HAVING grown up in the journalistic world with The Times (of London) long before online newspapers and blogs came on the scene, it was my first read of the morning as a student in England, thanks to a book by its sacked editor, Harold Evans, entitled Good Times, Bad Times, after Rupert Murdoch had taken over the paper. There was an added incentive too – on Mondays, the price wars prompted a 10p (40 sen at that time) cover price when I was there more than 10 years ago. After all these years, its online version and that of The Independent are book-marked on the office computer.
Last week, two columns in The Times’ sports pages caught my attention as they directly reflected the state of sports in Malaysia and the role of administrators and sports agents. Allen Stanford, who last year was described by the British media as the "Texan billionaire" when he presented himself as the messiah of cricket, arrived at the hallowed turf of Lords, the home of the game, in a helicopter carrying a chestful of American dollars. Officials went ballistic doting on him and treating him as if the doyen of amateur sports, W. G. Grace, had risen from the grave. Last week, the bitter truth emerged. Stanford, who was the financier of the US$20 million (RM74 million) winner take-all match between England and the West Indies, was nothing but a fraudster under investigation by the financial authorities and the FBI in the United States.
The Times’ award-winning writer Simon Barnes had this to say: When a billionaire comes a-calling, sport doesn’t waste its precious time by saying, "I’m not that kind of girl." No, one whiff of the inside of a fat wallet and sport is flat on its back with its legs in the air, shouting: "Come and get it." There is a moral confusion at the heart of sport and people such as Stanford can smell it out with the extraordinary and in some ways deeply enviable instincts that make them so good at money.
Barnes then went to draw some important values. Sport, he argues has become a whore. He does not blame the clients, the billionaires and the multinationals. He blames the sports administrators who do the selling. He unequivocally terms them as "pimps". But he does make an important exception: "It’s not that sporting administrators are corrupt, in that they take this money for themselves. Rather, they are corrupt in believing too strongly in the importance of money. If sport is compromised in the pursuit of money, then so what? What is sport for, after all? So sport, with distressing eagerness, has compromised itself in every corner of the Earth."
Another Times columnist, Giles Smith, had his say on BBC TV’s new reality series, Super Agents, where six bright kids battle to become not (sports) agents but super (sports) agents. He says: "Where yesterday’s children dreamt of running out for England at Wembley, today’s dream of creaming 15% off the top of Craig Bellamy’s transfer fee and securing a big boot deal for Bobby Zamora at Fulham. Well, fair enough. But what about starting at the bottom, as an agent, and working your way up to super agent? Not with today’s impatient kids. It’s super agent or nothing for the modern generation. Or maybe it is television that hasn’t got the patience. Either way, it’s the same thing."
What can be concluded is that amateur sport is dead, buried and entombed. It can and will never be resurrected because there’s so much money to prevent its second coming even if miracles do happen. Australian Rod Laver was the World No. 1 player for seven consecutive years (1964-1970). He is the only tennis player to have twice won all four Grand Slam singles titles in the same year – first as an amateur in 1962 and second as a professional in 1969. He retired in 1979 earning US$1.5 million in a 17-year pro career. Today, some tennis stars earn that much from wearing logos on their shirt sleeves and pockets in just ONE season. The footwear and apparel contracts are worth much more.
Long before Laver’s sojourn into the money-making circuit, sportsmen believed that if you made money out of sport, it was meaningless. But these days, if you don’t pay, they won’t turn up. Just ask how much it cost to bring Anthony Kim to our shores for the recently-completed Malaysian Open. Does anyone know how much Bernie Ecclestone picks up each time the two score or so cars appear on the grid at the Formula One in Sepang? Yes, money makes the world go round, but should the guardians of sports open their mouths in awe when the super agents like Stanford descend pretending to have that proverbial pot of gold? There’s no dearth of lackeys or "pimps" as Barnes describes them who are willing to use their political clout for the few crumbs that are thrown and described in the books as "cost of doing business". Besides, there are those in their boxer shorts and gloves ready with their "killer" punches like "We are doing it to promote tourism" or "It will improve the standard of sports". Unfortunately, these are not knockout blows. On the sidelines, there are hundreds of spectators who will cheer because they too have put a small stake hoping for big returns.
At least one of them took us for a RM17 million ride with an additional RM8 million (on the premise of a future ride) only to return home to settle his company’s debts. And yet, there’s another who has arrived to prey on a voluptuous whore in Malaysia, with help from
local "pimps". Yes, I agree with Barnes. Don’t blame the whore. Blame the local pimps. If they claim they’re not in it for the money, they should at least be honest and declare that they do expect some fringe benefits. But the sad part is that prostitution is not an offence, but soliciting is. The pimp, of course, can be charged for living off immoral earnings even if does not mean hard cash. The operative word is "money or money’s worth"! And using Barnes’s analogy, are we entitled to change the titles of these people from "senior consultant" to "chief pimp"? That’s food for thought …
Articles in The Times prompted R. Nadeswaran to do a count of the number of whores and pimps in local sports circles. He could count them on his fingers! He is editor (special and investigative reporting) at theSun. He can be reached at: citizen-nades@thesun daily.com.
Last week, two columns in The Times’ sports pages caught my attention as they directly reflected the state of sports in Malaysia and the role of administrators and sports agents. Allen Stanford, who last year was described by the British media as the "Texan billionaire" when he presented himself as the messiah of cricket, arrived at the hallowed turf of Lords, the home of the game, in a helicopter carrying a chestful of American dollars. Officials went ballistic doting on him and treating him as if the doyen of amateur sports, W. G. Grace, had risen from the grave. Last week, the bitter truth emerged. Stanford, who was the financier of the US$20 million (RM74 million) winner take-all match between England and the West Indies, was nothing but a fraudster under investigation by the financial authorities and the FBI in the United States.
The Times’ award-winning writer Simon Barnes had this to say: When a billionaire comes a-calling, sport doesn’t waste its precious time by saying, "I’m not that kind of girl." No, one whiff of the inside of a fat wallet and sport is flat on its back with its legs in the air, shouting: "Come and get it." There is a moral confusion at the heart of sport and people such as Stanford can smell it out with the extraordinary and in some ways deeply enviable instincts that make them so good at money.
Barnes then went to draw some important values. Sport, he argues has become a whore. He does not blame the clients, the billionaires and the multinationals. He blames the sports administrators who do the selling. He unequivocally terms them as "pimps". But he does make an important exception: "It’s not that sporting administrators are corrupt, in that they take this money for themselves. Rather, they are corrupt in believing too strongly in the importance of money. If sport is compromised in the pursuit of money, then so what? What is sport for, after all? So sport, with distressing eagerness, has compromised itself in every corner of the Earth."
Another Times columnist, Giles Smith, had his say on BBC TV’s new reality series, Super Agents, where six bright kids battle to become not (sports) agents but super (sports) agents. He says: "Where yesterday’s children dreamt of running out for England at Wembley, today’s dream of creaming 15% off the top of Craig Bellamy’s transfer fee and securing a big boot deal for Bobby Zamora at Fulham. Well, fair enough. But what about starting at the bottom, as an agent, and working your way up to super agent? Not with today’s impatient kids. It’s super agent or nothing for the modern generation. Or maybe it is television that hasn’t got the patience. Either way, it’s the same thing."
What can be concluded is that amateur sport is dead, buried and entombed. It can and will never be resurrected because there’s so much money to prevent its second coming even if miracles do happen. Australian Rod Laver was the World No. 1 player for seven consecutive years (1964-1970). He is the only tennis player to have twice won all four Grand Slam singles titles in the same year – first as an amateur in 1962 and second as a professional in 1969. He retired in 1979 earning US$1.5 million in a 17-year pro career. Today, some tennis stars earn that much from wearing logos on their shirt sleeves and pockets in just ONE season. The footwear and apparel contracts are worth much more.
Long before Laver’s sojourn into the money-making circuit, sportsmen believed that if you made money out of sport, it was meaningless. But these days, if you don’t pay, they won’t turn up. Just ask how much it cost to bring Anthony Kim to our shores for the recently-completed Malaysian Open. Does anyone know how much Bernie Ecclestone picks up each time the two score or so cars appear on the grid at the Formula One in Sepang? Yes, money makes the world go round, but should the guardians of sports open their mouths in awe when the super agents like Stanford descend pretending to have that proverbial pot of gold? There’s no dearth of lackeys or "pimps" as Barnes describes them who are willing to use their political clout for the few crumbs that are thrown and described in the books as "cost of doing business". Besides, there are those in their boxer shorts and gloves ready with their "killer" punches like "We are doing it to promote tourism" or "It will improve the standard of sports". Unfortunately, these are not knockout blows. On the sidelines, there are hundreds of spectators who will cheer because they too have put a small stake hoping for big returns.
At least one of them took us for a RM17 million ride with an additional RM8 million (on the premise of a future ride) only to return home to settle his company’s debts. And yet, there’s another who has arrived to prey on a voluptuous whore in Malaysia, with help from
local "pimps". Yes, I agree with Barnes. Don’t blame the whore. Blame the local pimps. If they claim they’re not in it for the money, they should at least be honest and declare that they do expect some fringe benefits. But the sad part is that prostitution is not an offence, but soliciting is. The pimp, of course, can be charged for living off immoral earnings even if does not mean hard cash. The operative word is "money or money’s worth"! And using Barnes’s analogy, are we entitled to change the titles of these people from "senior consultant" to "chief pimp"? That’s food for thought …
Articles in The Times prompted R. Nadeswaran to do a count of the number of whores and pimps in local sports circles. He could count them on his fingers! He is editor (special and investigative reporting) at theSun. He can be reached at: citizen-nades@thesun daily.com.
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