Stop using sport to push agendas
REMEMBER the saying, ‘Cutting off your nose to spite your face?’ Doing something you think will hurt someone without realising or caring that it will hurt you and possibly others in the process.
A recent example being the Netball Australia saga. where Indigenous player Donell Wallam’s stance over comments made by mining magnate Lang Hancock almost 40 years ago, ended in the withdrawal of a $15m sponsorship to the financially strapped sporting body.
In 1988 Hancock infamously suggested Indigenous Australians should be sterilised to solve “the problem”.
His comments were as offensive back then as they are today.
While some praised Wallam for taking a stand on something she clearly felt strongly about, others thought it was over the top, asking at what point do we stop blaming the living for the deeds of the dead?
The media went to town and the controversy bubbled along nicely until Hancock Prospecting executive chair (and the late magnate’s daughter), Gina Rinehart, withdrew the sponsorship altogether.
The company’s diplomatic response being that it was “not aware prior to the proposed partnerships of the complexity of existing issues between Netball Australia and the Players Association”.
To give Rinehart her due, she guaranteed to support Netball Australia for the next four months until another sponsor could be found.
But that mattered little to the serial pot-stirrers and a further pileon followed, this time on Rinehart for withdrawing her sponsorship.
This came from the usual hotchpotch of half-baked celebrities who live purely for the sound of their own drums beating.
How could she withdraw sponsorship, they whined.
Fact – it’s her money and she can do what she likes with it.
It was ironic, however, that despite spitting the dummy over comments made 40 years ago, they were still happy to accept money from a mining empire founded by the same man they were complaining about. Talk about double standards.
Nor would it have hurt these young netball players to do some research to see exactly what Rinehart contributes through her philanthropy before they went ahead and sabotaged their own sponsorship.
Gina Rinehart is a huge financial supporter of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, she provides sponsorships in Olympic sports, including swimming, rowing, volleyball and synchronised swimming. She also supports the National Breast Cancer Foundation, youth at risk, young girls in Cambodia, education and employment programs for Indigenous Australians and scholarships for young athletes so they have a university degree to fall back on when their competition days are over.
But you won’t hear Rinehart shouting about it, quiet achievers don’t blow their own bugles.
And it is also high time professional sports people stopped using their sport to push their own political opinions and agendas on everyone else.
It’s simple. Do it on your own time, not on the boss’s.
Because when it comes to kicking your own can up the street, there’s no guarantee it won’t fly off in the wrong direction and cause some serious collateral damage not just for you, but others as well.
And that really is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
It is also high time professional sports people stopped using their sport to push their own political opinions and agendas on everyone else.