Unsporting behaviour
When the mighty IOC granted Plucky Little London permission to host the 2012 Olympics, I have to admit to experiencing a warm glow of satisfaction. Which later turned out to be brought on by some ‘low level’ racism directed at the French, as being an Englishman, I am programmed to look down upon our garlicky cousins (plus our wursty cousins, hot-doggy cousins… and the rest of our family on planet Earth). The trouble with looking down is that you tend to miss a lot, including the fact that you’re cheering for something that is in essence the very worst that you find in the human race.
And the Olympics does represent exactly that: the very, very worst.
All a’bluster, you say, “But but but but but… what (splutter) about child abuse torture fascism Jeremy Kyle rape Pol Pot cigarrette advertising CIAFBINSA big oil bad Balkan people and the British libel laws?”
The thing is, I do actually admire the endeavour, toil, dedication and sheer bloody mindedness of the world’s athletes. Indeed, I believe that the desire to be the best of anything (and that does not include most of the trash that makes up the Guinness Book of Records) is at the core of what it is that drives the human race forwards. The trouble is, the whole sporting fraternity has been hi-jacked by a nuther bunch of people who’s desire it is to be the best at what they do: shaft everyone else for as much as they bloody well can.
Considering the competitive nature of athletics (or humans in general), it is obviously important that everybody gets a go at proving themselves every so often – which is why there are world championships. If these were held – depending on the sport – every couple of years, there would be ample opportunity for the best to prove it and for everybody else to excel. Of course, it would require that hosting nations provide facilities that would support athletes in their efforts… but if there were a sustainable infrastructure (for the use of everybody interested in improving their physical prowess) already in place, this wouldn’t be a problem. But compare the fabulous new swimming pool at the London 2012 site… with the fact that over 300 swimming pools have closed in the UK over the last eighteen months.
But no, instead we have an alternative: furtively lurking behind the highly laudable Olympic Charter, is an organisation that has been mired in controversy for decades: documented and proven incidents of bribery and corruption on an epic scale (and not just in Salt Lake City), the use of huge funds to ‘entertain’ IOC members (e.g. $4.4 million for the Nagano bid), while the last games were awarded to China, even though that country contravened a number of Charter Articles (and still does, of course).
The IOC and its defenders maintain that it promotes sport and good ethics around the world, being largely a benevolent organisation. But since it dropped the requirement for athletes to be amateurs, all that has changed to the point that the IOC and the Olympic Games is one of the most powerful commercial organisations in the world. When IOC president Avery Brundage left in 1972, there was just $2m in the Olympic safe. Just eight years later, through corporate sponsorhip and TV rights, that had increased to $45m.
Since Samaranch became president in 1980, and his implementation of The Olympic Program (TOP) in 1985, that figure has been left as a tiny dot in the distant past.
Consider this: the IOC does not contribute to the games themselves, only to the ‘marketing’ (i.e. sponsorship). During the period 2001 to 2004, they generated a stunning 2.4 billion euros (about $4 billion). The IOC keeps about 8% of that revenue to fund itself. That’s two hundred million euros. TWO HUNDRED MILLION EUROS.
But what makes the Olympic machine most powerful is that it is defended by the great and the good – smearing any attack by accusing the protagonists of being ‘anti-sport’. Which is exactly the same stupid argument as labelling those who campaign for illegal settlers in Israel to be removed as anti-semitic (I’ll come back to that later).
Yes, the Olympics and all it actually stands for disgusts me. Great athletes all over the world have no alternative but to bow to this greedy, slavering monster, millions of less talented people are mesmerised by its hypnotic ‘it’s for the greater good’ noises, and the rest of us get labelled as being grumpy bastards.
A grumpy bastard I may be, but at least I can see what’s bloody well happening. The Olympics represents the very worst of us, because the rest of the human race is letting the IOC get away with it… applauding them as they go for gold.
Sponsorship: Everything that exists in the world can be an opportunity for sponsorship – a big part of the public relations and advertising spend of corporations. Here’s a big cheque to build your swimming pool which we can plaster with our logos – Macdonalds, Coca-cola etc – and fitness and sporting endeavour will be associated with our products; people who stuff themselves with Big Macs and Coke will aspire to exercise one day, will feel as if they are fitter. Oh the irony, when did a top athlete ever eats chips and a full sugar coke – 53 spoonfuls in the giant size bucket!! The insanity of ‘sponsorship’ creates a psycho-social reality in which we are seduced into not thinking, we are eased into a feel-good mental slumber in which cause and effect are constantly blurred. Mr Smith wants you back in the matrix as a passive, thoughtless consumer. Governments (eg Greece) are arm-twisted into spending money they don’t have on facilities they don’t need or can only use once and which then decay in order that the corporations can have their advertising-fest. Our only defence is to not participate, to not look, to ignore their advertising, not buy their products. Participation is collusion. Become a refusenik. And in corporate land there is no irony. Big oil sponsors wildlife and rainforests which they inevitably damage, Big money sponsors fine art, museums and opera houses for their wealthy investors to enjoy themselves in, on and on. The IOC take the money, live the high life and keep the show on the road. Ditto Football, Indian Cricket, Golf, Tennis etc etc.
(However I would pay to see unfit fat blokes run the 100metres and do the high and long jump; the pole vault might be a tad dangerous – but you could get a fat Pole to lie down and they could try to jump over him….in fact you could have all sports replicated by height and weight categories – eg under-4foot-tall basketball, Reubenesque gymnastics, anorexic weight lifters; why should the disabled have all the fun?)