Of sponsors and hypocrites.

Day -853. WorldCup2018

I'm feeling a little disgruntled today with the news that the new President of the International Athletics Federation, Lord Coe, is upset that Nestle have terminated their sponsorship deal with the IAAF because of the doping and corruption scandals that the IAAF is mired in. My uneasiness comes from the fact that Lord Coe is calling Nestle hypocritical for sponsoring the Tour de France and all of its' doping scandals. And that made me think how hypocritical the IAAF are for having Nestle as sponsors, a company that has been associated with numerous controversies over the years, including child slavery and the infant formula scandal.

My thoughts drifted further still to how all the major sponsors of the International Olympic Committee and Fifa are huge money making companies that have been accused of immoral ways of making all that money. And the IOC and Fifa have repeatedly been involved in corruption scandals, involving huge amounts of money. They are all partners in crime. Politics and money rule all the sports we love watching even the amateur athletic federation. One would be naive to deny that Russia and Qatar won the rights to host the next two World Cups without a lot of political influence and significant amounts of money changing hands. And that's not to say the losing bids didn't do the same thing. But we all know this happens, so this is no surprise. It just gets a little depressing when you think about it.

So something a little happier is needed.  Here's a memory from a sponsor-supported, Fifa-run World Cup. (ah, you can't get away from it). It's 1994, World Cup quarter final, Bulgaria vs. Germany. Bulgaria had never won a match before at a World Cup and were thrashed by Nigeria in their opening group match. But all of a sudden they were 2-0 and 4-0 winners against Argentina and Greece respectively. After a round of 16 win against Mexico their run was expected to come to an end against the mighty Germans. But with the inspiration of the incredible Stoichkov and Letchkov, Bulgaria pulled off what looked like the impossible win. Unfortunately, luck (and the referee) was not on their side in a close semi-final defeat to Italy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT299bOCy3c