Sporting Scandals – Celebrities and Money Sucking the Pride From the Sport We Love
Posted: Friday, January 22, 2010
by Julian Price
http://www.uk-freelance-content-writer.co.uk/
Competitive sport runs through the very veins of our society and culture, yet much of our sport has become inaccessible thanks to its wall of money and superstar celebrity status.
Sport has been taken away and in many cases, made exclusive. The kids in the street who dream of being the next Cristiano Ronaldo, Jenson Button or Tiger Woods, now have to dream much, much harder. And, while they are dreaming they need to question whether they want the negative baggage that now comes as part of the deal for being a nation's hero.
Are there any sports that have not been brought into disrepute in recent years?
Athletics is riddled with drugs and performance enhancing scandals to the point where we no longer know if we are seeing a fair contest. Which athlete hurtling down the track is packing the most steroids and which ones are even male and female?
An increasing number of tennis players are being found guilty and being suspended or banned for taking performance enhancing substances.
Cycling and Swimming are in a similar league (or perhaps 20 leagues under) with many drug related controversies. Medal presentations are now tempered with caution, awaiting the claims, counter claims and investigations.
Football and other team based sports, perhaps, don't suffer quite as much with regards to performance enhancing drugs but instead have to deal with their own scandals. Players cheating, infamous hand balls and diving, finance related corruption, match fixing and even violence, both on the field and off.
Even cricket courts controversy and claims of cheating. Ball tampering in order to gain an unfair advantage is the most common culprit.
The scandal is not restricted to the playing field or the arenas though. Many sports stars and athletes have now become so famous they are given special treatment by the press and paparazzi, who show no mercy in reporting exactly what they find.
The Tiger Woods scandal last year proves (if many cases before it already hadn't) that sporting stars are not immune from the fury of the world's media. These men and women are earning so much money for doing something they love that we demand they become role models of perfection as their price to pay for being talented. Even away from the golf course!
So, what does the future hold for sport? Increased scrutiny and less credibility won't stop us cheering passionately for our favourites teams and idols but respect is dwindling and there may come a day when we refuse to put these men, women and organisations on an undeserved pedestal. There seems to be an awful lot to do in order to bring redemption to the sports we once cherished.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Well it goes to show that athletes are not "superstars" the way we thought when we were kids. Nobody is perfect, and its sad athletes cannot really have personal lives these days.Hi James, thanks for taking the time to read and comment on this article. Much appreciated.
Athletes of the kind discussed here are not traditional athletes who are in it because they love it and have worked hard and made sacrifices to get in the game and stay in the game. Professional sports of today involve far too much money for self-made athletes to be welcome. The people who run most professional organizations have too much riding on outcomes to risk banking on the potential of undeveloped talent or a person's willingness to put in hard work. Instead, coaches, trainers, and owners are looking to create athletes from nothing. All the better to stroke their own egos and give themselves more to claim credit for.
The search is most often for people who are most malleable, the easiest to manage and control. It is highly doubtful that Tiger got into golf all on his own. A more likely explanation is that he was a product of his father's drive and promoting. Later, after being effectively marketed and subsequently noticed, he became a ward of other promoters who saw an opportunity for themselves. Tiger was just a useful show horse along for the ride.
Should it come as any surprise that nearly all of these star 'athletes' lack any sort of individual character or willingness to self regulate? They behave like impudent, spoiled children because that is exactly what they are.
They have been handled, coddled, enabled and spoiled by people attempting to create an athlete from nothing. A process most modern athletes have been subjected to since they were in puberty and in many cases before. These people have, in many cases, been selected for training, development and athletic opportunity purely because of their malleability and lack of individual will. When the coaches, trainers, and handlers aren't there to babysit them, to think for them, to tell them what is right and what is wrong. When these fifth graders have a massive wad of cash burning a hole in their pocket and nothing worthwhile to do with it. They do what any confused, immature adolescent with more means than character would. They go stupid. They fight dogs, they cheat on their wives, they have affairs with tattooed strippers and high dollar prostitutes. The females pose provocatively in FHM and Playboy, become arm decorations for other celebs and dabble with drugs. The men get involved with gangs, drugs, gambling and a myriad of other tawdry pursuits for no other reason than because they can. The response to this behavior is most often fawning and encouragement.
In short, non of them know how to say no, and nobody really wants them to. They are merely a product of a modern society that is no better than they are. These athletes are far from being the saintly victims of circumstance we and their enablers claim them to be. And we are no better, for they are merely a reflection of what we as a society of fan[atic]s have also become.
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