Sports

11 October 2007, 18:00 PM

Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal, JNU, Delhi

It is common knowledge that countries across the world use sport events to advance their so-called national interests. Excellence in sports gives a special status and esteem to the country having the best kind of sport arsenal to its credit. But what generally happens is that sport events and skills are exploited for the nation's other purposes and used as bargain chips to advance the economic, nuclear, military hardware or other special interests . The sport mafias operating in these fields broker the deals between the countries, or even the countries directly clinch the deals themselves. Thus a winning team or an individual loses to another as per the "instructions' obtained from "above". As a result, sports become highly volatile and totally "unpredictable.