies and the winner takes the fame and gold pieces. And I will be betting for the best man.
Ed.
