Friday 6 September 2013

MURRAY BROUGHT CRASHING DOWN !

Following his heroics of the last 12 months, with wins at the Olympics, US Open and Wimbledon, Andy Murray's world collapsed around him yesterday as the Swiss number 2, Stanislas Wawrinka, simply destroyed him.
 
Murray has played Wawrinka before and usually had the better of him but yesterday was different. The Scot had no answers to the powerful play of his opponent and was blown away in straight sets; perhaps it was an overdue reaction to the events of the last year. Whatever the reasons, Murray was never settled in the match and seemed horribly ill at ease with himself; his post-match interview was a twitchy affair as he moved constantly in his seat while fielding questions. All-in-all, the impression given was that he was close to breaking point.
 
As for Stan Wawrinka, the perennial Swiss number 2 behind Roger Federer may be on the point of overtaking his compatriot in the rankings. As Federer's star appears to be waning rapidly, Stan's chance may have come; one or two more good performances could see him outshining the Great Man. How ready he is to assume such a mantle may be revealed by his next match, against the world number 1, Novak Djokovic, in tomorrow's semi-final.

Monday 2 September 2013

BALE TRANSFER SHOWS FOOTBALL HAS GONE MAD.

The conclusion of months of gossip about the possible move of Gareth Bale from Tottenham Hotspur to Real Madrid must come as a huge relief to many people. It's been clear for several weeks that Bale was on his way out of White Hart Lane, with Tottenham anticipating the sale by spending enormous amounts in the transfer market; now that Bale's gone, this outlay has been recouped and their accountants must be happy once more.
 
The real question is whether anyone who kicks a football around can be worth paying £85.3m for, and whether they can be worth paying £15.6m per year in wages. In my view, the answer is an emphatic "NO".
 
We hear and read much about greedy bankers and other business leaders who receive large salaries and bonuses, though few of these came close to the numbers now routinely bandied about in the world of football. Those who run major multinational corporations are often responsible for many thousands of employees and company budgets of many billions of pounds; whole economies may depend on their success or failure, as we discovered when banks began to fail 5 or 6 years ago. The people who have ultimate responsibility within such vast entities need to be the best and that means highly paid, but even they are not paid the staggering sums received by some sports 'stars'.
 
When it comes to sport, matters should be rather different. Those who choose to follow this largely selfish and egotistical path do very little to manage anything, create employment or enhance the world in any other tangible way; in fact, it seems that their primary purpose is to fleece the poor supporter out of as much money as possible while becoming enormously rich for doing what they themselves most enjoy, be it playing football, tennis, golf, basketball or a myriad of other essentially pointless games. They are the true parasites, not the bankers.
 
Gareth Bale is a great footballer but is he worth paying £85.3m for ? Certainly not. Is he worth paying £300,000 per week as has been reported ? Of course not, it's a ludicrous amount of money to pay someone for playing a game, no matter how good they are.
 
The world has gone mad.