More often than I care to admit, I yearn for a simpler time. I think back thirty or forty years and recall notions of right and wrong; whether something would be fair to the other side, whether an action is morally right. The conclusions would inform my deeds and those of others I knew.
Once or twice, in this series of ponderings, I’ve questioned whether these differences exist anymore. Ok, more than once or twice. I admit it.
I am not a football fan. Very occasionally, if prompted, I will happily watch a game – it doesn’t matter to me who is playing. What I can admire, even from the depths of my ignorance of the Beautiful Game, is consummate skill. Skills of jinking around an opponent; kicking such that the goal-keeper misreads the flight of the ball, placing a pass so that your team-mate can run at top speed and it falls to his (or her) feet, perhaps to cut through the opponents’ defence and get a shot in.
These are skills dreamed up in the dressing room by the coach, honed on the practice ground and given real-world exposure on the pitch.
These skills are admirable. Sometimes, emotions are high and a player might execute a tackle which is dangerous. There are penalties for these infractions, the most serious of which is a Red Card and sending off the pitch.
One hopes that the individual who let his or her enthusiasm get the better of them would reflect, accept the one match ban and play with more care in future.
It is a regrettable feature of today’s society that somebody powerful from outside the world of football can call someone else who is powerful within football and have that punishment removed. It is a small example of the current American mantra that ‘Might makes Right’.
For those of us who have little interest in the sport, it may seem that this isn’t right, but it hardly matters in the grand scheme of things.
I do not agree. Sports which are contests of skill and endurance can be viewed as some of the few remaining areas of human endeavour in which honour, rules and fairness are paramount. In this respect, I share the outrage of those who are protesting FIFA’s decision to overturn the American Falarin Balogun’s Red Card just in time for him to take the field against Belgium tonight.
There may not be legal remedies – and I despair at the modern trend always to resort to litigation – but if the man does play, his team will forever be tarnished, whether they win or not. The question should not ever have arisen.
When I was thinking about topics for this piece, I toyed with the idea of railing against the extraordinary grift of the man in the White House – the size of the latest estimates of his and his family’s monetary gains, simply by leveraging his role as President. Such wrong-doing shouldn’t happen at all. When it does, one of the other of the three branches of government should step in to put matters right – and issue a Red Card.
Either Congress or the Judiciary has power to stop such malfeasance. Their cowardice, inaction and hand-wringing have been carefully planned and crafted, much as a coach does in the dressing room before a match. For the last several years, they have practiced and we are now seeing these moves executed flawlessly, one after another. Civil rights? Hah! Consigned to the bonfire. A current example: female members of a strict sect of Islam are not permitted to wear their all-enveloping head gear, the Burqa, in America. Yet members of the white nationalist group, the ‘Patriot Front’ were allowed to march in Washington, D.C. on the 4th of July with faces covered by white scarves and sun glasses. Their identities were thus concealed. Freedom of expression? Sure. But it’s a shame that they didn’t feel free to show their faces. Did law enforcement take action?
I will leave this question hanging. I’m sure you can figure it out.
For those among you who are American, I wish you a very British Happy 250th Anniversary. And for the sake of clarity, I don’t care about your political leaning, your religion or ethnic background. But, please get your country under control again. America has so much to offer the world and to its inhabitants.
Very well put!