Divisive Aspects of Global Sport Today
A few weeks ago I penned a piece that spoke to the apparent view that the International Olympic Committee(IOC) is increasingly being accepted as a sort of global sport policeman.
Importantly and perhaps more than a little incredulously, the IOC may very well have begun to see itself as playing precisely that role, however delusional that may ultimately appear.
The challenge for us in the small islands of the Caribbean is that the foregoing may well leave us committed to living on the plantation where the rich and powerful can us ethe guise of philanthropy to wield the same level of control as their predecessors did during the era of conquest.
Closer examination of the rapidly changing world of sport reveals the sad reality of continued domination in every instance of the rich and powerful as they systematically extend their control through the web of interlocking directorships and alliances.
In the end, sport has emerged the plaything of the rich and powerful, leaving the world of sport amongst the most divisive forces in modern times, aggressively deluding us all into believing that the mere preaching and promotion of the ‘positive’ values that should otherwise lead to global peace and unity amongst peoples.
Contradictory Omens
Today’s world of sport s replete with contradictory omens. The problem is that many of the stakeholders are ‘conned’ into acceptance of the myth perpetrated by the self-appointed custodians of global sport.
Sport is one of the several arenas in which the struggle for money, power and status is constantly being fought. The self-appointed custodians also find themselves either deliberately or unwittingly, possessive of a strong sense of entitlement that becomes their justification for the perpetuation of the travesty that is so often paraded, from their ‘ivory towers’ as ‘good governance’. This latter concept they then use to entrench their dominance of global sport.
Perhaps one of the gravest travesties, and possible tragedies, is the fact that the IOC appears to have created a sort of near-debilitating cultic mystique, that, clothed in the values attendant to the concept of Olympism, may well blind its adherents to the realities of the ‘plantation’ that today takes the nomenclature, sport.
Many operate like the ‘lodges’ that commit their membership to secrecy in an effort to ensure effect control of all aspects of the organisation.
While at the politically ideological level western societies follow the lead of the USA, by and large, in extolling the virtues of democracy, in the world of sport that same concept has long since been under threat, perhaps dating back to antiquity.
How genuinely democratic are the international sports federations (IF)?
How genuinely democratic is the IOC?
To be honest, the answers to the aforementioned questions are themselves unclear and at best contradictory.
Of course, we often hear that the concept of democracy varies and is heavily dependent on who is using the term in what context at any point in time. This essentially translates into, ‘the leaders define and refine to suit their own needs’.
The IOC
Many seem to think that the Salt Lake City Scandal was something of a turning in the modus operandi of the IOC. My own analysis suggests otherwise. It can perhaps best be described as a temporary ‘pothole’ on the global sports highway.
Recent statements attributed to Richard Pound, an IOC member of long standing, in an interview with Inside The Games, that “When I chaired the Ad Hoc Commission that investigated the conduct of IOC members in relation to the Salt Lake City bid for the 2002 Winter Games, I was investigating IOC members who would be voting in the upcoming Presidential election…It was, in my view, more important to save the IOC than to try to curry favour with the members under investigation and I knew that rigorous independent investigation finished any realistic possibility that I could become President.”
The foregoing statement speaks volumes of the nature of the IOC itself and how decisions in respect of leadership are concerned. It seems to suggest that the membership would not have been pleased with voting for a leader who is perceived as being sufficiently independent to adhere to the fundamental principles that are enshrined in the Olympic Charter.
It would be of great interest to examine the voting patterns amongst the IOC membership in contests for the presidency of the organisation throughout the organisation’s history.
Ultimately, the world has watched the transformation of the IOC through history to the point where the leadership may well be perceived as just another of the leaders of the countries of the world, towering over their respective populations who are in turn perceived as minions only too willing to feed off the scraps that are blown from the master’s meal table.
Almost trance-like, the Olympic Movement traverses the globe, convincing and convinced that its near self-righteous decision-making is as they choose to define it, in the best global sporting interest. Small wonder then that when ‘potholes’ like the Salt Lake City Scandal emerges, it is readily accommodated and all-too-quickly forgotten.
When Rio de Janeiro bid to host the Summer Olympics of 2016, those of us in attendance at the Pan American Games in the same city in 2007, felt compelled to venture the opinion that if the latter event was by way of preparation of a successful bid to host the former, then there is little chance that the city would get past the first round in the voting in Denmark.
When Rio won the bid for 2016, some of us immediately thought that much was wrong with the voting pattern.
Unfortunately only after the case against some of those involved in the Rio bid were being taken through the nation’s court system, did concerns emerge.
But that is now normative.
Witness the numerous questionable issues emerged about previous bids and how decisions were made by the same IOC once the investigation into Salt Lake City started.
Senegal and IAAF’s Lamine Diack, in his old age, 87, found himself on the receiving end of the French court system. His case raised concerns, not only about the corruption for which he was found guilty, but also about possible engagement in a scheme to help Tokyo win the bid to host the Summer Olympics of 2020.
At least one Jaanese businessman, “Haruyuki Takahashi, a former executive at the advertising agency Dentsu Inc, was paid $8.2 million by the committee that spearheaded Tokyo’s bid for the 2020 Games, according to financial records reviewed by Reuters. Takahashi told Reuters his work included lobbying International Olympic Committee members like Lamine Diack, the ex-Olympics powerbroker, and that he gave Diack gifts, including digital cameras and a Seiko watch…They’re cheap…You don’t go empty-handed. That’s common sense,” (https://www.reuters.com/article/ – 30 March 2020)
Of concern to many remains the extent to which the IOC considered it important enough to establish a major investigation into both the Rio and Tokyo successful bids.
Importantly, the otherwise invasive international media may well have missed the boat in not adequately investigating the ‘real issues’ that caused the IOC to appear to have changed strategy and opted instead to award the Games of 2024 and 2028 together.
International Federations (IF) et al
In international sport some IF receive more scrutiny than others.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) rose to prominence, in large measure through the plethora of professional road races, making annual circuits akin to Formula 1 and MotorGP.
It did not take long for the world to be shocked into the startling revelations of the systematically scientific doping methodologies and strategies that had become commonplace. Interestingly, Lance Armstrong of the USA, eventually admitted to his doping shenanigans but only after years if denials even when former teammates were his accusers.
Armstrong’s disgusting revelations highlighted the deep divisions in sport in terms of which countries were involved in doping – the more developed nations and not only from Russia and former socialist allies but also in the ‘value-free’ western democracies.
International weightlifting has long been in receipt of global challenges, largely in the media.
Boxing has been an arena od dishonest judging to facilitate victories for some rather than others. Here again, the global divide is highlighted.
FIFA’s scandals have been unearthed but not before years of unchallenged ‘questionable’ accusations. Today, corruption is but only one of its seeming intransigencies. Amazingly, despite several court cases involving the organisation’s highest ranking officials, not a single sponsor, even so much as murmured any desire to leave as a result. This was quite unlike the speedy distancing of sponsors from Tiger Woods when he was in a domestic dispute with his wife. The standards applied does not reflect a level playing field.
Racism is rife in global football and still spreading fast. Cricket has been a hotbed of racism for decades and the authorities may well have been tardy in responding appropriately.
Only now are some of the international cricketers speaking out about the level of racism to which they have been exposed.
While IFs boast of providing young people with viable career options that have often turned a blind eye to their own roles in the systematic exploitation of athletes in particular. Many have completely climbed the ladder of success knowing that the latter is founded on the backs of those whose talents are what’s on offer as entertainment to an increasingly divided world; one in which the poor, coloured and powerless are provided with largesse enough to delude them into believing that they have achieved some respectable social status and improvement in social class.
It is not in any way surprising that the media, controlled as they are by the rich and powerful, can so easily destroy athletes of colour, render them objects of scorn and derision, leading fans to often believe that they have suddenly become at once faceless and shameless, fit only for the sickening laughter of those who wield power and control.
