My Works

My Works

SPORT IN OUR LIFE
That sport is important can be summed up by the statements attributed to people as different as the French philosopher Camus, who remarked ‘all that I know most surely in the long run about morality and obligations to men, I owe to football’ (Allison 1998:714) and to Bill Shankly, the famous Liverpool Football Club manager, who stated that ‘football is more important than life’.
Sport is differentiated from games playing by criteria that include an acceptance of rules, the existence of structures and organization, the importance of COMPETITION, and the existence of commercialization. Games playing may be spontaneous, ad hoc, and might or might not adhere to sets of rules, and may or may not rigidly enforce those rules. Sport, however, requires all participants to adhere to the ‘rules of the game’ being played, and thus is ‘serious’ as compared to being ‘playful’. In addition, sports create their own structures of organization of clubs and leagues wherein success in competition is awarded by placings that establish a hierarchical order of individuals or teams. In short, individuals and teams compete to become first among their peers. Distinctions can be based on the level of PROFESSIONALISM, that is, some players or teams earn their livelihood from the playing of sport, while others engage as amateurs, that is, receive no or little payment or income from their PARTICIPATION. Yet, increasingly, commercialization in one form or another pervades nearly all levels of sport. For example, local club teams might receive sponsorship from local retailers, school-based teams receive free drinks bottles from fast-food outlets, local amateur teams receive free transport to a venue paid from club funds derived from many different sources including individual member subscriptions, grants from various governmental sporting bodies, and federations or local business organizations. In return the local club may wear track suits emblazoned with the names of their...

Similar Essays