maandag 24 augustus 2020

Football at the highest level: towards a post-neoliberal and truly beautiful game once more ?

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’ ?

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