"May life and sound health abide with you". That is my new way of wishing my loved ones the best as we part. The possibilities are endless, the limitations seem to disappear and the revelations can be mindboggling. The first weekend of May 2015 chucked out one of these mindboggling twists. Strange bedfellows but only because the world had never taken a second look. Astounding. The arrogant, smart, witty Jose Mourinho and the inanely arrogant, hedonistic Floyd “Money” Mayweather. Their stark connection, winning; no moral victories, no holds barred, no saving face; just good old winning. (I miss Michael Schumacher) Unlike that guy I miss though, the two have honed an annoying, outlandishly boring, cowardly but admirable knack for winning by putting up defensive master classes. Loathing the men is easy, but the struggle is way bigger than them. Signs of the times.
I am an ardent football fan, yes; I follow quite a number of sports closely, yes. Sport is an amazing source of entertainment and of course, controversy. (I do not believe controversy is entertainment, pardon my boring nature). I believe there is a lesson to scrape from everywhere including sport and if you stumble upon it, scrape, scrape, scrape and milk it for all it’s worth.
To this day, one of the best things ever to happen to sport is the influx of money, tonnes of money or as the euphemism goes, business. Oil oligarchs, bored ‘nerds’, billionaires are purchasing sports clubs to either get entertained or well, make more money. Some genuinely love the respective sports, others genuinely love the sums of currency being floated about. For a man who has seen Majid Musisi, Leo Rwabwogo, Paul Hasule and many other selfless sportsmen die as paupers; this just gets me in high spirits. Someone needs to live off what they love, live off and thrive. There must be a reward for making others happy, making a nation proud, uniting a people (Kiprotich, anyone?).
So money being an incentive and a major sports infrastructure driver is a no-brainer. Money is also referred to as the root of all evil for a reason and match fixing allegations, world cup hosting rows will just not go away. Oh I forgot, was supposed to use that euphemism, business. I’ll dwell on the seemingly lesser evil though, the fact that business is progressively sucking the entertainment out of sport. Limit your costs, avoid unnecessary leakages, edge your opponent, by all means edge the competition. I recently watched a repeat of football giants Manchester United and Real Madrid tussling it out to a 7 goal thriller (this match made a certain Roman Abramovich venture into the beautiful game) and muttering to myself, “Why is there so much space?” The number of men on the field is still the same but the space has definitely and rapidly dwindled because the stakes are higher. Multimillion dollar contracts, shirt sponsor deals, bonuses, endorsements, money, jobs, money…trophies are at stake. Trophies noticeably come last because what is glory while living as a pauper? We win at all costs, not because no one remembers a loser but eventually, losers will not fend for their families as well as winners will. Simple arithmetic, my father would say.
So this weekend has to go to the aforementioned bedfellows. No one has embodied winning at all costs like the loathed Jose Mourinho and his newfound son, or brother if you will. These men are deeply entrenched in the same “cost-benefit analysis” school of sports. The first things they learnt, attain the edge by protecting your Queen, do not blink as you do it, do not wince, just do it. While at it, pick on your opponents' Achilles heel and duly exploit it. Decimate, capitalise, do not flinch at the opportunity. The second; entertainment? Which entertainment? Why entertainment? Have you heard of the WWE?
Overly pragmatic? Yes. Do I blame them? Not anymore. Look about us, with our growing euphemisms language has become cagey; safety measures more stringent, no one is rushing into war, to save or protect; people are less social, competition everywhere is nerve wracking since money is stuck to glory like white on rice. These are signs of the times; this is the modern Darwinian theory of natural selection. This is the trade, these men have mastered it; this is their moment; loathe them not, loathe what we have become. A mechanical, cagey, highly calculative race.
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