The Covid-19 pandemic has upended sports in ways never before envisaged. Sports at both grassroots and elite levels having come to an abrupt halt a couple of months ago, are now clamouring for a quick comeback.
Football has already resumed in some European countries, golf has restarted in some parts of Asia, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has also boxed and punched its way back. Some sports including the Badminton World Federation (BWF) have even confirmed their resumption calendars.
In Malaysia, with the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) hundreds of sporting events had to be cancelled or postponed. While events are still banned, elite training and some social sports like golf are now allowed.
But is it all that important that sports must resume quickly?
Much of the world is still in lockdown and even those reopening are cautious on the possibility of a second wave of the pandemic.
Millions around the world are unemployed with no source of income, and that includes thousands of Malaysians. Yet, we are thirsting for the return of the entertainment called sports.
Let’s be clear that the primary reason that many sports organisations and leagues are baying for elite sports to return has nothing to health and wellbeing. It has all do to with only money – the money lost and the money to be earned.
The revelation that at least 41 lives were lost because of the decision to go on with the Liverpool-Athletico Madrid Champion’s League match earlier this year when the pandemic was ravaging parts of Europe lays bare on how the right decision matters.
The BWF’s decision to cramp 22 tournaments into their calendar in the remaining months of the year and claiming it also has the players’ welfare at mind is pure subterfuge. It has all to do with the financials.
Dana White’s insistence of looking for loopholes and new venues for his testosterone laden UFC is not about the need for sports, but the need for money.
In the United Kingdom, the lower tier football has been cancelled and ended, but top tier competitions are gearing for a return. It is an oxymoron decision. If the return of sports was the priority, it should have been for all levels. If it was the players’ welfare that was important, it should have been low-waged lower tiers that should have been given the priority instead of the millionaires in the top tier.
World Health Organisation’s public health advisor Dr Brian McCloskey, who was also the London 2012 public health director, said last month that community sport could be the first type of sport to return.
He was reported by the BBC saying: “The bigger the match, the bigger the competition, the more complicated those mitigating actions will have to be – and therefore the less likely it is that they can be done safely.”
Sports is an important part of everyday live and it is certainly not just watching sports on the idiot box and at the stadiums. It is more imperative to look at ways to create a sporting society that actually plays sports.
It is more important to quickly look into ways how normal people can get back to a healthy lifestyle by playing sports than to spend more time into how to create a safer way for spectators to gather at a stadium.
The authorities should seriously worry on how the coronavirus is killing grassroot sports instead of thinking of just elite sports. Very little public discussion has centred on grassroot sport, and the implications of not playing for the common people.
Believe it or not the common man also has both psychological and physical issues by the lockdown, and not only the elite sportsmen.
Sport needs a paradigm shift if it is to truly serve the nation’s need. The notion that winning medals was all that mattered needs to be re-looked into especially in the wake of the current pandemic.
Yes, sport does bring a nation together as we have seen in the past when Malaysian athletes succeed at the SEA Games, Thomas Cup, Merdeka Cup etc.
But the cost of neglecting or paying less emphasis on grassroot sports could be telling in the future.
University of Sydney’s Dr Steve Georgakis believes the disruption could lead to a permanent change of habits for some children and young people, and said a lack of focus on the issue reflected poorly on Australia’s national relationship with sport.
And a study by the North Carolina State University found nearly 30 per cent of children to be less involved in organised sports after COVID-19, or were undecided.
It may not be different in Malaysia as there is serious doubt any such study was conducted here.
The Netherland’s government recently allocated €110 million for the country’s 25,000 sporting associations. The package of emergency measure was to enable sports clubs continue their important social and sporting roles once the coronavirus pandemic has passed.
How are the thousands of Malaysian non-national level sports associations and clubs coping? Or how is the Ministry of Sports engaging them to ensure that grassroot sport does not continue to decline after the pandemic? Is there a system in place for community sports organisations to seek government’s assistance?
The European Platform for Sports Innovation (EPSI) defines the sport sector as including those who have dedicated their lives and often businesses to promoting health through physical activity.
The EPSI in its Position paper on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the sport sector said:
“Sport can help individuals and societies to soften the negative effects of the crisis on their lives through mechanisms that can contribute to people’s health, socialisation, education and a general sense of wellbeing. In addition to its disastrous short and mid-term health impact (including inactivity, mental health risks linked to loneliness and anxiety), the pandemic will also have extraordinary long-term consequences on people’s daily lives, health, and generally on societies and many sectors of the economy, especially service sectors, e.g. tourism, food and accommodation services, transportation, and – sport. “
We need to look beyond the attraction of elite sports and pay importance of community and grassroot sports.
Even prior to the pandemic, the number of Malaysians playing any form of sport was dismally low, especially among schoolchildren and the older generation.
A study was published in The Lancet earlier this year, on how kids are faring in terms of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) physical activity recommendations. The study provided figures for two time points – 2001 and 2016. In 2016, an average of just one in five adolescents across the 146 countries, including Malaysia, met the recommended physical activity levels. More boys met these guidelines compared to the girls.
That we must pay more attention to get the grassroot sport jumpstarted even before we turn our attention to elite level sports is dire in this pandemic period and its aftermath.