Concept Garage

Sport as many things in life can be viewed both as an end in itself and as a means for many ends, which may not be that evident to many. Still this should not undermine the fact that it’s a very important human engagement and a branch of the economy engaging millions of people and money. A lot can be said about the individual benefits of sport, which can be summed up in a nutshell as ‘a physical endeavor to keep a healthy and well functioning mind and body’. Which of course directly affects productivity and hence the economic development; but still attempts must be made to go beyond this rudimentary link, in explaining the reason why proper attention should be given to sports in contemporary society.

Any Determination to uncover and reflect the position held by sport in our present-day modern life, obligates one to add a certain time dimension to his or her argument, hence I would like to start from the ancient times where people used to worship their gods through sport. The Greeks used to engage in rituals before they commenced their Olympic games. The Romans practiced sport for entertainment, for sheer primordial joy they use to have, viewing gladiators bleed. Aztecs also engaged themselves with sport in the same way as the Greeks, to honor their gods and It seems mankind has a bit evolved since then; Now, we the lucky ones are living in a time dimension where sport is played for health and entertainment, for honor and respect, and oftentimes for money. The 21^st century sport is also overwhelmed by morally degrading scene of horse trading amongst rich and famous sport clubs (buying and selling players is common). If the forces of demand and supply are to continue being unleashed to the extent they are currently, common sense suggests a slide back to barbarism, as is quite evident in Boxing!

While the individual benefits of sport are clear, the societal collective benefits through sport as means to development is debatable, sport can indeed be regarded as a positive end in itself; but as a closer look at the captains of the sport industry, various sport clubs, the state and the media, various NGOs in Africa and even gangsters and hooligans demonstrates a continued efforts by most of these elements in society, using sport to stir public emotion for their own ends, often times to amass money and power. The current societal arrangement of sport leaves the citizen exposed to the intentions of other men, malign or benign.

The more recent interest from the academic community and nongovernmental organizations to use sports as means to promote societal development is of course a very promising endeavor, Sport indeed offers a new frontier in the war against poverty and under development both in the north and south; however in an era in which business forces are stronger and increasingly aggressive, it would be impractical to imagine and relay on these non market forces (academics and NGOs) to steer the sport industry in the step towards the right direction. In the words of the world famous academic Noam Chomsky “In contemporary Global economic paradigm, it would be very difficult and next to impossible for non market, non commercial and democratic forces to barely exist at all.” Hence, reliance on these forces in society to bring the much sought development will be naïve, unrealistic and bloodless!