Jeux Sans Frontières
“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.”
Jonathan Swift
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
George W. Bush
Executive producer Marty Liebermann claims he got the idea for “Europe versus America” watching the culmination of the 1999 Ryder Cup. “The rivalry was invigorating,” he said in a recent interview in Forbes magazine. He went on, “whilst I don’t condone the crude heckling of certain European golfers by American spectators, it was great television”. New Yorker Liebermann and his British co-producers have devised what is possibly the most extravagant and ambitious TV series ever, combining elements of sport, politics, international economics and culture. Its remit was to inform, educate and entertain and if that sounds rather old-fashioned, the production values and the topicality of “Europe versus America” are truly twenty-first century.
I was privileged to gain access to the set prior to the two weeks of shooting. The event represents a combination of conference, carnival and sporting event and took place on the grounds of Michael Jackson’s former Neverland ranch in California. Here are some of the stand-out events and contests viewers will be exposed to when “Europe versus America” is broadcast in Spring 2006.
Paint Ball Propaganda Wars
Michael Moore, award-winning film-maker and author of “Stupid White Men” leads ten young crack shot disciples against a team sponsored by the Cato Institute and headed by Olaf Gersemann, author of “Cowboy Capitalism: European Myths, American Reality”. The winning team will get the chance to give an evening lecture + book promotion. All participants have previous weapons training.
Galleries of Failed Dreams
Dutch photographer Jan Heesink recreates his prize-winning exhibition “Excluded from the Dream”, 50 black and white photos of deprived rural and urban America. In an adjacent gallery, American photographer Jane Hayling shows her exhibition of images of European poverty entitled “Third World Europe”. TV viewers will vote for their favourite show. A follow-up debate will focus on the question of which continent’s dream excludes people from the fruits of prosperity most.
Patent Battles – freedom through belongings versus freedom through belonging (American dreams versus European dreams)
On a hilltop overlooking the ranch, skilled rhetoricians of both continents struggle to assert their right to patent the meaning of “Freedom”. As with all the events staged, polarisation is a given - nuances risk lower viewing figures. Hand-picked international jury selects winning team. Prize: pseudo patent pending.
Snobs mud wrestling
2 teams of entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, aristocrats, intellectuals and linguists show their wrestling skills in a tag team event. Winning continent to lecture a captive audience on the supremacy of their ‘products’. Event sponsored by Tiffany and Company.
Economics Conference / Modelling show
Mini-conference on social market economies versus proprietary capitalism combined with catwalk show. Models wear t-shirts with slogans “Anglo-Saxon Model” or “Rhineland Model”. Patent Battles jury judges the show. Winning team’s t-shirts to be sold in souvenir shop.
Pancake-eating competition
Two opinionated journalists try to out-eat each other in a five-minute pancake-guzzling contest. The winning hack earns the chance to:
1. boast about the glorious things their continent has exported to the other
2. bitch about the poor quality of things imported from the other continent
With ‘things’ might be understood items such as ‘the ideals of the republic’ (Europe to America) and ‘rock and roll’ (America to Europe). The number of exports / imports listed must coincide with the number of pancakes eaten.
Patronising Statues
A randomly picked group of 100 Europeans and Americans are invited to pass in front of wax models of the reigning European monarchs. By patting them on the back in an over-familiar way (reminiscent of George W. Bush’s pat on Queen Beatrix’s shoulder in May 2005) or bowing / curtseying in an obsequious manner, they indicate their stance in the monarchy versus republic debate. This is one of the few events not featuring an obvious Europe versus America theme but Liebermann said he wanted it in the series because it would help “to polarise things.”
Souvenir Shop
This will be 2 separate malls in direct competition. Products to be sold in the USA mall will include white picket fences, canned prairie air and fast bucks. The European shop will stock amongst other things miniature chateaux, models of Robin Hood (pronounced Robin Hood) and bottled class.
There were many more exhibits and events but the reader will have to wait until “Europe versus America” is broadcast. I for one can hardly wait.
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Thursday, 5 March 2009
June 2008 'First Quarterly'
Irrationally Predictable
Behavioural economist and Harvard Professor Anne Dariely has spent the last year at the Erasmus University researching a number of European case studies. I attended a lecture she gave in June at the Amos Tversky Institute in Brussels. Based on the detailed notes I took and a conversation I was fortunate enough to have with her, here are some of the most interesting cases she has been studying.
1. Accountant Noud K. is terrified of contracting football fever during the European Championships. He says it is irrational and poses a threat to his individualism. Not only does he refuse to shop in supermarkets which sell products packaged in the colour of his national football team, ‘Oranje’(Orange), he is also the only home owner in his street who has not draped his house in orange pennants or hung out the Dutch flag. Since all the supermarkets he is boycotting have, predictably, jumped on the orange bandwagon, Noud K. has run low on essential supplies and has been forced to shop at weekly markets, something which he is normally refuses to do, as he has an (irrational) aversion to mixing with all walks of life.
2. After thirty successful years in the area of the town known as de Busterd, a branch of a well-known supermarket in Turnhout, Belgium faces a quandary. An unforeseen and rapid change in the socio-economic make-up of the area has forced the store to reconsider its product range. Two hundred millionaire foodies have moved into an apartment block opposite and are demanding that the store sell ‘über-expensive ingredients’, such as Beluga caviar, Amedei Porceleana chocolate, Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, Chinese Matsutake mushrooms, and 1982 Chateau Mouton Rothschild. The company is worried it will lose its traditional clientele if it does place the pricey items on its shelves, but believes it cannot pass up the chance to make huge profits from the wealthy gourmands.
3. Property tycoon Mehmet O. is an avid supporter of both the Dutch and Turkish national soccer teams. He has sponsored teams and financed the building of modern stadiums in Turkey but has not yet invested to anything like the same degree in the Netherlands, despite the fact that he was born and raised in Amsterdam. He cites as his overriding reason that the Dutch victory celebrations are not sufficiently out-of-control or passionate. Unsurprisingly, he points to the street celebrations of Turkish football supporters in Dutch towns and cities after the defeat of the Czech national team on 15 June 2008 to make his point. Excessive honking of car horns and blocking of roads is, for him, the “ultimate indicator of devotion to nation that transcends reason and needs no beer to fortify it”. He believes that ‘orange fever’ has more to do with business than sport and lacks real joy.
4. Fashion designer Jeannette P. wants to design and make clothes for people living in remote and cold locations. She seeks people whose lives are so far removed from the myriad complex influences of consumer society that their one priority is keeping warm. This will then allow her to introduce them to her fashions, which they will either like or not, with no external frame of reference or predispositions to complicate things.
5. Market researchers Lola S. and Rolf K. are reluctant to make public the results of their recent survey of the typical Austrian. Using statistical data, surveys, opinion polls, sales figures, and home interviews with real families, they found that the average Austrian wears socks in bed, paints their walls green, drinks 610 glasses of alcohol yearly and has sex with their spouse 132 times. The average Austrian family has 1.7 children, shops at discount supermarkets and takes a holiday for 2 weeks every year. In short, the survey shows that Austrians are highly predictable. The researchers’ worry that these findings will not be welcome news to the Austrians, who pride themselves on their individualism. They want the Austrians to continue being predictable rather than attempt to buck the trend of homogeneity shown in the survey by indulging in wildly unpredictable consumer behaviour.
6. Mindful of the widely-held belief that one should not shop for food when one is hungry, a Dutch supermarket is trying out three ways of increasing sales. The first is to lobby the government to introduce a law preventing employees of large companies from taking lunch later than one o’clock. The second is to develop products which nourish but do not fill. The third involves only allowing consumers to buy food for their next meal. This would mean, for example, that someone shopping at 10 o’clock am would only be allowed to buy enough food for their next lunch, thus ensuring they would be hungry on their next visit to the supermarket.
Behavioural economist and Harvard Professor Anne Dariely has spent the last year at the Erasmus University researching a number of European case studies. I attended a lecture she gave in June at the Amos Tversky Institute in Brussels. Based on the detailed notes I took and a conversation I was fortunate enough to have with her, here are some of the most interesting cases she has been studying.
1. Accountant Noud K. is terrified of contracting football fever during the European Championships. He says it is irrational and poses a threat to his individualism. Not only does he refuse to shop in supermarkets which sell products packaged in the colour of his national football team, ‘Oranje’(Orange), he is also the only home owner in his street who has not draped his house in orange pennants or hung out the Dutch flag. Since all the supermarkets he is boycotting have, predictably, jumped on the orange bandwagon, Noud K. has run low on essential supplies and has been forced to shop at weekly markets, something which he is normally refuses to do, as he has an (irrational) aversion to mixing with all walks of life.
2. After thirty successful years in the area of the town known as de Busterd, a branch of a well-known supermarket in Turnhout, Belgium faces a quandary. An unforeseen and rapid change in the socio-economic make-up of the area has forced the store to reconsider its product range. Two hundred millionaire foodies have moved into an apartment block opposite and are demanding that the store sell ‘über-expensive ingredients’, such as Beluga caviar, Amedei Porceleana chocolate, Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, Chinese Matsutake mushrooms, and 1982 Chateau Mouton Rothschild. The company is worried it will lose its traditional clientele if it does place the pricey items on its shelves, but believes it cannot pass up the chance to make huge profits from the wealthy gourmands.
3. Property tycoon Mehmet O. is an avid supporter of both the Dutch and Turkish national soccer teams. He has sponsored teams and financed the building of modern stadiums in Turkey but has not yet invested to anything like the same degree in the Netherlands, despite the fact that he was born and raised in Amsterdam. He cites as his overriding reason that the Dutch victory celebrations are not sufficiently out-of-control or passionate. Unsurprisingly, he points to the street celebrations of Turkish football supporters in Dutch towns and cities after the defeat of the Czech national team on 15 June 2008 to make his point. Excessive honking of car horns and blocking of roads is, for him, the “ultimate indicator of devotion to nation that transcends reason and needs no beer to fortify it”. He believes that ‘orange fever’ has more to do with business than sport and lacks real joy.
4. Fashion designer Jeannette P. wants to design and make clothes for people living in remote and cold locations. She seeks people whose lives are so far removed from the myriad complex influences of consumer society that their one priority is keeping warm. This will then allow her to introduce them to her fashions, which they will either like or not, with no external frame of reference or predispositions to complicate things.
5. Market researchers Lola S. and Rolf K. are reluctant to make public the results of their recent survey of the typical Austrian. Using statistical data, surveys, opinion polls, sales figures, and home interviews with real families, they found that the average Austrian wears socks in bed, paints their walls green, drinks 610 glasses of alcohol yearly and has sex with their spouse 132 times. The average Austrian family has 1.7 children, shops at discount supermarkets and takes a holiday for 2 weeks every year. In short, the survey shows that Austrians are highly predictable. The researchers’ worry that these findings will not be welcome news to the Austrians, who pride themselves on their individualism. They want the Austrians to continue being predictable rather than attempt to buck the trend of homogeneity shown in the survey by indulging in wildly unpredictable consumer behaviour.
6. Mindful of the widely-held belief that one should not shop for food when one is hungry, a Dutch supermarket is trying out three ways of increasing sales. The first is to lobby the government to introduce a law preventing employees of large companies from taking lunch later than one o’clock. The second is to develop products which nourish but do not fill. The third involves only allowing consumers to buy food for their next meal. This would mean, for example, that someone shopping at 10 o’clock am would only be allowed to buy enough food for their next lunch, thus ensuring they would be hungry on their next visit to the supermarket.
March 2009 'First Quarterly'
Ostriches, the Human League and good times for Oostkapelle
Murphy’s Law (anything that can go wrong will go wrong) made me its victim on 10 February. I left 40 euros behind in the cash dispenser on the campus and a carton of cream burst in my bag, ruining a map of Tilburg, turning my diary into a sticky mess and dripping all over my coat. To cap it all, I sustained a flat tyre and got soaked in the rain.
When misfortune strikes, I tend to be fairly resilient. After something bad happens, I make something good happen, in the spirit of cognitive behavioural therapy. I cooked a delicious ostrich steak with herb tagliatelle and served it with caramelised chicory (witlof) and mustard sauce. I wouldn’t be beaten by Murphy!
I won’t be beaten by the credit crunch either! I will eat exotic and expensive food. I will enjoy the finer things in life! I know this sounds overdone. I have always felt this way and I am probably just rationalising my own self-indulgence and making excuses for my unhealthy obsession with food.
Despite being good for you and versatile, ostrich is not credit crunch food in the sense that eggs are (cheap and in abundant supply). In two different ways it is apt. First, as we’ve seen, eating it when money is tight is a moderate statement of defiance. Second, it’s comfort food; it makes you feel better, it consoles you, though in my case, the consolation was more local, aimed at rescuing a disastrous Wednesday evening.
I got to wondering how the credit crisis is being experienced in the Netherlands. There is the obvious stuff: unemployment is on the rise, banks and financial institutions are feeling the pinch, the construction industry is suffering, and retailers face tough times. Blah blah blah. I’m still not sure how far this has affected daily life but across the water in my home country, things seem clearer. The credit crisis is hitting harder, the obvious example being the plummeting pound. My sister in law remarked at the weekend that the British can’t afford to go abroad on holiday at the moment. It was a rather sweeping statement, typical of conversation at a party when the drinks are flowing. “Your recession is worse than ours!” she seemed to be saying to me. She may well have been right, but it wouldn’t surprise me if bookings on the Dutch coast are up this year, as people here opt for a cheaper holiday too.
So some sectors, like tourism in the home country, can profit from a credit crisis. Whilst I wish the ostrich farmers well, I doubt that purveyors of exotic foods in this country will be able to take advantage of the crisis. I think that the pleasures of the stomach will be amongst the first things to be sacrificed, if times get really tough. The Dutch still eat to live, by and large, rather than the other way round. Perhaps discount supermarkets will see their profits soar.
Although this is wishful thinking on my part, I think that the arts and culture industry will try to make the most of these belt-tightening months (or years), as people seek escapism through films, theatre, music and exhibitions. It’s a simple formula and it’s nothing new. Adversity results in creativity. Previous recessions have thrown up extraordinary, vibrant culture. The Great Depression in the United States was a time of tremendous innovation in the arts, in all areas, from art and design through literature, music, even architecture. There were the big bands, the novels of Hemingway and Steinbeck, and the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, to name just a few. As the recession hit hard in Britain in the early eighties, popular culture responded with vigour. Alan Bleasdale’s TV drama “The Boys from the Blackstuff” offered a scathing critique of the poverty and unemployment of Thatcherite Britain. Pop music was rich and fertile. Bands like The Human League captured the mood of the era in songs like “Hard Times” but also provided glamour and escapism. The early eighties mood was a strange mix of bitterness and joy.
My own financial crisis is a drop in the ocean. Assuming that the forty euros was seen and pocketed by someone (good luck to them, finders keepers!), it won’t reduce me to poverty. At most, I regard it as mildly irritating. After the ostrich therapy, I did two other things which I felt were appropriate: I planned some recipes involving lentils, rice and cheap vegetables and I wrote some poems.
Murphy’s Law (anything that can go wrong will go wrong) made me its victim on 10 February. I left 40 euros behind in the cash dispenser on the campus and a carton of cream burst in my bag, ruining a map of Tilburg, turning my diary into a sticky mess and dripping all over my coat. To cap it all, I sustained a flat tyre and got soaked in the rain.
When misfortune strikes, I tend to be fairly resilient. After something bad happens, I make something good happen, in the spirit of cognitive behavioural therapy. I cooked a delicious ostrich steak with herb tagliatelle and served it with caramelised chicory (witlof) and mustard sauce. I wouldn’t be beaten by Murphy!
I won’t be beaten by the credit crunch either! I will eat exotic and expensive food. I will enjoy the finer things in life! I know this sounds overdone. I have always felt this way and I am probably just rationalising my own self-indulgence and making excuses for my unhealthy obsession with food.
Despite being good for you and versatile, ostrich is not credit crunch food in the sense that eggs are (cheap and in abundant supply). In two different ways it is apt. First, as we’ve seen, eating it when money is tight is a moderate statement of defiance. Second, it’s comfort food; it makes you feel better, it consoles you, though in my case, the consolation was more local, aimed at rescuing a disastrous Wednesday evening.
I got to wondering how the credit crisis is being experienced in the Netherlands. There is the obvious stuff: unemployment is on the rise, banks and financial institutions are feeling the pinch, the construction industry is suffering, and retailers face tough times. Blah blah blah. I’m still not sure how far this has affected daily life but across the water in my home country, things seem clearer. The credit crisis is hitting harder, the obvious example being the plummeting pound. My sister in law remarked at the weekend that the British can’t afford to go abroad on holiday at the moment. It was a rather sweeping statement, typical of conversation at a party when the drinks are flowing. “Your recession is worse than ours!” she seemed to be saying to me. She may well have been right, but it wouldn’t surprise me if bookings on the Dutch coast are up this year, as people here opt for a cheaper holiday too.
So some sectors, like tourism in the home country, can profit from a credit crisis. Whilst I wish the ostrich farmers well, I doubt that purveyors of exotic foods in this country will be able to take advantage of the crisis. I think that the pleasures of the stomach will be amongst the first things to be sacrificed, if times get really tough. The Dutch still eat to live, by and large, rather than the other way round. Perhaps discount supermarkets will see their profits soar.
Although this is wishful thinking on my part, I think that the arts and culture industry will try to make the most of these belt-tightening months (or years), as people seek escapism through films, theatre, music and exhibitions. It’s a simple formula and it’s nothing new. Adversity results in creativity. Previous recessions have thrown up extraordinary, vibrant culture. The Great Depression in the United States was a time of tremendous innovation in the arts, in all areas, from art and design through literature, music, even architecture. There were the big bands, the novels of Hemingway and Steinbeck, and the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, to name just a few. As the recession hit hard in Britain in the early eighties, popular culture responded with vigour. Alan Bleasdale’s TV drama “The Boys from the Blackstuff” offered a scathing critique of the poverty and unemployment of Thatcherite Britain. Pop music was rich and fertile. Bands like The Human League captured the mood of the era in songs like “Hard Times” but also provided glamour and escapism. The early eighties mood was a strange mix of bitterness and joy.
My own financial crisis is a drop in the ocean. Assuming that the forty euros was seen and pocketed by someone (good luck to them, finders keepers!), it won’t reduce me to poverty. At most, I regard it as mildly irritating. After the ostrich therapy, I did two other things which I felt were appropriate: I planned some recipes involving lentils, rice and cheap vegetables and I wrote some poems.
December 2008 'First Quarterly'
Blankers-Koen and Jumpers for Goal Posts versus Big Bucks and The Cowardly Sponsor
Our decision to leave England for Holland had much to do with money. A few years earlier, consumer groups had coined the phrase ‘rip-off Britain’. We were thoroughly sick of being fleeced and it gave us some comfort to think that the injustice of paying more for products than in other rich countries had been formally identified and labelled. Things like cars, electrical goods and houses were and still are more expensive in Britain than in other EU countries.
Now I’m less pissed off. The pricing issue was not so simple as the emotive slogan portrayed it to be. Factors like the strong pound and high fixed costs played their role and away from London I feel things less personally. It has been more than seven years since we left, so the rows with mini cab firms and angry exchanges of letters with estate agents and property managers are so much water under the bridge that they’ve flowed into the sea of Bigger Picture.
Now there is a real chance the UK is going to be very hard hit by recession in the wake of the credit crisis. Perhaps London should host a second ‘Austerity Olympics’. The next games may cost 10 billion pounds. That is a good deal less than the bill for Beijing but many would argue it is still unreasonably high given the current state of the economy. The 1948 London Olympics were held during the post-World War II period of national austerity, with rationing still in effect and many areas of the city still bombed-out ruins. Only £760,000 were spent on the games, which were, against the odds, hugely successful. Competitors were taken to venues on buses and underground trains, American athletes shared food with their British counterparts and some of the latter even sewed their own kit. A spirit of fair play and shared values prevailed and Dutch housewife and mother Fanny Blankers-Koen became a legend for her time.
With each games there is so much at stake; there are the corporate interests, there is the legacy, the stimulus to the economy and of course the sporting performances and national pride. Each Olympics has to exceed the last one, be bigger, grander and more inspiring. Yet the Olympic Games are much like Christmas; both are magnificent, pompous and in thrall to commerce. What’s more, despite the profits made by some, they both lead to debt. With the exception of Los Angeles, no Olympic Games has ever made money. Christmas leaves millions of people in the red.
Ok, but at the heart of both, lies something pure, doesn’t it? For Christmas, goodwill and giving, for the Olympics, brotherhood and the spirit of competition. Isn’t that what counts? Well, the purity of Christmas has long been sullied and sport lost its innocence ages ago. Take football. At one end of the spectrum is park football (with jumpers for goalposts, naturally). At the other, there is corporate football, where millions are made from TV rights, ticket prices and replica team shirts. Currently, the average price of a season ticket in the UK premier division is just over £600. A season’s worth of Arsenal matches costs £1,355. We’re back in ‘rip-off Britain’ territory.
Money needs sport and sport needs money. Schools need money for equipment and facilities. Athletes need financial support and sponsoring. Grassroots schemes to get inner city kids involved in sport need big injections of cash. More of the profits made in professional sport should go towards these worthy recipients, rather than line the pockets of shareholders.
Football is ailing but not terminally ill; it has just been rather spoilt. However, in 1999, a group of exasperated English supporters, fed up with the commercialization of the sport, pronounced football ‘dead’ and laid a wreath to commemorate the event. A similar sporting demise was announced by newspaper France Soir at the height of the Michael Rasmussen scandal in 2007. The paper regretfully announced the death at age 104 years, and following a long illness, of the Tour de France. A succession of doping scandals had taken its toll on the Tour. Rasmussen was never found guilty of doping and his sponsors Rabobank dumped him on less convincing gounds, because he had allegedly lied about his whereabouts at the time of a training session. At the time, I lost respect for Rabobank. I thought they were cowardly and should have stuck by their man. Obviously, the bank was making an understandable, hard-headed business decision. The Danish cyclist was clearly going to damage their brand. For my part, I felt retroactively vindicated in our decision to ditch the bank for another mortgage provider earlier that year, though I guess the eternally smug Rabobank won’t miss me much.
Our decision to leave England for Holland had much to do with money. A few years earlier, consumer groups had coined the phrase ‘rip-off Britain’. We were thoroughly sick of being fleeced and it gave us some comfort to think that the injustice of paying more for products than in other rich countries had been formally identified and labelled. Things like cars, electrical goods and houses were and still are more expensive in Britain than in other EU countries.
Now I’m less pissed off. The pricing issue was not so simple as the emotive slogan portrayed it to be. Factors like the strong pound and high fixed costs played their role and away from London I feel things less personally. It has been more than seven years since we left, so the rows with mini cab firms and angry exchanges of letters with estate agents and property managers are so much water under the bridge that they’ve flowed into the sea of Bigger Picture.
Now there is a real chance the UK is going to be very hard hit by recession in the wake of the credit crisis. Perhaps London should host a second ‘Austerity Olympics’. The next games may cost 10 billion pounds. That is a good deal less than the bill for Beijing but many would argue it is still unreasonably high given the current state of the economy. The 1948 London Olympics were held during the post-World War II period of national austerity, with rationing still in effect and many areas of the city still bombed-out ruins. Only £760,000 were spent on the games, which were, against the odds, hugely successful. Competitors were taken to venues on buses and underground trains, American athletes shared food with their British counterparts and some of the latter even sewed their own kit. A spirit of fair play and shared values prevailed and Dutch housewife and mother Fanny Blankers-Koen became a legend for her time.
With each games there is so much at stake; there are the corporate interests, there is the legacy, the stimulus to the economy and of course the sporting performances and national pride. Each Olympics has to exceed the last one, be bigger, grander and more inspiring. Yet the Olympic Games are much like Christmas; both are magnificent, pompous and in thrall to commerce. What’s more, despite the profits made by some, they both lead to debt. With the exception of Los Angeles, no Olympic Games has ever made money. Christmas leaves millions of people in the red.
Ok, but at the heart of both, lies something pure, doesn’t it? For Christmas, goodwill and giving, for the Olympics, brotherhood and the spirit of competition. Isn’t that what counts? Well, the purity of Christmas has long been sullied and sport lost its innocence ages ago. Take football. At one end of the spectrum is park football (with jumpers for goalposts, naturally). At the other, there is corporate football, where millions are made from TV rights, ticket prices and replica team shirts. Currently, the average price of a season ticket in the UK premier division is just over £600. A season’s worth of Arsenal matches costs £1,355. We’re back in ‘rip-off Britain’ territory.
Money needs sport and sport needs money. Schools need money for equipment and facilities. Athletes need financial support and sponsoring. Grassroots schemes to get inner city kids involved in sport need big injections of cash. More of the profits made in professional sport should go towards these worthy recipients, rather than line the pockets of shareholders.
Football is ailing but not terminally ill; it has just been rather spoilt. However, in 1999, a group of exasperated English supporters, fed up with the commercialization of the sport, pronounced football ‘dead’ and laid a wreath to commemorate the event. A similar sporting demise was announced by newspaper France Soir at the height of the Michael Rasmussen scandal in 2007. The paper regretfully announced the death at age 104 years, and following a long illness, of the Tour de France. A succession of doping scandals had taken its toll on the Tour. Rasmussen was never found guilty of doping and his sponsors Rabobank dumped him on less convincing gounds, because he had allegedly lied about his whereabouts at the time of a training session. At the time, I lost respect for Rabobank. I thought they were cowardly and should have stuck by their man. Obviously, the bank was making an understandable, hard-headed business decision. The Danish cyclist was clearly going to damage their brand. For my part, I felt retroactively vindicated in our decision to ditch the bank for another mortgage provider earlier that year, though I guess the eternally smug Rabobank won’t miss me much.
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