Sports needs to face facts. Sport is a walking scandal. Sport needs to extract itself from scandal and politics. Sport has been a very naughty boy. Sports needs to be chastised, disciplined, brought into line and given a stern talking to.
We’re not happy sport. We want to get back to watching you on the field. We’re tired of tawdry studio apologies and the scope you’re providing for holier than thou puritans to douse us in meaningless moral platitudes they don’t believe in.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. The boys at For and Against may be labelled extreme but we fearlessly preach good old fashioned, dyed in the wool common sense.
Proposal One – Rugby League players to be treated like adolescents until retirement.
Recommendation One – Rugby League players should not be allowed to socialize with females unless they have notarized consent form from their mother. In addition, unless they assent to being chaperoned, notarized consent forms from the fathers of all females present will also be required.
Recommendation Two – The right of free association should be curtailed for footballers.
Frankly, given some of their recent behaviour, we are led to the conclusion that in terms of its negative effect on society, the behaviour of several Rugby League players is far worse than anything offered up by teenage gangs in recent times.
Consequently, if it’s not okay for teenagers to congregate in certain places after dark, we don’t see why Rugby League players should be allowed to. Teenagers are at least twice as mature and responsible.
Recommendation Three – This is perhaps the most radical recommendation. The avant-garde band King Missile first introduced the idea of a detachable appendage. We do not believe that King Missile had footballers in mind at the time.
Nevertheless, you have to admit that society would be a better place if some players had their appendages temporarily removed. We trust that David Gallop would use his powers sensibly.
The additional bonus of this radical proposal is that many footballers may discover, for the first time, a new and previously unutilized organ, the unfamiliar gray matter above their eyes, a mythical thing discussed only very occasionally in dressing rooms around the country.
Serious Note: The players and the clubs need to take a good hard look at themselves. The bloke who (anonymously) claimed that curbing player’s sexual freedom infringes on basic human rights is intellectually correct. His sense of timing was poor. It illustrates and this is almost unbelievable given what has happened over the last few years, that some of them just don’t get it.
Proposal Two – Body Guards for Champions Leagues Referees
It sounds crazy we know. But would Michael Ballack have invaded Tom Ovrebo’s personal space like he did if there had been two burly bouncers between him and the mild-mannered Norwegian? I don’t think so. “Private party tonight I’m afraid Mr. Ballack”.
Similarly, Didier Drogba may have minded some of his P’s and Q’s faced with two blokes wider and even more buff than he is.
The bouncers would clearly need to get fit fast. Mobility is not a known strength of bouncers and it is rumoured that referees cover close to 15 kilometres in a single game.
Nevertheless, the Global Financial Crisis has left many bouncers unemployed. Surely then, it would not be implausible or unreasonable for UEFA to deploy tag teaming bouncers to protect referees; at least during the knock-out stages of the tournament. The bouncers would particularly enjoy guarding the referee at half-time. They could even employ the velvet ropes, radio head sets and red carpets so much loved by night club impresarios.
Serious Note: FIFA and UEFA need to help referees and the very first thing they need to do is permit a wider use of technology. The argument that the use of technology undermines referees is nonsense. The reverse is true.
Proposal Three – Steeple chases without the horses
Who needs the horses anyway? Recent and past experiences suggests that horses are just not very good at jumping, evading things and landing.
These three facts render our equine friends unfit for hurdling. When was the last time they had to throw a blanket over a Kenyan in the 3000 metre steeplechase? Exactly.
The answer was so simple all along. The problem with the steeple chase is the horses.
Get the jockeys out there. Take their whips away. Imposed a height restriction. Reduce the size of the hurdles just a little and buy the smallest podium you can find. Let the little men loose and watch them rip! It will be a phenomenon…at least until some bleeding heart liberal with a soft spot for tall people bans it applying anti-discrimination laws.
Serious Note: Horses don’t like hurdles very much. They like it about as much as foxes liked fox hunting and gladiators liked to gladiate. It’s time for a change.
Here at For and Against we say bring back the bloody sport! We survey it all here.
The speeding juggernaut that is Rugby League, plundering, bumbling downhill and gathering yet more speed with a lifeless brake pedal pressed in panic to the floor, finally hits the irresistible force it has been careering towards all this time and comes to a crashing halt in that living hell otherwise known as A Current Affair.
The wreckage is flung to all Four Corners of the Mungo world and we don the gloves to pad delicately through the mess. So much for those Safe-T-Cams, huh? Maybe technology can save the day in soccer, another sport that is in good need of saving from itself, if for altogether different reasons.
Meanwhile, that old bastion of olde bastions, the ICC, has opened itself up to the use of technology, though not before the next Ashes series. We find it amusing that they worry about the rules while our rooky opening batsman acclimatizes to the seaming pitches of Blighty. How quaintly appropriate is that!
Surely more appropriate than some git’s claim that F1 could survive without Ferrari. A claim immediately refuted by everybody who is meant to hate them; their bitter competitors. Yet the power of Ferrari is dim next to the powers of Long John’s latest long johns, pants so bright they make Stabilo Boss look pallid. Fore! (& Against).
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