Sportsmen giving in to the temptations of big bucks, and making news for off-field reasons. Where has the pursuit of goals and fair practice gone
Events over the past week or so in England have made me wonder not just about cricket, but all sports on the planet. I am asking myself ‘do I really care anymore?’ Let me put it another way: I have reached the point where I do not care anymore about cricketers who use social networking websites to vent their feelings about being dropped, I do not care anymore about cricketers who play for three different teams in a year and I reached my saturation point a long time ago with modern footballers — English ones at that — whose mainstream activities would appear to be more nocturnal than sport-based.
This is a rant that also includes the medium of newspapers to publicise the salacious stories they think we are interested in reading. I don’t care about Wayne Rooney, I don’t care about Peter Crouch, I don’t care about football. I don’t have a favourite team so it does not hurt me when Manchester United win or lose.
I do care about those poor souls who pay large sums of money to support their teams, those people who have sons who want to watch football being played by a cast of overpaid ham actors, but who cannot see the wider picture. Idols who become fallen heroes. What purpose does a footballer have other than earning obscene sums of money to kick around a ball? Some would say that their purpose is to act like a dullard so that their antics will get them photographed, and then you have their real role in society — to fill newspapers with pictures and stories!
The latest allegations of match-fixing levelled against some of the Pakistan cricketers not only casts cricket in a bad light, it also has another damaging effect in that commercial entities do not want to be associated with a less than trustworthy product.
The knock-on effect of this latest episode of alleged match-fixing will have a serious effect on money coming into the game. I am talking about legal money. Sponsors of the Pakistan cricket team are already pulling out. There were empty seats in Cardiff for the T20 match between England and Pakistan. Cricket fans are voting with their feet. They do not care anymore for a team which has allegedly broken all the rules of fair play. They care for the game because they are cricket fans, but they do not care for any of the miscreants involved in the sordid mess.
Cricket has undergone a metamorphosis with the arrival of T20 and specially the IPL. It is no longer cricket — it is show business — and I do not care anymore about results or who wins or who scores runs or gets wickets because it is irrelevant. I do care about parents at home who want their kids to play cricket because they want them to have a sporting life. What kind of world are we introducing youngsters into?
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It is a sporting Armageddon that lies in wait for promising youngsters and we all have a duty to nurture young talent away from temptation. The problem is that the trappings have taken over from the core values. There is too much to be gained from being on the periphery. There are fast bucks to be made. The sad aspect about the modern way moving away from Corinthian values is that we are all living in a Catch-22 situation.
I still believe that golf is the only sport —not entirely blemish-free — which is a game of integrity and honour. There is always room for cheating, but once a cheat in golf and the name sticks for life. As the adage goes, “you can cheat the taxman, you can cheat on your wife, but never cheat at golf... it is too big a price to pay!”
The antics of Tiger Woods have tainted not so much the game, but he himself as a bastion of wholesomeness. So ask me about which sport I like most and you can guess my answer. I do not care about any sport that is defined by results. I care about those who are taking part in the pursuit of goals and enjoyment and fair practice. Altruistic it may sound, but I don’t care if you disagree.
Alan Wilkins is a TV broadcaster for ESPN Star Sports. Inside Edge appears every alternate week