john@staustell wrote:I noticed Khaldoon spoke of the idiocy of the MLS selection system in his own very diplomatic style.
Surely he only did that as there is some plot to normalize it?
Everything in America is money money money. Yet the sports selection systems are basically communist.
Most odd.
I have said the same thing for ages, yet it's actually not odd, as it fits in with our own inconsistent feelings about socialism and capitalism. The phrase "the sanctity of sports" is thrown around quite regularly, and also plays into ideas about who deserves to become rich and who does not.
It's why we have so-called amateur level "college sports" where coaches earn millions and universities billions, yet the players are only allowed to be awarded a "scholarship" to cover the costs of school that is not even guaranteed, nor even worth much at all when most only attend, at the highest levels, to become professionals and have been found to earn university level degrees that leave the athletes generally uneducated and are then supposed to be grateful for this.
We are also obsessed with "fairness" in sports here hence all of our use of instant replays as well. It's the one place we like to play make believe and pretend normal things that most people do in the real world/free market -- like be able to negotiate a better salary based on what the market offers -- should be taken away, which allows for things like a "salary cap" because we tend to have less sympathy/empathy for professional athletes, yet we don't seem to have a problem with owners who are handed clubs ownership down because their daddy gave it to them.
Baseball is the closest you get to international football, and it's not surprising because their players union is the original ones to fight for athletes' workers rights, and are the most powerful union in American sport.
Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 9:41 pm
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