This greed-driven Lions tour is a wretched idea... getting worse by the day
SPORT is supposed to be the best of us. At the elite level, it is played by athletes who are refined to rare levels of physical excellence. They compete with speed, aggression and accomplishment that the great majority of people struggle to comprehend, let alone could ever hope to replicate.
This only partially explains why sport beguiles us. It can represent the most admired virtues – not always, but often. Courage, tenacity, respect and generosity are regularly in evidence at the most riveting events.
Grand claims were made for the importance of sport since Covid-19 swooped over our world like some demented avenging angel.
The winter championships in hurling and football were pleasant diversions as Ireland took a turn back towards the grim before Christmas.
The GAA’s most enthusiastic advocates occasionally lost the run of themselves, with bombastic talk of the nation’s mental health being restored by knock-out championships in hurling and football.
This rather overlooked the millions who have no interest in the indigenous games, but it is certainly true that fans of hurling and football were thrilled to see competitions of some shape take place.
The successful completion of the Premier League and Champions League competitions was a triumph for the power of the world’s most popular sport: soccer is an industry worth many billions of euro, and despite the tremendous financial losses suffered by all clubs, there was plenty of money available to make the games safe.
And the huge popularity of the delayed Euro 2020 is illustrative of the ongoing importance of sport in lives that are still enduring significant disruptions.
The sight of supporters in grounds – and filling stadia in some cases – was initially heartening, but also a rather jolting immersion back into a world we once took for granted.
But just as this country slowly cranks open the gates of grounds, assumptions about how safe it is for fans to congregate outside are being drastically revised.
In a week of turmoil, the continuing return of fans, albeit in modest numbers, was a cause for some relief, and an ongoing reminder that outdoor activities constitute some kind of safety in a time of ongoing churn.
Yet earlier certainties about the protection afforded by life outside are now being challenged daily by reports of infections at matches in Euro 2020.
IT IS a cruel fact of life in this upside-down time that optimistic goals of 40,000 people attending the All-Ireland finals emerge, just as the wisdom of letting fans gather in large numbers is coming under scrutiny. Sport cannot be immune from the effects of this horrible spell. That seems obvious, but it is a point that is regularly missed, or simply ignored, by those arguing for the return of everyone to everything, and now.
Domestically, this is merely irritating as some pundits and managers speak with absolute certainty about public health affairs in which their interest had, heretofore, remained mysteriously hidden.
In recent days, they have swivelled their expertise onto the issue of mathematic modelling, a discipline that we once thought was complex and where expertise, we once assumed, was only earned after years of study.
It turns out, though, that a Google search and strident tweeting qualifies anyone as an authority.
Internationally, there is an instance of this sporting arrogance that is much more serious.
As recently as mid-May, the South African rugby union was appealing to the country’s government to allow spectators attend this summer’s Tests and warm-up matches against the Lions.
The union’s president, Mark Alexander told a news outlet they were lobbying politicians on the matter.
At the time, the third wave engulfing South Africa had not hit, but it was imminent. Vaccination levels were dismally low, and if the outlook was not as grim as it is now, it was still dark.
Yet the financial importance of getting fans into the ground was paramount.
The onset of the third wave has altered opinions, but only partially.
It was finally conceded on Tuesday by Alexander that fans will not be able to get into matches. He was adamant that the tour must go on.
‘If we did not play rugby this year, we would have closed our doors,’ he said.
‘South African rugby depends on generating money, of which 99.9 per cent comes from playing.’
South Africa are the world champions, but hadn’t played a game for 19 months before their facile victory over Georgia this week.
Their desperation for matches is clear, but it is also shocking. If rugby union is the global sport it claims to be, then it should be able to withstand the crushing pressure endured by all of its unions.
Long-term borrowing to finance the short-term stress must have been an option. So was postponing the Lions tour, of course.
‘We are living in difficult times, but we’ve spent hundreds of millions on this event, and we can’t wish it away,’ went on Alexander.
‘We have to go on and make it work.’
This determination to preserve the Lions magic, despite the conditions in which this Disney world is expected to unfold, is what is most disgusting about this.
The Lions is a huge money-maker. Fans love it, as do players – but so do sponsors and broadcasters.
This is clearly the reason why it ploughs on, while all around it the effects of the pandemic rage on.
THAT rugby teams and unions need to make money is merely reflective of the business of sport; at the elite end, the world’s most popular sports support industries worth tens of billions of euro. And the effects of the pandemic on global sport has been catastrophic, and the need to restore financial health is urgent and should not be confused with greed.
But the problem with the Lions is that too many involved seem blinded by this need, to the point that the wider context is ignored. Irish fans, for instance, were expected to rejoice in the news that Conor Murray was chosen to replace Alun-Wyn
Jones as tour captain.
This is, in the historical context of rugby and the Lions, a major honour, yet news of it was quickly swamped by the revelation that three South African players had tested positive for Covid.
This is despite the precautions the squad are said to have taken. That news should have imperilled the entire tour, but instead South African politicians were quickly out confirming the tour would go ahead, but without fans.
There is talk of revising the tour schedule given that the province of Gauteng, which includes the cities Johannesburg and Pretoria, is supposed to hold five of the eight fixtures planned, including the second and third Tests.
There were 650,000 total cases recorded in the province up to June 30, over 11,000 of which were new cases confirmed on that day.
There were almost 13,000 people in hospital in South Africa with Covid-19 on that date. Meanwhile, it was estimated this week that less than one per cent of the population is fully vaccinated.
That is why there is growing revulsion at a Lions tour taking place in a country beggared for generations by inequality, and stricken anew by the virus. Rugby as a business is struggling, but there is a bigger story here. And set against that, this Lions tour is a wretched idea, growing worse by the day.
‘THERE WERE 650,000 CASES RECORDED IN THE PROVINCE UP TO JUNE 30’