Cheats in Sport?

Salut Blog,

It is an interesting outcome to the Test Match cricketing fixing scandal don’t you think Blog? Prison sentences for players Butt, Asif and agent Majeed with detention for Amir, followed by an extended ban from the sport of up to 5 years, to act as a deterrent, said by the judge, to anyone in the sport who might be tempted to go down a similar path. Would that all sports took a similar hard line to their participants who spoil a sport for others. Severe though the sentence is, it should have gone further. A life ban would have conveyed an absolute message. WE DO NOT WANT CHEATS IN OUR SPORT and if you do cheat, expect no mercy. NONE. Pure and simple. On the other hand, if the cricketers and their manager had intended to cheat at the outset of their careers, you’d have thought that the silly billies would have chosen a softer sport where escaping really serious sanctions is easier, wouldn’t you Blog? Athletics? No problarmo. Take a pill, get caught, have a ban, concentrate on training for a year and that’s OK baby, you are back competing earning quids!

Just imagine ..... it’s easy if you try.

Suppose you are in athletics; you’re a big black guy who decided to pop a pill packet or two to speed you up or something. You get caught. You get banned for a year ... or two if you’ve been really, really naughty. No fine, that’s fine. No prison. O.K.. You do the year, you are reinstated, you compete again, and you earn quids again. No problamo. That’s the rules, baby. But, in the media, you are still the big black bloke who got banned for drug taking. Each meet media commentary, you are still the big black bloke who got banned for drug taking.

 Just imagine ..... it’s easy if you try.

Suppose you are in athletics; you’re a blonde white bimbo who has the quids to live and train quite legitimately at high altitude to stimulate the same effect as taking the banned E.P.O. or using the illegal method of blood doping to make you speed up or something. You don’t get banned because you have done nothing really, really naughty. Or even a little bit naughty. That’s fine. No rules broken baby. No problarmo. You continue to get the quids. In the media you are still the blonde white bimbo who lives and trains at altitude. No problarmo. Each meet media commentary you attend for the quids, you are still the blonde white bimbo who lives and trains at high altitude.

Some sports not only appear to have a softer attitude to cheats but they also seem to have a flexible attitude to implementation and interpretation, apparently. Can you think of any sports where this might apply, Blog?

So those poor Pakistanis are now in jail doing time, that’s fine, and they will then, after their sentence is completed, have further penalties to suffer. If their mums and dads had thought it through when they were young kids, instead of buying them a cricket bat for their birthday presents, they had been given a pair of running spikes, they would have only suffered a minor blip in their sporting careers and not a massive life changing blow. C’est la vie.

                                            Bonsoir, Blog