Men in suits have sold the Olympics’ soul
The Games’ custodians have been blinded by power and money, reports Matthew Syed.
LOOKING down from Aorangi Park to the queue at the All England Club, snaking back from the gates, over temporary green bridges, across the main road and out on to Wimbledon Park Golf Club, was to be reminded of the intoxication of sport.
I spoke to many as they waited in a light shower, rain coats pulled tight, smiles of anticipation on their faces. ‘‘I woke up at 6.45 yesterday morning to get here,’’ Lyn Robinson, 69, from West Glasgow, said. ‘‘I have been coming every year for the last 50 years.’’
‘‘I was up at 3am to get here from Bristol,’’ Karey Barrett, a midwife, said. Others talked about journeys from Linkoping, Sweden, from Berne, Switzerland, from Fukuoka, Japan.
These pilgrimages articulate the meaning of sport. I remember going up L’Alpe d’Huez in 2015 in the Team Sky reconnaissance car at the Tour de France and at 3,000 feet above sea level, the air thin and the fields far below, noticing signs such as ‘‘Shrewsbury’’, ‘‘Didsbury’’ and ‘‘Macclesfield Wheelers’’. Fans from across the UK had travelled out, traversed the slopes, to offer a cheer to Chris Froome as he flew past.
These journeys are as ancient as sport itself. And this brings me to my point: a tragedy of modern sport is the disconnect between those in charge of organising these great festivals and those who travel to witness them. Take the decision to include golf in the 31st Olympiad. Almost every fan understood, at the time the decision was made, the crucial flaw. The beauty of the Olympics consists in the animating idea that it represents the pinnacle. That was the premise back in Ancient Olympia and so it must be today.
Had squash been included, Nick Matthew, Mohamed Elshorbagy and Nicol David, three of its finest exponents, would have celebrated for a week. Squash players from around the world would have arrived at the Olympic venue knowing that this was the most important day of their life.
And yet the suits took a different view. They included golf not because they thought about what makes the Games special, but about viewing figures in their most lucrative markets, most particularly the United States, the demands of sponsors, and the power dynamics of a small clique who sit atop the Olympic movement. The short-sightedness of the decision can be seen not just in that golf will struggle to persuade fans to make the pilgrimage to watch it, but that it cannot even persuade the golfers to compete in it.
As of this week, all four of the world’s top male golfers had withdrawn, ostensibly because of the Zika virus, but, to anyone capable of reading between the lines, because golf should never have been included in the first place.
Why are the custodians so detached from the true meaning of the Olympics? The answer is not just spiritual but geographical. The Olympic experience for executive members takes place in a parallel universe. For too long, they have travelled in dedicated lanes, stayed in luxury hotels, watched from privileged seats. The Olympics, to them, is not about the indefinable drama that persuades thousands to make the journey, but about power and ego. Officials make poor judgments, not because they are unintelligent, but because they have been institutionally blinded to what is precious.
The bloated formats of global competitions in football, cricket and rugby are just one example. These are designed not to enhance the drama, but to squeeze every last drop out of it. The history, here, is not insignificant. It was the late Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former president of the IOC, who changed the rules governing expenses, demanding first-class flights and five-star hotels. Jacques Rogge and Thomas Bach, his two successors, have reined back the extravagance, but a distance remains.
The uncompetitive nature of sanctioning is at work, here, too. The IOC is a monopoly supplier of Olympic events and Fifa is (for the time being) the exclusive sanctioning body for football. They enjoy de facto control of lucrative rights, and have no fear of anyone taking it from them except their respective electorates, and so are preoccupied by satisfying them, rather than fans. There is no meaningful competition (it is not as if a rival Olympic movement is going to spring into existence), so crass decisions are not punished in the market place. Fans are shafted, but the bandwagon rolls on.