Sports can rue the day they dance with devil

“TELL me, my friend, have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?” This is one of the glorious lines from Tim Burton’s 1989 film Batman, delivered by Jack Nicholson’s memorable Joker to Bruce Wayne, just before he shoots him (Wayne survives, otherwise the film would have been called The Joker and Gotham City would look very different).

Much has been made of what that line actually means, the consensus being that we all do things we later regret – but few of us do or say something with farreaching consequences (think David Cameron’s last dance before calling the EU referendum).

I only follow football at arm’s length, but the Joker’s line came to mind when Swansea City, having rescued itself from the brink of oblivion through public involvement and good management, then decided to sell its soul to the devil for a pot of Gotham City gold. Its fate was sealed.

In American football there’s a team located in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions called Green Bay Packers – in rugby terms think Connacht – yet it is one of the most successful teams in the NFL. What makes the Packers unique, though, is that it is the only-high profile team in all of America’s top sports that is not owned by an individual, family or corporation. It is wholly owned by the fans.

Even when the Packers suffer a run of poor form, as all sports teams do, the games are well attended because the fans, as owners, will support it through good times and bad. It is their team, indeed there’s a significant waiting list wishing to join the organisation.

As in life, greed and ambition feature in all of sport. When rugby turned professional, the Scarlets were perfectly poised to become the Munster of Welsh rugby – but the club chose instead to dance with the devil in the pale west Wales moonlight.

On the promise of pots of money from a local businessman, the club splashed out on signing New Zealander Frano Botica on a reported £200 grand a year, a huge amount of money at the time – but the promised investment was nothing more than fool’s gold and the club’s fate was sealed. It took the Scarlets 20 years to recover a sort of equilibrium.

Staying with the influence of moneyed people in sport, it is fair to say that, following professionalism, Cardiff RFC should have become the Leinster of Welsh rugby – but that’s a sorry tale for another time. Huw Beynon Llandeilo