Sports mad

When I was young I played any sport I could. Soccer, gaelic football, rugby, anything. Then I grew out of it. As they say, when I became a man I put away childish things. Now sport is different. It is all about money and diverting people from thinking about the main issues that affect their lives. Look at this Lebron James circus. I never heard of this guy until last week. Since then he has filled the US papers and the TV screens. More than half the world is starving, the planet is being polluted and heated up to the point of destruction, the capitalist system is rotten from end to end, and they choose to fill the papers and screens with some basket ball player. Of course this is a conscious choice. There is complete logic in what they are doing. If they can keep the people thinking about sport and million dollar players then they can keep them from thinking about who runs the country, about how their wages and benefits are being cut, how working peoples taxes are used to bail out the rich. It is a class question and a question of control. It is part of the struggle for the consciousness of the working class.

When I lived in Ireland and was an organizer I was always trying to get a local respected man involved in the struggle. He managed the town's soccer team. When I would get on to him in the street he would always wave his newspaper at me and shout:"I stick to the back pages." Meaning the sports pages in the paper. Too many people stick to the back pages.

So what should we as socialists say about professional sport? Off the top of my head I would first say that there should be no advertising of any kind in sport. Look at the obscenity of professional players who walk around like human billboards. Then I would say there should be no professional sport of any kind. It should all be amateur. This would enormously reduce the pressure to perform and with this reduce the pressure to drugs and steroids. With that there should be a huge investment in sports facilities in the neighborhoods and schools and colleges.

Along with this anybody who chooses to play sports has to study the history of the sport they play and of all sports. In particular the racism that was central to all sports for centuries. The exploitation of the most skilled by the ruling classes, from the gladiators to the present day athletes in soccer, football, golf, baseball, tennis etc.

Sport throws up moments of extreme art. I remember watching a friend playing in a soccer final in Ireland when he pulled off a move that left supporters on both sides breathless. And both sides and their supporters rose to applaud him. Such beautiful moments get less and less as money and technology linked to money dominate more and more. Winning at all costs is directly linked to the money and profit that drives sport. It is less and less an art.

No I am convinced. Like the health care industry. We have to take the profit motive out of sport. It has to be part of the day to day lives of all who want to participate and there has to be a place for all no matter how skilled or unskilled to play their part.

I was asked today would I be watching the world cup final. I was in a grumpy mood and did not particularly like the person who asked me. so I said:"What? Are you suggesting I should waste my afternoon watching a bunch of millionaires kicking a round object which whole groups of scientists have worked on to make more easily kicked around." This was an ultra left response. but sometimes I cannot resist indulging myself. I apologize.

Then did you hear the one about George Best, the Belfast man whom Pele said was the best footballer in the world. He was very physically attractive and in the sixties when he played he broke the mould of the old British footballer of conservative attitude, dress and demeanor. He was cool. He was hip. He was very popular with his then unheard of long hair and beard in the English league. Once he was asked about his life style and how he should cut back on his shenigans or his career, not to say his life would come to a premature end. He responded: "I gave up drink and sex once. It was the worst twenty minutes of my life." I should not joke about this. He killed himself with drink. He was a very bad example. I suppose the sneaking admiration I have for him is his footballing genius and his refusal to cut his hair and to shave his beard and to bow the knee, the fact that the establishment elitist pro royalty clique who ran English football could not break him. The talking heads on British TV who go on and blather about soccer will still not give him his due.

Sean.

Sean.