Like many around the world, I quite enjoyed yesterday’s Champions League Final between Bayern Münich and PSG, in spite of the fake audience “cheering” and “protesting” throughout the game. Somehow it fit our “fake news” times. I can live with the result as well. As I don’t want to impose any CL related reflections on IHP readers in the weekly newsletter intro, perhaps a quick separate blog. If only for the ice hockey fans, or the ones who don’t like sports at all 😊.
1. For a start, it’s just nice to see a
‘decent man’ like Hansi Flick in a very ugly, capital-driven world like top
level football where big egos and so called “masculine values” tend to dominate.
The resemblance with the empathic Joe Biden in the US presidential elections
comes to mind 😊.
2. While I’m a big fan of the beautiful
game, having played it for a decade and a half, it seems more than time we
rob it of its current neoliberal “values” - as we leave the neoliberal era
hopefully well and truly “behind”, post-Covid. I’m sure you’re familiar with most of these “values”:
the winner takes all (the money), the rich only get richer (and the poor
poorer), almost everything seems justified to beat the opponent (including
rigging UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules, with the help of top lawyers), the ongoing
trade in young African players (of which only the happy few will make it to the
top, while the rest are being ditched somewhere along the way), the shiny new stadiums, often constructed by workers
in very difficult circumstances (see Qatar 2022), … Yeah, I don’t need to tell you that “Qatar”
rings a bell.
3. While UEFA has done a really nice
job with its ‘Thank you’ campaign for essential workers (especially, but
not only health workers on the front lines), it would be far more convincing if
governments started imposing a salary cap on football stars. Football
players should never earn more than a prime minister (or president) in a
country (even an incompetent one 😊). While
they bring joy and grief to millions of people around the world, in the end, football
remains just a game. Running a country is anything but, as we can see now all
over the world. So by no means, football stars share the same responsibility as
leaders of countries. As for their portrait rights and all other advertisements,
I’m in favour of a ‘tax the 0.0001 % at 99 %” rule, certainly in
difficult Covid times like now. To finance public goods. Same goes for tv
rights. Tax Sky et al till they drop.
4. I’m guessing with this sort of
salary cap, it would also be far more feasible to get equal salaries for
male & female football players. Win-win.
5. Along the same lines, WHO
would do well to not just set up “partnerships” with the shady likes of FIFA,
or have football ambassadors for worthy global health causes (like the goalkeeper of Liverpool, Alisson
Becker), the social determinants & tax justice/health financing folks at
WHO should also zoom in (and write big reports on) how vital ‘decent
salaries’ and ‘tax justice’ (for the more “creative” football stars: that’s
the opposite of “tax optimization” 😊) are for
essential workers (and their salaries). And dr. Tedros (or his brilliant speechwriter)
should come up with some nice mantra that goes with it. Something with “two sides of the same coin’,
no doubt. Or: ‘Too many coins for Neymar
leaves few coins for the others.’ Same
for the World Bank et al. If you write worrying reports on the increase
of extreme poverty (with hundreds and hundreds of millions of people having to
live on less than a few dollars a day), do write also reports on where to find
some of the money. You’ll see trust in multilateralism and some of its flagship
organisations will suddenly increase exponentially.
6. Now that GAFA get more and more
flak, in the US and elsewhere, among others for the billions they earned during
the pandemic, while many others are struggling to just get by, the ludicrous
salaries of football stars somehow seem to have escaped the ire of the public. It’s
not clear to me why.
7. As already mentioned, it’s a dirty
world, football at the highest level. Not unlike politics, yes. And (part of) global
health? Or rather, perhaps, in all these worlds, there’s beauty and purpose,
but also the opposite, cynicism and utter ugliness. It’s about letting the
first prevail.
8. Last comment: I remember some in the
global health community feeling sick and tired of the “sycophantic tweets”, a
few years ago, but rest assured, by now I’m also absolutely fed up with the drooling
comments by some football commentators on “dazzling football stars” etc. I also enjoy their skills, but please, football
remains just a game, even if Neymar et al are exceptionally talented. The
contrast with the Coca Cola spot during the break, on everybody’s value in this
world, is just ridiculous (and yes,
that goes with all caveats one can have about Coca cola ads 😊.
Can we just
enjoy Neymar, Neuer and other Di Maria’s for their skill on the pitch, without
having to turn them into the “gladiators“ of this age? True, we would probably have to come up with
a different name (than Champions League), then…
How about ‘Essential
Workers on the Pitch’ ?
