Sports should not seek supremacy but credibility.
Sport is facing increasing questions about it's integrity, and whilst in many ways, it's not that the questions are new, more the scrutiny is more intense.
Looking at some of the major sports in the UK, it's clear to see the credibility challenges faced by the sports.
Football
Football faces the big challenge of money and greed. The game has more money than ever pouring into the top level, for evidence you only need to see Gareth Bale's £85m move to Real Madrid and the plethora of other transfers over the summer.
Yet this money is tainting the credibility of football and it's link to the public.
The FA Cup remains one of the most popular competitions in the game, why? because it has the history, it is the only place you can see the stars playing in the backyards (as it were).
The game is becoming increasingly commercialised and the threat of match fixing looms larger and larger as the betting market grows. Former players have already admitted to trying to fix elements of matches and only this week Dan Tan, believed to be the ring leader of a match fixing ring in Singapore was arrested.
This problem is not unique to football of course, this week has seen former World number 5 Stephen Lee found guilty by the WPBSA (Snooker Association) for match fixing. As sport becomes bigger worldwide it becomes more of a target for cheating and crime.
Cricket
Cricket has faced this in the past, Hanse Cronje being the most famous example, but even last year 3 Indian IPL players were arrested for match fixing.
Cricket faces other problems with credibility also. It remains very much a closed shop.
With only 10 nations in the world playing test matches, all being members of the Commonwealth of Nations (Former British Commonwealth), except Zimbabwe which withdrew in 2003.
The game is poorly run at the highest level with international boards holding each other to ransom, which is the case in the current scenario with India and South Africa.
Also money plays a key part in the game also, why have England played Australia in ODIs again? They played 5 ODIs in 2012; have now played another 5 in 2013 and 5 more in early 2014! Guess what the next Ashes series in England is scheduled to be in 2015, with likely another 5 ODIs in the tour. So 20 ODI games in 4 years between the same sides, absolute madness!
Cycling
As readers will know cycling is a sport that I love to follow. Unfortunately, it is now a sport that is constantly associated with doping.
Even though the amount of riders being caught has diminished, the past still overshadows the sport, and every performance is now scrutinised to the tiniest degree.
Now doping is assumed if a rider is inconsistent, too consistent, attacks, doesn't attack, climbs fast in the saddle, climbs fast out of the saddle, riders faster than people in the past, embraces sports science, is young, is old. Doesn't leave much room to believe that any cyclist isn't doping and that is the big issue in cycling, trust and credibility.
Qatar and Conclusion
Finally returning to football, UEFA announced yesterday that it backs the 2022 World Cup to be hosted in Winter. The awarding of the World Cup to Qatar, was really beyond belief, a country with no world cup pedigree, with no footballing pedigree, with very little football infrastructure, with dubious human rights records. The fact that they won the bid for a summer world cup, and now it is being converted to winter to suit them, makes it all the more ridiculous.
How on earth was this not foreseen at the bidding stage? Only greed surely could have blinded the FIFA officials who voted this into place (just to cover myself, I'm talking about the future potential money that FIFA would make from building the games presence in the Middle East).
The greed for money and the quest for global world supremacy for football.
But football and sport in general should not seek supremacy but credibility.
