What is a sportsman today?
If one looks up the the word in a dictionary you will find two main definitions. The first states, “a man who takes part in a sport, especially as a professional.” The second definition is “a person who behaves sportingly.” There is another rather dated definition which refers to “a man who hunts or shoots wild animals as a pastime.”
So a sportsman is a man who plays sport professionally and one would hope also behaves sportingly. In the twenty first century many of these sportsmen are extremely well paid and in fact receive more money than they know what to do with.
They are in fact a ‘commodity.’ They have a ‘brand’ that is their name and their image, and these again bring in more money for them and their associated clubs.
Yet it is becoming abundantly clear that these people, these men, and let’s be honest women too, are often treated as if they were a possession rather than a human being. Some will openly tell you that they are treated like like children; some mind you deserve to be.
These adults are told what time to be somewhere throughout almost every day. They are told what to wear, they are told what time to eat, and in some cases even what to eat. They are pawns moved at the beck and call of their master, the clubs or associations.
Many will argue that if the club is paying them such vast sums of money they have every right to treat them in such a way. They are protecting their investment, making sure they get the return they are hoping for on that investment. However these athletes are people, they are not inanimate objects.
In the good old days when athletes would often catch the bus to the stadium with the fans, or would have another job when training finished, the clubs trusted the players to do the right thing. As many an after dinner speaker from that era, or autobiography has revealed they would often play golf when training finished, if not golf then snooker, pool, or head to the bookies or the pub.
Sadly many of the modern day athletes are not allowed that freedom. They are sent home to rest, and with technology their every move can be monitored. Many will tell you that they still have a beer, the only difference is their mates will bring the beers to them.
This in turn creates a problem of its own as one former top rugby player revealed. He would finish training and return home. His mates, who were at the time at university would come round to his flat. He was earning good money so they would convince him to buy the beers. They would then proceed to knock back a carton or more and get rolling drunk. His mates would crash at his place or stumble home to do it all again the next day. He would head to training feeling a bit seedy, but being young and fit his body would recover fairly quickly. Only years later when he retired did he look back and wonder about those wasted years. Had he been like the players of old would he have allowed himself to get as drunk? Would he have not wanted to preserve his image to the fans who saw him out?
A lot has suddenly been made of the mental health of our professional athletes. Dare we say it has become a box to tick and prove that you are a good club if you spend time talking about such issues. Yet how many sporting clubs spot the signs before a player breaks down?
How many clubs know how much their players are drinking away from the club? Or worse still how many actually know that players under contract to them are taking recreational drugs? How many have actually hushed up the fact when they have found a player to have taken drugs? A hamstring injury is a very good excuse to keep a player away from those doing the testing, until they are clean.
Surely if you are a professional organisation you should be taking a far keener interest in the well being of your players when training has finished?
Yet it is truly a fine balancing act, already you are controlling large tracts of their life, if you step over into their private lives is that taking the control too far? Yet paying such large sums of money and having these players intrinsically linked to your club’s image and sponsorship deals do you in fact have a right to take more of an interest? In fact by taking an interest are you not in some cases prolonging a player’s career and earning capacity?
One athlete whose career did not end on his terms, but who accepted that he had behaved badly and deserved what happened to him explained the situation in simple terms. He said he was not excusing his behaviour or the things he did, but having been signed straight from school and played for over ten years he reached a point where he simply wanted, or maybe needed to buck the system he had been a part of for so long. Why did his club not sense this?
How many modern day athletes have genuine gambling, drinking or drug problems? They will all tell you that none are a problem, that its just a bit of fun. That they are just letting off steam, that they need a release. For some that may be true, but for others it is the start of a very sad decline.
If clubs are no longer going to treat their players like adults, if they are going to be so controlling, maybe they should start to look at ways to occupy the players time once training has finished. Thereby limiting their “boredom” or need to break away from the strict confines of that club.
Or maybe better still they simply loosen the shackles that they have on their players. Set down strict rules in relation to punctuality and dress that those of us in the normal world have to comply with, and if the player fails to comply they suffer the consequences. Similar consequences to any normal employee in an everyday job. Sadly that is never likely to happen with so much money invested in that player; just like companies who have a high-paid CEO who behaves inappropriately it takes a strong board to admit they made a mistake and severe ties.
No more should a players drinking, drug taking or gambling be hushed up, they should be made to face the music, just as any employee in any company would be forced to do. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. A severe jolt may be what is needed to get them back on the right path to fulfil their potential. It may also be the moment where they realise that professional sport is not for them. More importantly it may force them to quit or seek help with their addiction before it takes hold of them; that is of course they admit the severity of the situation at that time.
Despite being foisted as role models, which whether they like it or not they are, fans will invariably forgive them falling off their pedestal. Fans remember that athletes are human, and the enjoyment that they have brought to their lives individually or as part of a collective, so tend to be forgiving.
It appears that it is time that the clubs, their employers, and their investors, stopped treating athletes like a commodity and remembered that they are human beings. Individuals who make mistakes on and off the pitch, people like all of us who are fallible. You can only hide mistakes on a pitch in the editing room, in truth they are there for all to see. The same should be true for mistakes off the pitch.
The control exerted on so many facets of an athlete’s life by those who pay their wages is unhealthy and unreasonable. It is this control that is in fact the cause of many of the issues our athletes face today, be they mental, alcohol or drug related.
On the pitch you coach these young talented individuals to make the right decisions in certain situations, maybe now is the time to invest in coaching them to make the right decisions when they are off the pitch. It is time to guide them to make good use of their downtime, so that they do not squander their money or their careers by being victims of peer pressure or boredom.
Some clubs and associations are already doing this, but regrettably not nearly enough.
