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Why football fans should care about the Winter Olympics

6th February, 2014
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IOC President Thomas Bach (Source: Wikipedia Commons)
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6th February, 2014
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Football fans have every reason to keep a close eye on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Four years out from Russia hosting the World Cup, this month’s Games could well prove a disaster.

The Winter Olympics are supposed to be a showcase for winter sports, and for many athletes they’re the defining moment of a career.

But the 2014 Winter Olympics look like being little more than a showcase of the vanity of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Putin is, in my opinion, a hard-nosed dictator.

The scale of corruption under his leadership is plain for all to see when a Games which will cost more to host than any other Winter Olympics combined, is not even equipped with basic amenities.

Where has most of the staggering $58 billion budget gone?

Straight into the pockets of Putin’s cronies, according to virtually all of his critics.

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone who knows the slightest bit about post-Communist Russia.

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What should come as a surprise is that in this day and age, educated citizens across the globe continue not only tolerate, but also to enable such behaviour.

Why do we turn a blind eye to the inherent corruption and cronyism involved in putting on international sporting events?

Both the Sochi Olympics and the upcoming FIFA World Cup in Brazil could prove watershed moments for the way consumers watch international sports, because off-field problems have the potential to far outweigh any actual sporting activity.

FIFA’s panicky response to last year’s Confederations Cup protests proved not only that they were delusional not to foresee them, but also that they expected the tournament simply to proceed at all costs.

This same ‘at all costs’ mentality has seen several Brazilian labourers lose their lives, many more itinerant workers die in Qatar’s unrelenting heat, stadiums built in the middle of nowhere and FIFA open the door for a European breakaway league by calling for a winter World Cup in 2022 – without consulting the stakeholders who actually supply the players.

If the Winter Olympics are not a major flop and this year’s football jamboree somehow spreads more goodwill than upheaval, can anyone really see Putin’s Russia putting on an enjoyable World Cup?

Maybe the Russian state will prevail, but at what cost?

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More citizens displaced from their homes, more environmental vandalism, more corruption, more assassinations?

At what point does society say that the cost of hosting these events far outweighs any benefits gained?

At some point, enough is enough.

Both FIFA and the International Olympics Committee lost touch with reality long ago.

The executives who work for them and those who enjoy their benevolence are so far removed from normalcy as to be a dangerous law unto themselves.

That IOC president Thomas Bach recently said he is “sleeping very well” despite the looming spectre of the worst Olympic Games on record is laughable.

He’s obviously not sleeping in a half-finished athletes’ village, nor is he kipping out in the street after a Russian bulldozer reduced his home to rubble.

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If life was fair, the 2014 Winter Olympics would mark the beginning of the end for governments and corporations combining to use international sporting events for their own unscrupulous agendas.

Since spectators are these days seemingly so irrelevant to the profit margins of multinational, highly corporate sporting events, perhaps we’d be better off simply refusing to watch?

Unfortunately that’s not a realistic goal in a world where blind patriotism dictates that we throw our support behind our athletes and sporting stars.

We should at least be able to do so in competitions where individual and team glory, not political corruption and corporate greed, are the rewards.

Sadly, the Sochi Games and a football World Cup four years from now are likely to showcase the very worst side of world sport.

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