More covid-related challenges in sport

More covid-related challenges in sport

It does now appear that we have more challenges in sport during the current period than ever before in global history.

In many respects, it appears that the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic and its global impact may well have spawned challenges in abundance. One is therefore forced to ponder whether the existential challenges are a direct result of the pandemic itself or that the timing has been such that events have merely come together to create the near-debilitating events that constitute today’s reality.

The Tokyo Olympics

The Tokyo Olympics, originally scheduled for 2020 but now set for this year, is the single largest global sport event impacted by the pandemic.

Even as the International Olympic Committee works assiduously to realise the Games this time around, the pandemic simply refuses to go away.

Amazingly, Japan, one of the world’s economic and technologically advanced nations, has not ventured into the production of a vaccine and has thus far proven incapable of bringing the pandemic under control within its borders.

Additionally, while the Japanese government agreed with the IOC to the one-year postponement of the Games, the population has grown increasingly dissatisfied with its inability to ease their economic and health pain consequent upon the continued spread of the pandemic.

One can readily understand the growing ennui that has overtaken the Japanese people who are seemingly irate at the seeming insensitivity of the leadership to their plight.

The continued protestations of the Japanese people may well have created ‘chinks in the armour’ of the ruling party. An article carried in The Guardian, dated 15 April 2021, reads, A senior member of Japan’s ruling party has said that cancelling the Tokyo Olympics “remains an option” if the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen.

“If it seems impossible to do it anymore, then we have to stop, decisively,” Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, said in a TV interview that has yet to be aired.

While Nikai did not call for the Games to be called off, his comments are at odds with the united front presented by the Japanese government, Tokyo 2020 organisers and the International Olympic Committee [IOC] – all of which insist that the delayed event will open as planned on 23 July.

The pandemic shows no signs of slowing in several parts of the world, while experts in Japan have warned that the country has entered a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections driven by mutant strains of the virus.

Nikai, a powerful party faction leader who was instrumental in electing Yoshihide Suga as prime minister last year, said the cancellation was “of course” an option, telling the TBS network: “If the Olympics were to spread infections, then what are the Olympics for?”

That aforementioned question actually remains unanswered even as the government and the IOC struggle to garner international health support to bolster confidence that the systems being put in place would be adequate.

But some athletes have also come out expressing their concerns, including Japanese sports personalities.

Japan’s tennis sensation, Naomi Osaka, was quoted in a BBC report dated 11 May 2021 as saying, “I’m an athlete, and of course, my immediate thought is that I want to play in the Olympics…But as a human, I would say we’re in a pandemic, and if people aren’t healthy, and if they’re not feeling safe, then it’s definitely a really big cause for concern.”

A BBC article dated 11 May 2021 informs that Rafael Nadal, ‘The 20-time Grand Slam champion, who won Olympic gold in the singles in 2008 and the doubles in 2016, says he does not yet know his schedule.

“In a normal world I will never think about missing Olympics, of course,” the Spaniard, 34, told a news conference.

“Under these circumstances, I don’t know.”’

European Soccer League

As if the challenges confronting the hosting of the Tokyo Olympics already a year late, is not enough, some greedy football club owners have decided that this is the best time, the best climate, in which to announce the launch of the European Super League (ESL).

That football has restarted in Europe ahead of much of the rest of the world, even as many European countries struggle to come to terms with the pandemic, seems to have triggered the excessive greed of an already wealthy set of clubs in the region to isolate themselves from the others, creating an exclusive organization.

The fans of several of the clubs, nine in all, immediately took to every possible media option to let their voices heard.

With immediate effect, jerseys declaring, ‘What is football without fans?’, were seen just about everywhere in England.

If any had forgotten, club owners were jolted into remembering that they are rooted in communities that have been supportive for more than a century and could easily abandon them should they continue with the ESL.

Fans led their clubs’ players into joining their objections and numerous former leading European footballers added their voices, calling for the immediate cancellation of the ESL.

With politicians, led by British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, adding their voices to the protestations, nine of the 12 clubs recanted, announcing in short order their withdrawal from the organization.

For all intents and purposes, the ESL took several years of planning but was dismantled in 48 hours, an amazing tribute to the power of sports fans in a region that has one of the strongest sporting cultures in the world.

Interestingly, the battle for and against the ESL unfolded in the midst of the pandemic, almost as though nothing else mattered.

India Premier League

Possessing the world’s largest vaccine production facilities, India, for all of its endemic poverty, was not given much consideration when the world was counting the ravaging impact of the coronavirus.

Somehow, it appeared as though the rest of the world thought that India was taking care of itself. No one seemed bothered enough to ask the right questions.

Then suddenly, in the past few weeks, the world’s second-most populous nation crashed under the sheer weight of a debilitatingly deadly virus, and the world appeared shocked.

Actually, if indeed the world was shocked by the startling statistics emerging from India in the recent past, it could only be that this is because many of us treat the country as a forgotten sub-continent.

The Indian Premier League (IPL), a financial institution, perhaps more so than a sporting organisation in the true sense of the term, agreed to re-start, revealing itself seemingly oblivious to the challenges of covid, only to reap a bitter harvest, resulting in significant financial losses.

Some may suggest that much like the aforementioned 12 greedy owners of football teams in Europe, the owners of the IPL may well be accused of having allowed their greed to take control of good sense.

Despite evidence in societies all around the world, the IPL appears to have thought itself invincible. The inevitable happened and the 2021 experiment has been suspended.

A report references the authorities of the IPL stating, “These are difficult times, especially in India and while we have tried to bring in some positivity and cheer, however, it is imperative that the tournament is now suspended and everyone goes back to their families and loved ones in these trying times.

“The BCCI will do everything in its powers to arrange for the secure and safe passage of all the participants in IPL 2021.”

Funny how hindsight works miracles in respect of a return of good sense.

Endless Racism

Finally, at the height of the covid pandemic, we have witnessed a significant increase rather than a decrease in systemic racism. That this is happening in sport, where positive values of humanity are supposed to abound, remains one of the most disgusting revelations that have been ‘hidden in plain sight’ for decades.

On Monday 29 March 2021, a BBC article informed that former France and Arsenal football icon, Thierry Henry stated, ‘It’s not OK to get abused online; as he committed to removing himself from the online environment. He made it clear that his decision was because the racism and bullying online had grown “too toxic to ignore…It was time to make a stand.”

According to Henry, “Things I used to hear in the stadiums and the streets are coming more and more into social media, especially in my community, and the sport I love the most, football.

“I thought it was time to make a stand and time to make people realise it is not OK to get abused online, it’s not OK to be bullied or harassed online.

“The impact it can have on your mental health is second to none, we know people are committing suicides because of it. Enough is enough. We need actions.

“It is too easy to get an account and get away with it at times.”

One week ago, sports personalities took a stance to turn off their social media accounts for a period of one week, to send a clear message to the owners and management of the different social media institutions that the time has come for action that would hurt them where it matters most, their pockets.

Players across the world continue to suffer at the hands of ever-increasingly daring numbers of people who still seem to believe that the colour of one’s skin is an indicator of one’s humanity.

In a world where we continue to insist that sports bring people together, the pandemic, with its negative interventions, may well be signalling a change of heart, in this regard.

Nelson Mandela did declare that sport has the power to change the world. But more than a century before hi, de Coubertin, followed on the works of the likes of William ‘Penny’ Brookes and others, committing themselves and the institutions they spawned to the cause celebre espoused by sport.

Today, even as people are dying from the pandemic, mankind, almost everywhere, has regressed into the dark recesses of decadence where valuing one another based on colour is commonplace.