Sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport,sport, sport, sport, sport,sport, sport, sport, sport and more sport.
People either love it or hate it. Those who hate it are probably closet homosapien salivating sausage strokers, a member of a far right party with a googly eye with a frown for immigrants or those who just don't have a penis* (*Sorry if I insulted all the eunuchs, action men dolls and "male" Tory party members who follow this blog, i would like to add you do have the right to have a penis but I don't recommend you get it done in eastern Europe, madonna still has the scar where her right kidney was intercepted.)
Moving on, I quip Is me doing this blog a sport? I could contest it being a sport on the grounds that this can be excruciatingly boring like a shit Cricket match, when f*** all great happens in the latter pages of the newspapers.
Coincidentally I remember a taxi driver called Collin who drove me home from a pool match in recent years who repeatedly went on about the Indian Premier League being a safe haven for, and I will quote this dick taxi driver here, "Tax dodging, bastarding washed up players of world cricket and also shitting useless Indians that no other teams want, huh, Pakis and Indians are useless shits full stop...".
Well me being an anti-fascist decided to play a deadly game with this no brained obvious swastika hailing cock nose, so I responded with the on the spot witty retort "...Why didn't you say your taxi service was BNP approved..." to which thick bastard Collin the taxi driver said in a serious tone "BNP approved? Whats sauce got to do with it?"
Confused, I said "Sauce? BNP?....why are you a taxi driver again? Did you fail the audition for Quasimodo?"
Collin responded in a dull monotone "Quasimodo? I cant stand them types, hanging around public toilets and parks..."
After Collin the cabbie said that I gladly hoped that he knew how to drive and that he wasn't a mental case who gave his carers the slip.
I will always remember Collin...remember him as a colossal daft c**t.
Speaking of c**ts I see Robbie Savage has is own column in the sun now, too bad its not him in a column of concrete being rocketed to the sun by NASA.
Hes a great guy really, no wait I'm lying.
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Sportsocracy - 24th edition - Sport? Here? Really?
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Sportsocracy - 7th Edition - Tarnished careers and successful aftermaths
This brought forward my own perceptions of some sports people and brought my views of sports people who rip apart their own careers to the forefront of my thoughts.
Barry Bonds career is obviously tarnished due to him bending the rules to gain an advantage via illegal use of substances, thus destroying his long career. This includes everything he had accomplished, baseball records and personal gains through the sport. Now at 42 his name has been soiled with his scandalous dwellings into drug use which helped him become successful.
This made me think he is not the only sports person who has done this. There have been many sports persons who have made mistakes in their careers by doing something which has overshadowed what they have accomplished and even some wrecking what they had achieved by being exposed as cheats.
Here are a select few : -
Marion Jones - Multiple gold medalist in the woman's 100 and 200 metres, prosperous athlete, seemed to be the consummate role model for young girls wanting to become athletes. She tarnished her career by being exposed as a drugs cheat, had her Olympic medals taken off her and now banned. It is yet to be seen what Marian will do next with her next career step.
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=all&tab=all&recipe=all&q=adrian+mutu+drugs
)http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=all&tab=all&recipe=all&q=martina+hingis+drugs
)Anyway as per usual your voice of opinion is gladly accepted try and comment below this post by clicking the COMMENT link its free, simple to use and anonymous.
Thursday, 20 March 2008
Sportsocracy 5th Edition - Crazed Sports Stars
On a day where David Beckham was called up to the England squad and concurring with the fact this could be his 100th international cap, the mr nice role model for the kids has not always been nicey, nicey.
On many occasions, so less few than Vinnie Jones but still, David Beckham has lashed out at opponents and took the bait and has been also sent off. The quiet cockney lad, who in interviews is very soft spoken and also a well mannered charity fund raising person off the pitch, can be a completely different character on the pitch.
Remember his lash out at Diego Simeone at the 1998 world cup, the most well known of his crazy moments. Even though he has this wild side to him he is also a good footballer and I respect what he does for kids charities.
This made me think and I pondered the question do all sports stars have this crazy side to them?. Not just footballers can have these moments. John McEnroe, tennis legend, and in my eyes one of the best ever, he had a brilliantly wild side to him, he was possibly the most fiery determined tennis player I have ever watched.
He would shout down umpires decisions regularly, so often that the media penned "You cannot be serious?" as his catchphrase as he used it that often when arguing over, more than probably, a bad line call. He had brilliant rivalries with Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg which brought out the best in McEnroe, and made brilliant TV.
McEnroe was definitely one of the most feared characters on a tennis court in his playing days, superb skill and a mixture of his extroverted on court actions made him thrilling to watch and a nightmare to Umpire.
Michael Schumacher arguably one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers to ever grace this planet, was a great competitor, but he had a crazy side to him. Take this from Michaels website - http://www.mschumacher.com/schumacher-crashes.html
In Adelaide 1994, the most talked about incident in modern Motor racing is the 1994 championship deciding collision between Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill at Adelaide, which was then reiterated in 1997 when Michael and Jacques Villeneuve had a collision in Jerez.
Firstly lets analyse the collision in 1994 between Hill and Schumacher. Schue made a mistake and ran wide leaving a chance for Hill to pass. Hill being a racer and seeing his chance to pass, which would give him the lead meaning he would win the championship as long as he could hold out Schumacher until the end of the race. A relatively easy feat as he had an (arguably) faster car, and it is nearly impossible to overtake in formula one today. Schumacher being a racer to did not want to relinquish his position, as he knew Hill having the (arguably) faster car would pull away and his chances for the championship would disappear off into the distance with him. So Schumacher tried to shut the door.
Make your own mind up, purpose or not, some said Schumacher lost the plot and his determination and overall ultra competitive side put him on the edge and the above just happened.
This pushes the phrase "Some people will do anything to win", does that mean even take out your opponent by putting your race position and possibly your life at danger? who knows what was running through Schumi's head at that point, all I know is his record speaks for itself in his prime he was the definition for the consumate world class racing driver.
These are just a few of many wild sports characters antics. Do any spring to mind to you? Voice your opinion, do you think all sports stars have this crazy gene which shows itself every so often? Lets have your view.
Friday, 4 January 2008
Sportsocracy - 2nd Edition - Sport, drugs and corruption
Sport especially in this decade has been associated and worded alongside by drugs and corruption on many back and front pages in the tabloid and broadsheet newspapers.
In the last ten years the media has highlighted these issues and they have made it known that this sort of newstory gets more airtime and gets more pages than any other sports story, even the most outrageous transfer e.g. If Ronaldinho went to AC Milan for £50 million, if a drugs or corruption exclusive story came along, it would overpower the newsworthy-ness of the superstar being transferred to Milan, a story which would usually flood the back pages. Its obvious that the bad things are highlighted a lot more than the good in UK media, with an England world cup football win aside, (if it ever happens again, imagine the mountainous supplements and amounts of other sports news being ignored if that happened, oblivious to the rest of us who actually want an even spread of sports news, but the masses would get what they want.).
A catastrophic event in any newsworthy way = kerchiiiiiing, £££££'s, JACKPOT, because it makes front page news sells more papers and gets more viewers if you have a camera at the scene. Newspapers and the media, being the humanitarians they are, let a substantial fee go to the needy usually via campaigns led in the papers themselves e.g. New Orleans, refugees from war torn countries etc.
Anyways more to the point it could be said corruption and drugs are rife throughout most sports, as we no athletics, track and field, is full of testosterone filled adonis-esque shaped persons, a lot of which have the muscle mass of bulls and racehorses (Dwain Chambers and Justin Gatlin spring to mind), because of this now the strange looking athletes especially in track and field are the ones who have considerable talent but not built like metaphorical tanks e.g. Kim Collins 100 metre sprinter, Dean Lacey decathlon, Michael Johnson (world and Olympic champion at 200 and 400 metres before he retired). These types of athlete appeal more to me than others, they seem down to earth, honest and have considerable talent and great with the fans, and corruption and drugs seem a world apart from these hard working types.
Drugs obviously have a massive affect on an athlete’s body, giving them quicker recovery times meaning more training can be done, a higher level of practise can be reached meaning personal goals come as well as many, many more positives. The tricks of drug use can be seen with Ben Johnson, a Canadian 100 metres sprinter, who thought he could beat the system and was caught in the wide eye of the world media in 1988 at the Seoul Olympics, even though I was very young at the time I still vaguely remember the story on the news.
Allegedly steroids ended up in his training routine somehow in the track and field off season, which coincidentally was were the steroid use was taking place.
E.g. So he would train-train-train in the off season along with the drug use and he would stop taking the drugs a good few weeks before the athletics season started and with a few diuretics, so his system would get flushed of the illegal drugs. The drugs had already improved the athlete and the drugs were well out of the system for any random drugs tests, but the dates got mixed up and he was caught out when a test found Diuretics in his blood stream, which flushes steroids from the system. It was Borat style high fives all around a cheat was caught, Johnson got stripped of his achievements and medals, and the track and field superstar of the time Carl Lewis rejoiced that a "cheat" had been caught out, ironically Lewis was also involved in drugs accusations later on in his career, but that’s another story. Obviously some athletes had a love for drugs whilst running in the 80's, the 80's.
Follow this link for a video of Johnson’s medal stripping and ban. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/27/newsid_2539000/2539525.stm
An independent view from the fans and sports voyeurs of Johnson’s shame. ttp://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/september/24/newsid_3114000/3114220.stm
The most recent athletics shocker, Justin Gatlin once the world 100 metre and 200 metre champion, was given a 4 year ban for drugs use - to read more, click on http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/7169473.stm)
For a glossary of the types of drugs athletes use, it also gives you why athletes use them and effects, follow this link http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/drugs/glossary/dictionary.html for more information
This type of drug use is rife in a lot of sports as you can see if you follow the above glossary of drugs link. Some examples are baseballers, martial arts experts, cyclists, cricketers, bobsledders, footballers, skiers, jockeys and horse riding equestrian, and the outcome is drug use is known to be used in any sport possible, if it gives a positive affect to performance and they will use it to become better than they are and obviously all towards the goal to competitively improve, it pushes the phrase "Sometimes people will do anything to win" to the maximum. At the end of the day its the athletes themselves who create the stories for the media so the athletes are to blame for creating the issue and the media are just doing what they do best, exploiting it for newsworthy-ness and making it known to the masses.As well as all the hype and pinpointing drugs in sport, all this drugs jibber jabber has made me a crazy fool and nearly made me forget the latter, corruption.
Here are some examples of corruption in sport : -
A couple of suffice examples of corruption
Tennis corruption
(from BBC sport http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/7169287.stm)
Venus Williams is this week competing in the JB Group Classic. Reigning Wimbledon champion Venus Williams says she does not believe tennis is rife with corruption. The sport has recently been tainted by rumours of match-fixing, while the ATP, the governing body of men's tennis, has been investigating irregular betting. When asked whether she had seen any evidence of match-fixing, Williams replied: "I don't think it is a big thing for tennis, to be honest. We're OK, I don't see it as a problem. I don't think about it per se." The 27-year-old is playing in the star-studded JB Group Classic in Hong Kong, in what is her first competitive tournament since October. Williams, who graduated from design college during her break from the game, crushed China's Peng Shuai, the world number 45, 6-1 6-2 on Thursday to reach the semi-finals of the invitational event. "I haven't been out there in a long time and had to fight for every point, but I felt all the things I have practised really paid off," said Williams, who now faces Elena Dementieva after the Russian beat top seed Ana Ivanovic.
Ivanovic, the world number four from Serbia, said she had not encountered any foul play in women's tennis, while two-time Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova believes the game is in good health. "I think it's in the best interests of players and the tour to keep the sport as clean as possible," said Sharapova, who plays Anna Chakvetadze in the other semi-final. "It's unfortunate that you do hear those things. Whether they're true you're not sure because sometimes it's just a bunch of rumours so unless you get a fact sheet or facts they will remain rumours." The players are in Asia preparing for the Australian Open where officials have set up a police taskforce to ensure that the first Grand Slam of the year remains corruption-free.
On Monday, tennis icon Martina Navratilova backed efforts to rid tennis of corruption but conceded that match-fixing was hard to prove. Three Italian players - Potito Starace, Daniele Bracciali and Alessio di Mauro - were hit with suspensions last year for betting on matches.
Football Corruption
As you will see football and corruption are linked strongly. There are many, many stories involved with corruption too many to list here so click the link and delve into the dark side of football and choose the link of your choice : -From Google search http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=football+corruption&metaCorruption in sport can be betting scams, match fixing, point-goals shaving, illegal betting by professional sportspersons in events in which they are taking part, its all about rigging the event to make an opportunity for another.
Some well known corrupt acts are Bruce Grobbelaar, an ex Liverpool goalkeeper who was accused of letting goals in in matches, John Fashanu was also remarked to have taken part as well as ex Tottenham Hotspur goalie Hans Segars, another is the major Italian football scandal in 2006 when Serie A teams were deducted points and the mighty, footballing, Turin, giants Juventus faced relegation, but the farce the season after in Serie B was even more embarrassing for the Italian FA when Juventus walked through the season and back into the Italian top flight, so the punishment was more like a holiday from Serie A in which most of Juve's superstar players stayed for.
Usually corruption is brought about by a third party or consortium of people away from football, possibly gangsters but not always, who offer gifts and money to pro-sportsmen and women to do something like throw a match, set, game etc and all parties get a positive extrinsic benefit if not caught. Bungs to agents is another corrupt case, offering money to agents to get the players they want is the main benefit in this type of corruption, basically is showing how bent and fraudulent agents in football can be, I’m not saying they are all like that they are all trying to make a bit of money at the end of the day, but it brings a bad name to football and the governing bodies hate it so it will be tackled accordingly.
Corruption and drugs in sport will continue as well as the extrinsic benefactors are there for the taking for the prosperous criminal minded few, and the drugs for the cheating kind to get that edge they need.
All comments are gladly welcomed.
Monday, 31 December 2007
SPORTSOCRACY - 1st Edition - Transfer Window
Welcome, this blog has been created as a nest for the freedom of speech alongside the continuous ongoing world of sport.
Well what the hell is Sportsocracy? a word which was devised by myself and it is a hybrid of two obvious words : -
Sport - An individual or group competitive activity involving physical exertion or skill, governed by rules, and sometimes engaged in professionally.
Democracy - The right to a form of government in which power is invested in the people as a whole, usually exercised on their behalf by elected representatives. Includes freedom of speech.
(Definitions from Encarta online)
Add the two together - Sport + Democracy = Sportsocracy - and created is a world in which we can talk about sport in any manner we please. Freedom of speech with the spoken words of sport.
First topic of discussion - The football transfer window
With the January transfer window due to open in a matter of hours, and football being more money driven than it has ever been before, is it time a new process could be put in place similar to that of the NBA basketball draft system where the worse off teams get the first choices of a selection of draft players who make themselves/or their club makes them available to the transfer draft, also accounted could be swap deals.
For example - John Smiths* contract has ended with Whatever FC, he is now a free agent therefore that would make him out of contract and available for the draft system. This could apply to players who are in contract but want to leave the club they are at so the rules could be changed so a player can buy himself out of his contract after reasonable discussion with his club and therefore his name could then be put in the draft as per a conclusion of the discussion with the clubs hierarchy. (* John Smith is not a real player and is used for example purposes only)
This system could work but it would cut out transfer fees, meaning players wages could rise again and cut out agents when discussing overall transfer fees, which would mean they would push the players wage demands alot higher so the agents still get a cutback which will still be a profit.
For example right now as it stands - If John Smith moves to Real Madrid for 20 million euros/ pounds (or the currency of your choice), he is then subjected to all the usual scenarios club tour before hand, medical etc then a contract is discussed and john smith gets ££££'s per week, possibly above £50,000 a week for a top professional and pushing the £100,000 barrier then he is released to the hungry hounds for questioning as he is unveiled as the next big thing. His old club reaps nearly the entirety of the transfer fee and sits on a pretty pot of close to 20 million quid; obviously the agents involved take a cut also.
Not a bad days profit for his old club, especially if he cost sweet FA and came through the youth system. A positive for his old club yes, they have an instant margin above other clubs as cash in football breaks or makes you. The more cash you have as a club the more doors open for you to buy the better players and offer substantially large wages and bonuses. If you are a freshly promoted side up to the top division in your country, who spends little to gain profit, barriers are already in your way you cannot offer the higher wages or bonus's but you can offer top flight football and a possible below top division level average salary, but that’s were the book shuts unless a player really wants to come to your club, for example Roy Keane’s ambition to finish his playing career at Celtic, loyalty comes into consideration.
The draft could be the next step for football, it could save football and make it ever more interesting, well its got to be better than Platini wanting to rule out the slide tackle, he should be focussing his eyes on simulation (diving) and the introduction of goal line referees/ goal line technology whatever the preference with an added look over the current offside rule to improve it. For example post-draft if it happened - If Manchester United win the English Premier League title in 2009, the following season the 3 clubs coming up from the championship get first choice on the draft of players and the top gets the last pick. The draft system favours the underdogs and in the long run this could make football more appealing to the masses and giving teams a better chance and more of a competitive edge.
Its simple if your fed up of the same old top 3 or 4 clubs every season finishing in the top 3 or 4 places, the draft system could be very appealing. Another example is the SPL (Scottish premier league) - It has been dominated over the past few decades by Celtic and Rangers, this year Scottish football has come to the forefront with Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen still being in European competitions going into the new year, as well as the national team playing some absolute brilliant football possibly down to the inclusion of the ruling that three Scottish under 21 players have to be included in all league starting line ups. This has brought to the forefront some brilliant exuberant talent, Scott Brown (Celtic), Charlie Adam (Rangers), Alan Hutton (Rangers), Christophe Berra (Hearts), Zander Diamond (Aberdeen), Steven Fletcher (Hibernian). This even though this is a good formula for the Scottish international game, on a league level it is still Celtic and Rangers who are dominating the league, the draft system would be perfect for Scottish football.
The draft system definitely has its positives and its negatives, but its the money spinners in football who will not want this to happen. If FIFA chose this system to go worldwide you could imagine the possible mutiny of some of the bigger clubs. In this case the possible worst case scenario for FIFA could happen, the G14 clubs (no its not that Simon Cowell managed quartet, it is all of Europe’s top clubs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G14) could formulate their own Master League, a super league consisting of nearly all of Europe’s major clubs, that is possibly the most important negative argument against the "Draft system".
Any comments will be gladly appreciated.
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