Football Folly

Although I am no great football fan, I find myself asking, on the occasion of the FIFA World Cup 2010 tournament in South Africa: what’s going on in today’s football? Or rather what's happening with today’s footballers, and especially with those near and at the top of the pyramid of the "beautiful game", our so-called soccer stars? Why are so many of them so surly, ill-mannered, disrespectful, bad-tempered, rude, and just plain abusive? Why are so many of them so arrogant, aggressive, conceited, smug and self-complacent? Why are they so often poor losers, graceless in defeat, querulous and curmudgeonly? Why are so many of them so.... well, I think you get the picture!

My opinion on this, for what it’s worth, is that they are just plain SPOILT. They are over-pampered, over-feted and overpaid and they have inflated egos to match. And, if the truth be told, the fault is really ours. We elevate them to the status of demi-gods and they have come to believe in the myth of their own greatness and deification and now we the fans and general public are getting what we deserve from them. The Greek Olympian gods were a tempestuous and fickle bunch and so are our modern-day soccer demi-gods who inhabit the Olympian heights of football stardom.

And what is it that they do exactly which warrants such elevation and hero worship? Are they brain surgeons? Intergalactic astronauts? Leaders of men and nations? Budding messianic miracle-workers? No, none of these or anything comparable. They are purely and simply “men who kick a ball about a field”. This judgment may seem harsh but that is what they do. True, they furnish us, or some of us, with entertainment and moments of excitement, jubilation and lamentation, but let us not lose sight of the fact that it is just a game and that the players are trying to get a ball into a net to win the game.

Given what they are and what they do, it would hardly seem to justify the near-godlike status that so many footballers enjoy today and the overblown egos they nurture on the strength of our support and encouragement and adoration. One can admire their ball-handling skills, their speed and agility, their persistence and goal-scoring ability and of course their general performance, but when all’s said and done they are kicking a ball around a field and trying to outwit their opponents so as to score goals. Many of them are scarcely out of their teens and the rest are little older and still green behind the ears. They are neither wise men, ancient prophets, miracle-workers, faith healers or intellectual giants.

It may be surmised from what I am saying about footballers in general, and one can only generalise about these things, there being always exceptions, that I am ill-disposed towards soccer and soccer idols in principle, but it’s nothing of the sort. I fully realise that a good football match can be a very entertaining event, that it can engender excitement and enthusiasm as well as suspense and despair, that good skilful players can be objects of adulation and acquire a loyal following of fans and supporters. But – and you knew this ‘but’ was coming, didn’t you? – they are what they are, that and nothing more. They are not gods, saints, representatives of Christ on earth, nor can they fly or go without food and water. In other words, they are just like us, each one of them, just like you and me. It is only because we have bestowed such a high status to their activity and chosen to apotheosise them in our exaggerated sense of their value that they bask in the limelight of our idolatry.

Although I’ve concentrated my fire on football in this post, this is just one example of what’s wrong with our world today and the intense celebrity culture that we’ve created. We put people up on very high pedestals, be they footballers, singers, actors, or other individuals in the public eye, and we proceed to inflate their already oversized egos until they themselves think they are superhuman, so that if and when they fall short of our lofty expectations we feel betrayed and cheated. What we seem to overlook in our deification of these individuals is that they too are just human beings like us, with the same inbuilt needs and flaws, and with the same potential to do good or bad. Before we give these individuals our adulation and adoration and confer upon them a godlike status, we would do well to keep in mind that they are people like us, admittedly with a certain talent most prized in one or other field of public endeavour or entertainment, but people like us nonetheless, who came into this world like us and will leave this world like us to be reduced to nothing like us.

Et sic transit gloria mundi.