By: Bikal Dhungel
Humans are born to play. Since the recorded history, they
have played in some form or other. In ancient Greece, sport used to be a
religious ceremony. This is a reason why the Olympia is located just next to
the temple of Zeus. In all cultures and empires, games were played. Some
thrived and took modern forms, some simply disappeared. Some were only played by
higher class, some were played by everybody. This culture still exists today.
Golf for example is called a sport of the rich because of its expensive equipments
and a large sized land called Golf course. Fidel Castro, a communist leader of Cuba let
all golf courses bulldozed because he thought it is a sport of rich capitalists
and doesn’t suit in a communist country, even though there are records that he played Golf with Che Guevara.
Already before the age of Globalization, the merchants and
even colonizers brought their sports to newly conquered countries. For
example it was the British who brought football to Brazil and most of South
America. British also brought Cricket to India and West Indies. How the indians
started to play Cricket learning from British was fantastically displayed
in a bollywood film called “ Lagaan “ that was nominated for Academy Award.
Today its even hard to say how many games are played in an
Olympic game. Many are added frequently. Additionally, there are Winter
Olympics, Youth Games, Paralympics, Championships in individual sports,
regional games etc. Sport has been turned to giant global business and
sportsmen and women are earning highest salaries among all sectors. Christiano Ronaldo
was transferred for 90 Million Euros from Manchester United to Real Madrid in
2009. Michael Jordan earned more money from advertising NIKE than all the NIKE factory
workers in Malaysia combined. Womens however still earn much less than their
male counterparts. Once upon a time Brazilian women footballers earned 35 $/day
and didn’t even have good shoes while men earned millions. History books also
tell that the military dictators banned them from playing football. Once they
won the World Cup, wage bargaining took place and today, the wages are not that
bad in comparison to the past. Even in American Basketball, women earn around
60,000 dollars per year today while Lebron James earns 20 Million a year. Unfortunately,
female athlets are also judged by their looks than how they perform. How good
their breasts look like or how they look in bikini determines their success to
a large extent.
Sports is also largely politicised. It started from 1936
Berlin Olympics when Hitler used the Olympics to spread his Nazi propaganda and
to prove the superiority of Aryan race. He strongly hold his view until his
arrogance was destroyed by a black athlete from the US called Jesse Owens who
won 4 Gold Medals and hailed a hero in Berlin. Named after him, there is a street called ‘Jesse Owens Alle’ next to
Olympic Stadium in Berlin and few schools are named ‘Jesse Owens Schule’. Along
with political propaganda, Nationalism is linked with sports as well. In 1970
FIFA world cup qualifying game between El Salvador and Honduras, violence
erupted and later Salvadorian Army launched attack against Honduras. This was
later called ‘a Football War’. However, there were other reasons behind the war as
well. In the height of Yugoslavian war, when Red Star Belgrade went to play in
Zagreb, Croatia they chanted “Death to Croatia, long live the Serbs”. Due to war
between Argentina and the UK, matches between these two countries are more
political. The football match played in June 22, 1986 in the quarter final of
World Cup, Diego Maradona scored the legendary ‘Hand of God’ goal and Argentina
won the game with 2-1. In 2002 world cup, England won against Argentina with a
penalty kick scored by David Beckham and the English called the victory ‘Foot
of God’.
There are other issues in Football like Hooliganism, Racism
etc. Samuel Eto left the game while playing after being called Monkey.
Especially, players with dark skins are often facing racial abuses. Also fans
are frequently attacked. During 2006 World Cup in Germany, there were parts of
former East Germany where few games were held, declared as ‘No Go’ for fans
with dark skin colour. Luckily no incident happened. The German people gave
their best part to show that they are in fact a multi-cultural, tolerant and
friendly country that houses the second largest number of immigrants in the
world after the United States. Recently a Greek athlete had to withdraw from
participating in London Olympics after making racist remarks. This was against
the spirit of Olympics.
But racism is declining in Football. The FIFA and Olympic Committee are dedicated
to end such acts and not to tolerate any offense. People are banned from
entering stadiums if they do so. Multi-Culturalism in sports is wanted today.
Lots of multi-cultural teams have been successful. The French football team of
1998 World Cup that largely consisted of children of immigrants won the World Cup
for the first time for France. It changed the way people looked towards
immigrants. Both Zinedin Zidane and Lilian Thuram campaigned and are still
campaigning today for more tolerance and minority rights. Not to forget, we didn’t
simply come to this stage today. Minorities had to fight a long way to
participate in nationals teams. No black guy was allowed to play in US national
baseball league for a long time. Jackie Robinson was the first black player to play major
baseball game. Even Jews were not allowed on Golf Clubs till late sixties in
America. The story of Mohammed Ali originally named Casius Clay gives us the
good picture how segregation still existed in sport. Racism might stay for a
long time to come but it would be good if sports remain free of anger, envy,
hatred, crime etc.
Sport has a capacity to bring cultures, religions and
countries together. Countries competing with each other in a friendly way also
boost the relationship between them and it can even help their economy grow,
for example by tourism. Lots of Europeans travel to other countries to watch
Champions League hence boosting the tourism sector. Sport is also linked with
other sectors like Health. Lots of sporty people in a country means lots of healthy
people. It would reduce their costs of Health Care and disease. Then hospitals
will be less crowded, there will be fewer burdens on national health care
services and the society profits as a whole. We are born to play and we should
play. The government can also help in starting this incentive.
In 1950s, Mao Zedong showed the Chinese people how to play Table Tennis. This reached
every corners of China. He declared that table tennis is going to be Chinese
national sports. It spread so rapidly that everybody started to play this game.
This is why China is so successful in Table Tennis today. There are some
interesting reasons behind why some countries are successful in some sports.
Like the Kenyans and Ethiopians or East Africans in general win most of the
Marathon races. Some people claim that, because they had to go to school far
away, or go to get water, they are used to running long distances, which makes
them naturally fit for these kinds of sports. Similarly there are other
interesting facts about Brazilian success in football. Same thing is valid for US
Basketball team, which always consists of renowned superstars. The United States
Basketball team ‘Dream Team’ has won the gold medal in almost all the Olympic Games.
In 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the ‘Dream Team’ consisted with star players like
Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Scottie Pippen, Larry Bird etc. Before playing
with Angola, the Angolan team went to take autographs from the US players. The
US won the game very easily.
Finally, many sportsmen and women have ended doing something
good for the society, by being brand ambassadors or helping directly to a
charity etc. Tiger Woods, despite damaging his public image by sex scandals, is
donating handsome amounts in charities like in Earl D Woods Scholorship Funds or
in Tiger Wood Learning Center. Lance Armstrong pledged 5 million dollars for
cancer research. David Beckham, Lionel Messi, Serena Williams etc are UNICEF Brand
Ambassadors. Michael Schumacher, 7 times Formula One champion from Hürth
(Cologne) Germany donated 10 Million dollars for the Tsunami victims in Asia. Either
the earnings from sports are too much or justifiable is another issue but many athlets
are doing good for societal causes.
Athlets also end up sometimes being a politician or entering
other sectors like Modelling or Film Industry. David Beckham is a live example.
Teenagers who couldn’t see his magic in football recognize him as a model than
as a footballer. Michael Jordan was told to run for Democratic Party candidate in the US
but he rejected by saying ‘Republicans buy tennis shoes too’. He was loyal to
his sponsor NIKE and taking a side in politics might cause the people from
other party not buying NIKE products or his ‘fly jordan’ shoes. But Lebron
James was very active in campaigning for the election of Barack Obama.
Sport has a power to enrich our society. It brings talented
people on the world stage that gives us entertainment. Unfortunately, there are
billions of people who cannot unpack their talents due to their circumstances
like poverty. Poverty prohibits people to discover their talents. One live
example is India. India, despite its large population which stands at 1.15
billion today or 1150 millions, wins less than 1 Olympic Medal per game while
Denmark, with only 4.5 million people has won 179 medals or roughly 7 medals
per game. This issue is not only valid for sports. Due to poverty, our world is
not capable of fully utilizing the potential talents people have. May be there
is an idea to cure HIV AIDS in somebody’s mind. May be somebody has an idea to
make a car that runs fully with saltwater. May be there is somebody who has a power
to unite people in a unique way and create international peace and friendship.
Unless all the people in the world are not given chances to discover their talents, not only in sports, in all fields, we will be wasting these talents.
Coming back to our topic, sport is essential. As I already
mentioned above, sports should be free of hate. We should also genuinely debate
about the limits of sports that put human lives in danger and practice the
cruelty towards animals. Extreme sports that threaten human lives to a higher
extent should be banned. Sports that display cruelty towards animals like Spanish
Bull Fighting also does not belong to a civilized society. Other sports like
hunting or killing innocent creatures should be banned as well.
Finally, the advantage of playing, and being healthy is
immeasurable. Sports keep us healthy and at the same time entertain us which is
again good for our health. We humans are born to play, so let’s play.
