The parlous state of world sport

Increasingly – it occurs to me – the modern world’s obsession with “wokedom” generally (encompassing gender equality, the whole range of transgender issues, politics in sport including the “cancellation” of non-PC speakers and alleged “rooting out” of any historical figure who took part in – or was connected with – anything to do with the slave trade or indeed racism generally etc. etc.) has grown to epidemic levels.

I don’t know whether I’m typical of the average person on the Clapham omnibus – or indeed perhaps those of my own vintage (now in my eighth decade) – but over the course of time I seem to have acquired a certain sometimes illogical and sometimes contradictory “pick and mix” collection of causes that I follow because they seem justified and/or worthy.

Let me give a few examples.

A few years ago, as a relatively-impartial observer watching the proceedings on television, the shenanigans involved in the “selection process” that decided the venues for the FIFA’s football 2018 World Cup onwards – in which, of course, England was involved as a potential host that was summarily discarded relatively early on – I felt the whose process was a nakedly corrupt stitch-up in which the sheer scale of money sloshing around and the high proportion of participants (including not a few FIFA officials) who were evidently “on the take”, rather the relative practical merits any of the bidding candidates, were the deciding factors in the outcome(s).

Now we are “looking forward” to a 2022 Qatar World Cup in which the host country’s attitude towards homosexuality and other social issues is obscenely conservative and hundreds (if not thousands) of foreign workers brought in to build the required new stadia have not only been living in slavery-like conditions but have also suffered a worryingly-high number of life-changing injuries and/or died in the cause.

Are LGBT spectators going to be made welcome at the 2022 World Cup?

Giving the World Cup to a country like Qatar was always going to be a questionable decision – arguably, it (and nations like it) should have been “filtered out” at a preliminary stage of the whole selection process because of its political and other issues – never mind the suspicion that “money talked”.

Nailing my political colours to the mast here, it is also arguable that Russia should have been banned “until further notice” from participating in any major global tournament/festival – including all World Cups and Olympic Games – purely because of its state-sponsored performance-enhancing drugs regimes, never mind its annexation of the Crimea and now imminent threat of an invasion of Ukraine.

And what the hell was the IOC doing in awarding the current Winter Olympic Games to China – given its general worldwide expansionist and disruptive economic tactics, never mind its persecution – to the point of genocide and beyond – of its indigenous Uyghur population?

I have to declare here – possibly at the risk of placing my role as the Rust’s sports editor under review – that I made a decision several weeks ago that I was not going to watch a single minute of the BBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics Games currently taking place in China.

In one sense this was an easy stance for me to adopt – there are few Winter Olympic events that “float my boat” anyway – but in another it was all down to the fact that they are taking place in an authoritarian country that cares not a fig for its own people, never mind the populations of any other and – in my view – every man jack (or Jill) competitor is little more than an unwitting pawn in the host nation’s propaganda initiative designed to convince the world of its powerful position on the world stage.

On another level, I shake my head at some of the mickey-mouse events in in a Winter Olympics Games these days – and indeed, some of the rules.

Here’s a case in point for Rusters to consider, spotted on the website of the Daily Mail only this morning.

Apparently, a series of female competitors in what appears to be a “mixed team” snow jumping event currently taking place have been disqualified for wearing “inappropriately baggy” clothes during the event – this because (allegedly) its “bagginess” gives them an aerodynamic advantage.

See here – as appears today upon the website of the – DAILY MAIL

In commenting today I now deliberately leave aside any thought that I might advance to the effect that all female competitors should be required to compete in as little clothing as modesty demands in all Olympic Games events anyway and would instead simply register the following.

The 2022 Chinese Winter Olympic Games are an aberration and a blight upon the Olympic movement generally.

Very few people that I have talked to about them has a positive word to say about them, still less bothered to tune in to watch any of the media coverage.

Enough said.