Very tired elite players to feature in FIFA World Cup 2022
Not so long ago we heard our West Indies cricketers lamenting just how tired they were, after having been asked to go on one tour after another, in different parts of the world. Indeed, some of the players were challenging the then leadership of West Indies cricket over the fact that they wanted to compete in the regional competitions yet be ready to tour other countries to play at the international level.
Then came the annual Stanford T-20 Cricket tournament and suddenly, the issue of playing in that competition in addition to what already existed, posed no problems at all. The reason for its ready acceptance was simple – money.
Then followed a flurry of T-20 competitions, all financially lucrative, in different countries around the world, often in close proximity with each other. Of course, the Indian Premier League (IPL), has thus far proven to be the most lucrative of the lot, by a significant margin.
There are no complaints from our cricketers about being tired of playing too much cricket at a consistently high demand and standard. The monies on offer and overwhelming. It is clear that there are those cricketers for whom the monies are even more important than their individual physical and psychological well-being.
The leaders of the IPL have created franchises of different sorts to such an extent that in some countries we witness cricket matches being played to empty stadia, yet proving highly lucrative for the owners of the franchises. It has become almost fashionable to see televised cricket matches in some countries with not a single sponsor board for any commercial house of the host nation.
Professional football
There is mounting evidence that professional football around the world has spawned immense corruption in tandem with the rise in popularity of the sport.
Football in Europe has led to the emergence of some of the most finically viable professional sport clubs in the world. Indeed, the sale of club memorabilia has become a major income earner for the best of European football clubs.
In some European countries, football clubs have emerged from their own communities. There is a very special relationship between them and their communities, their foundation. It was the seeming lack of understanding of this phenomenon that led the monied interests that sought to create a European Super League to fall flat on their faces. The communities, the foundation of the major clubs, all let their voices be heard. To them, it was much more than money. It has to do with understanding the culture of football in the respective communities.
Emergent challenges
Some astute football fans may recall that some years ago there was the issue of torn loyalties of players between professional club and country.
Owners of clubs felt that too many of their players were being called up to play for their respective countries at times when they are delicately poised in their club championships. The absence of key players from critical games meant the lowering of the club’s chances of success. This means loss of money as well as of popularity amongst fans.
Importantly, one wonders whether there seems to have been a lengthening of the football season in Europe in particular such that players are required to honour the full terms of their contracts with clubs in a manner that leaves them less latitude to represent their countries as was the case previously.
There is hardly any of FIFA’s major continental zones that is exempt from the aforementioned challenges where players are often forced to choose between club and country.
While there has been a significant lowering of the temperature of the aforementioned conflict of interests, the problem has not been fully blown away. One is often left pondering whether some players are themselves playing some mind games of their own in order to escape the kind of scrutiny that has itself become normative.
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cups of the recent past have been unable to compare favourably with some of the bygone era when players were fully fit and ready to compete.
In the past few editions of the World Cup, many of the big names in the sport are either sidelined with injuries ahead of the global football spectacle or come to the competition well below par in terms of football readiness.
Some of the players on teams in the current World Cup that began in Qatar over the weekend, were, last week, engaged by their respective clubs in major competitions that had nothing to do with the World Cup. Just how well these players are able to perform for the duration of the tournament is anybody’s guess.
Patrons of many national teams may be very disappointed with their team’s performances at the tournament but fail to take the time to analyse the factors that militated against their delivery of anything better on the field of play.
Like our cricketers, football is being played almost all year, now, and the ever-increasing size of the salary packages offered to the best players in the world leave them forced to honour their commitments.
At the end of the day, the countries appear to suffer the most, when the players are released to represent them too close to the major competitions in which they are involved. It is a case of the consequences of having to serve two masters.
Patrons at football games support the players of their clubs and of their respective countries. They do not often engage in any sort of analysis as is expected when one desires to make a cost-benefit analysis. Should the national team make an early and unexpected exit from the World Cup, only then is there an attempt to engage in analysing possible explanations for their untimely demise. Of course, by this time it is much too late to do anything about it.
Money talks
Some time ago the talk of the sports world was about the suggestion that the FIFA World Cup shifts to every two years instead of every four. The global discussion that followed the announcement of the idea was painful. But it did reveal the extent to which major international sporting bodies are, despite saying otherwise, primarily driven by their financial bottom line and less by their concern for the athletes whose performances are on sale each time they take to the field of play.
The IOC jumped at FIFA, at times making remarkable comments that reflected the impact of the perceived challenges to its own dominance of the global sport market.
Many spoke of FIFA’s greed while ignoring their own. In the final analysis, every one of the major international sports federations is seeking the same objective. In this sense, they are all very, very greedy.
The greed we see in international sport does not begin or end with those who organise sort. It also resides with the sponsors. They are also immensely greedy. This is the only explanation why FIFA’s major long-term partners have stayed form with the institution following the significant number of its officials having been charged with corruption.
More enterprises gave up their sponsorship of Tiger Woods after his domestic problems surfaced than left FIFA following glaring evidence of significant corruption. It would be foolhardy to believe that their decisions in the aforementioned instances had anything to do with integrity, morality or conscience.
There is no doubt that sponsors tend to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing if the alternative is loss of revenue. They simply move on to the next project.
The international media tried to bring to the world’s attention the tragedy of this edition of the World Cup and human rights abuses in Qatar in the construction phase of the excellent facilities provided for the sporting spectacle. On the eve of the World Cup’s official opening, FIFA President, Infantino, raised the matter of what he termed the hypocrisy of western societies that criticised his organisation. And while he suggested that those societies would apologise for their intransigencies of the past and for how long they should continue doing so, he made no apologies for FIFA’s own crass intransigencies.
FIFA appeared to have done little to come to the aid of those who would have been the object of the abuses of its own former leaders of the sport. This has become commonplace in international sport.
The IOC may well be placed alongside FIFA in many respects as also may several other international sports federations.
What we have seen and heard from Infantino is no different from those other sport leaders who, like celebrities around the world, take unto themselves a sort of licence regarding their mouthings on global issues. Armed with their positions engraved on their foreheads they become prophets, supported by willing allies in the media that establish them and their legacies or future generations.
This year’s World Cup may well prove a revelation, in many respects. However, of one thing we can be sure, FIFA’s revenues will continue to climb and the sport continue to sidestep those real issues that negatively impact the future of mankind.
Whoever said that integrity is necessary for sport to survive? The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
