Born to Play

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.