The dark shadows of sport heroism
Sport is usually deemed a spectacle. It is considered entertainment. It is also now perceived as a major income-generating industry that enhances economies around the world. Some claim that sport is the fastest growing industry in the world and has been for several years.
Professional sport reflects the location of sport in the economic scheme of things, globally.
The salaries of top professional players in international football, baseball, basketball and American football are staggering.
Agents of the world’s top athletes cream off a significant harvest while coaches engage in a struggle to match strides.
The world’s top football teams boast huge finances, a feature reflected in the exorbitant transfer fees commandeered for players.
Prize monies continue to increase exponentially and so too the cost of coverage in all arms of the media available to the consumer today.
The media have found the formula to successfully forge the link between consumers and heroes in sport and this has allowed athletes to expand income beyond the playing field to endorsements that often challenge one’s official annual salary cap.
The media play a major role in the creation of the vast majority of the sporting heroes that we have come to know over the past several decades. In many instances, it is to their own selfish economic interests while in others it is the result of a genuine desire to give credit to athletes whose gifted sport skill competencies deserve special recognition.
The average consumer is often the unsuspecting victim of the sport-hero/icon creations of the international and local media.
Generally though, people have been socialised into hero-worship. This appears to have been the case from the beginning of civilisation.
Children are encouraged to believe in heroes and the toys are often used to play a major role in this regard.
It is not surprising therefore that in communities in countries around the world there is always a strong following for achievers in whatever field who are readily elevated to hero status by dint of word of mouth and the media. Because of the appeal of the sport, we find people lending their vocal and other forms of support to skilled sports achievers in a manner that, at times, defies logic.
The astute followers of sport have watched in awe the support for football teams in Europe that enhances travel and hotel stays, significant consumption of liquor, the singing and shouting during matches and the street fights that often follow some of these encounters.
Sport piques the emotional side of people, allowing for the readiness to vent joy as easy as it is to vent anger and hatred.
In the days of cricket’s overwhelming popularity in St Vincent and the Grenadines, the selection of a player to the West Indies cricket team was welcomed by emotional outbursts of joy in the Village of his birth through to the entire country.
All of Canouan and St Vincent and the Grenadines welcomed and shared in the achievements of Adonal Foyle, our first basketballer to make it to the NBA.
Unfortunately, Vincentians appear to have lost the thirst for heroes since not even Paramount Chief, Joseph Chatoyer, evokes a sense of nationalism in the same vein that national heroes are cherished and adored across much of the rest of the Caribbean.
Diego Maradona
Argentine football legend, Diego Maradona, died just over one week ago. The football world went into the usual sending of accolades. Stories have been written about his footballing genius. All of Argentina mourned and in his place of birth, more so than anywhere else.
There is no gainsaying Maradona’s footballing prowess.
He was clearly the greatest footballer in his time, just as Pele was in his.
Maradona brought his country World Cup glory and will always be remembered for having done so.
During his career, at the height of his game, Maradona was almost incomparable.
He played for Boca Juniors at home before joining Napoli in Italy and later, Barcelona in Spain.
Everywhere that Maradona played he was held in high regard. His penchant for taking on defences became legendary as was his appetite for scoring goals.
Regarded as a left-footer, Maradona dribbling skills set him apart enough to allow opponents to remain mesmerised regardless of their level of preparation. This set him apart.
While Europe was known for its solid passing approach to the game of football. South America, Brazil and Argentina, were credited with bringing individualism to the fore in the game. Like Pele before him, Maradona carried the weight of the Argentinian football team on his shoulders while he dominated the game.
Maradona’s popularity grew at home and around the world with each goal he scored, each game he played.
While many understand that there were outstanding and even great Argentinian footballers before and after Maradona, none of them has been as celebrated as Maradona. This is a fact of life that even the great Lionel Messi has learnt to live with.
Of course, Maradona also has very good players on the national team and also at Boca Juniors, Napoli and Barcelona but this only served to heighten his creative genius once in possession of the ball.
After his death, Maradona was allowed to grace the President’s Palace for viewing by the public for a period of three days of national mourning, before being laid to rest in a private ceremony.
‘Hand of God’ – foolishness
But Maradona’s handled goal in the World Cup that his team eventually won overall, has left many pondering the dark shadows of heroism.
Playing against England in the quarter-final of the World Cup in Mexico in 1986, Maradona scored the first of Argentina’s two goals with what was clearly a handled ball that went over the goalkeeper, Peter Shilton, and into the goal.
The issue at the centre of it all is not whether or not he handled the ball but rather, should he have laid claim to the goal knowing that he had broken the rules.
Our own Michael Findlay has long been taken over the coals for playing fair during his brief test cricket career when he informed match officials that he had not caught the ball when the ruling umpire thought he did.
Many are anxious to hide behind the veil of the rule that says that the presiding official’s decision is final. But many ask whether it is fair if the athletes know that he was in breach of the rules and that the presiding official made a mistake in his calling of the decision.
To the protagonists of fair play, Maradona’s insistence of ‘the hand of God’ being responsible for the goal that gave his team victory, remains one of the major blemishes on his entire sports career.
According to a Sky Sports ‘Newshour’, read, Maradona’s first goal was the infamous ‘Hand of God’, when he punched the ball beyond England goalkeeper Peter Shilton, while his second – a dribble from the halfway line past numerous defenders – has gone down in history as one of the most iconic goals in World Cup history”.
There was no denying his skill. However, he cheated his first goal.
It must have been very disheartening for those who really want to hold Maradona aloft as a sporting icon to have heard him simply refuse to show any regret, any sign of remorse for what he did in 1986 in that match against England.
Indeed, in an interview some years later, Maradona stated, “It was already there. I couldn’t head it, so I did like that…It’s not cheating’.
It was clear that for Maradona, cheating meant something entirely different, although he could not articulate precisely what that would be.
It may well be that Maradona felt justified that whatever could be done to ensure victory in a game should be accepted, regardless of the rules. Perhaps it is his understanding of this aspect of Maradona’s life that allowed Terry Fenwick to refer to him as an ‘un-coachable streetfighter’.
More of the same
But the likes of Maradona would continue to emerge in the field of sport and elsewhere. What matters is the result and nothing else.
Despite repeated revelations from his peers, dishonest legendary cyclist, Lance Armstrong, kept denying any involvement in the use of performance-enhancing drugs and /or methods as he raked in millions and stood aloft as some sort of role model for children and others in need of hope. In one fell swoop, he dashed their hopes and dreams, damaging his image forever when he finally confessed to cheating. The difference between him and Maradona is that he admitted publicly that he cheated. Maradona never did.
Had she not confessed to lying to the Grand Jury, the world would not have known that Marion Jones was, for many years, a drug cheat in athletics. The same can be said of Tim Montgomery, Jones’ training partner whose coach, Jamaican, Trevor Graham, took a syringe filled with ‘clear’, to the United States Anti Doping Agency (USADA), which took some time to decipher its very complex contents, for the world to know he too, was a cheat.
We have had West Indian bowlers who have quietly admitted to having tampered with the ball in order to get more swing, much to our chagrin.
We have had athletes who were caught and denied to the hilt even after being found guilty and banned for a few years.
The ultimate crime
Many a sporting hero have been found out.
Maradona, despite one of the most obvious acts of cheating, justified his decision, never facing up to the fact of what it was. In his own world, he never defined it as cheating and so it never was, for him.
Perhaps we should admit that the ultimate crime in the experience of Maradona is just that. He lived in a different reality. He somehow managed that reality and received tremendous support because of the way in which his people needed him as their hero.
One Argentinian, in discussing Maradona after the announcement of his death told BBC of the joy that Maradona brought to the people. They loved him in their humble lives and in the midst of their hunger. They wrapped their lives in with his and smiled at his achievements as being representative of what they would have wished for themselves. In doing so, they too could never have defined his handling of the ball in 1986 as cheating. They were, and still are, prepared to define it simply as ‘the hand of God’.
