Although
that is a moot point. Cricket has shown
itself to be ideal for match fixing and the Third World (or the Developing World
as we are now supposed to say, though I don't think that any less condescending) has managed to make umpteen billions out of
crooked betting on mind-bendingly boring matches. That does, you have to admit, add a certain
zing of the forbidden to an otherwise arcane-like (that was the only adjectival
alternative that Word allowed, though 'arcane' is an adjective already - oh dear, caught by my own ignorance) piece of self-indulgence. F1 racing need not make us pause for a
moment: anything which has that repulsive white-haired dwarf in charge is
obviously terminally corrupt. Baseball
is still haunted by the fixing of the World Series in nineteen-hundred and
something – and so we can go on for all the sports.
You
only have to look at the governing bodies of sports to realise that any
thoughts of sport for sport’s sake is a remote possibility. In a charmingly sexist moment in one of his
novels, Dickens refers to ‘old women of both sexes’; in a similar vein I would
characterise the faces of sport government as ‘old, white, middle-aged, middle
class men’ of all races, classes, sexes and ages. Corrupt to their very finger tips: if not in
terms of money and raw power then certainly in terms of perceived status and self
importance.
FIFA
is, of course pre-eminent in terms of barefaced arrogance and illegality. The only reason that such a rotten
organization based itself in Switzerland was that there was no bribery law in
operation until relatively recently – though laws, of course do not hinder the
machinations of this body which makes the Mafia look like a WI Knitting Circle.
The
only decent course open to World Football is for every national sports’
organization to withdraw their membership and look towards founding another
organization which has some sort of reasonable ethos behind its charter. Blatter is a petty dictator who gains
‘friends’ and ‘influence’ by spending other people’s money to ensure that the
“”good and the great”” (double inverted commas seems somehow inadequate to
highlight the twisted definitions that FIFA uses in its lofty pronouncements)
keep to the status quo, their stipends and the swamp of illegality that makes
the organization the hated symbol of self-promotion that it is today.
Brazilian
police have arrested high profile demonstrators who have been working against
the promotion of the completely false façade that FIFA and the Brazilian
government has tried to drape over the chaotic and corrupt preparations for the
World Cup. Why was it that the
England-Italy game was allowed to proceed when not one, NOT ONE, of the trial
events to test the security and preparedness of the stadium demanded by FIFA
actually took place? Why is a
high-handed non-tax paying self-justifying band of criminals allowed to get
away with this?
The
answer is always money of course. And
with The Crisis showing no real signs of letting up the usual hidden, chummy
corruption of the moneyed classes has burst out into the open and the political
classes are scurrying about trying to hide the blatant evidence of their own
wrongdoing.
Take,
for example, the ex-king of Spain – the widely despised King Juan Carlos
(serial philanderer, elephant killer, hypocrite and blood sucker). His private life is scandalous; his financial
doings questionable; his attitude towards ‘his’ people contemptible; his
attitude towards ‘justice is the same for everyone’ laughable; his hands ever
open to take what he does not earn.
At
the moment his just desserts are in abeyance because he is titular head of
state and therefore ‘beyond’ justice. As
an abdicated king, he would be open to prosecution and quite a few mothers
asking for him to take responsibility for his alleged children. So what does our ‘government’ do? Well, the two main political parties can see
their easy ‘governance’ of Spain slipping from their corrupt little fingers, so
the PP (a laughably right-wing bunch of crooks) and PSOE (an even more
laughable bunch of so-called socialists) come together and stitch up a new law
which keeps a king in place and gives the old discredited king the status of
‘king’ which allows him to continue to be above the law which he himself (in a
much repeated piece of film) said was the same for everyone, but of course, he
meant for ‘every one of you and not for me and my family.’
All
of this is happening during the aftermath of the European elections, while the
world cup is going on, and while everyone is looking forward to the summer
holidays. There are five more days with
the students in schools and then the customary days when the teachers should be
able to prepare for the coming term in September, but will in fact be condemned
to completely pointless ‘meetings’ which sap life and give you a clear view of
what a Jean Paul Sartre hell might be like.
Relentless
negativity is wearing, isn’t it? But it keeps
me sane.
The
weather is not wonderful, but it isn’t raining.
I have just had an excellent pasta for lunch and I still have plenty of
reading material to keep me going until our ‘holiday’ in the UK.
Life
may not be ‘good’ in all (or indeed any) political respects, but it keeps me
happy!
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