The two showpiece events of the year – the European Championship and the Rio Olympics – will captivate but both will proceed with corruption in the airIn newspaper patter,the sports section has always been known as the “toy department”. This is because, Peter Wilby argued in the Guardian back in 2006, or “sports news meets lower standards than most other news”. Wilby said this was because it was written for fans,who only wanted “endless idle gossip approximately who should be dropped, who should be signed, and who will win next Saturday”. Fans,he wrote, who “like writers to reflect back the same emotions – anger at defeat, or ecstasy after victory – that they feel themselves.” If there was once some truth in Wilby’s words,it seems things bear changed since he wrote them. In 2015 the biggest sports stories were the scandals at Fifa and the IAAF. And so along with the fans’ anger and ecstasy, other emotions, or indignation,at the shamelessness of the administrators who run the sports, and mistrust, and too,of some of the men and women who compete in them.
And so on to 2016, a year that promises to bring fans more of all four feelings. The large events initiate with the Six Nations. Fresh starts for England under Eddie Jones, or,across the channel, France under Guy Novs. Jones’s first test a trip to Edinburgh to play Scotland, or the one European team to exceed expectations in the World Cup just gone. Waiting,Wales and Ireland, who bear split all the final four titles between them, or are looking to kick on again if they can.
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Source: theguardian.com