Tuesday, September 05, 2017

Football Philosophy

"The god of money is getting bigger and bigger and at some point he will gobble up everything."  Bundesliga club Freiburg, coach Christian Streich.

The money made available to Paris Saint-Germain to spend on Neymar (€222 million, $264 million), and Kylian Mbappe (€180 million) came from the emir of Qatar. Critics argue that Qatar is primarily using PSG in general and the Neymar transfer, in particular, to try to polish up its image of prior to hosting the 2022 World Cup. 

On the one hand, the football players earn more and more money these days, but on the other hand, it seems like they also wind up being victims, treated like some sort of modern-day slaves.

Sports philosopher Elk Franke explains, "These are young, talented individuals who ascend like rockets in the world of football. As long as they are healthy and are successful on the pitch, they are bound to enjoy this process. At the same time, we are talking here about human abilities. The sums being paid mean that the expectations placed upon the players are rising exponentially. And younger and younger prospects are breaking through, so it seems just a matter of time before these transfer-slaves will experience a hard fall. Until then, though, they continue to exist in their illusory world."

DW asked him "The gap between have- and have-not clubs in terms of the transfer fees they can afford to pay, as well as the gap in salaries earned by average players versus the stars continue to grow. To what extent is this a reflection of our society as a whole and what some describe as "turbo-capitalism.”

Elk Franke replied, "The old saying that "sports are a reflection of society" is perfectly in keeping with how the hierarchy of the members of this system is shaking down. There are also parallels to the car industry.  Look at Mr. Winterkorn at Volkswagen [Martin Winterkorn is the former chairman of Volkswagen who resigned in 2015 after the VW diesel-emissions scandal broke out]. He was earning much more in a year than most of his employees could have hoped to have earned in their entire working life. You can get away with this for a time, but in football too, the awareness about this sort of injustice is growing."

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