Given world cup mania I feel compelled to say a few words on the ethics and sports. Where is fair play going ? What is going to happen with performance enhancing drugs ? Are we (or the pharma companies) going to declare freedom of choice and people can take what they want because it is their bodies... Or are we going to try to hold to the ideals... and what will be the drivers for change - regulation ? we might always be testing one drug late. What about genetic manipulation ? will it be allowed, will we be able to test for it if it is not ? Public opinion does not seem to count when there is a lot of money involved. Unless the consumers get in the act, and boycott any company who sponsors an athlete that will be found to have cheated. The companies will then have to tighten up the contracts with the athletes and the penalty for cheating might dissuade most of them. On the incentive side - it would be great if peer pressure were brought to bear on the subject - that like in the olympics, the athletes hold to the highest standard and that they self exclude, as a group, others found to have cheated. Athletes of the world - unite !
Good background articles on many aspects of sporting ethics on the bbc website.
From Times (London), The Game p.15 15th June 2006:
While Fifa pushes to eradicate foul play, ITV [a national UK TV station] pundits continue to back cloggers and cheats. Yesterday Ukraine defender Vladislav Vashchuk was sent off for impeding Spain's Fernando Torres by tugging his shorts as he bore down on goal. The formality of a red card was not accepted on ITV, however. "A scandalous decision," concluded Peter Drury before Andy Townsend, who accepted it was a foul, claimed the player should not have been sent off because his team were going to lose.
Posted by: fred | June 15, 2006 at 01:00 PM