Politics and sport!

Listening to British Radio in the middle of the night...because you can! ...there was an interesting discussion  on The Moral Maze about the forthcoming Sochy Olympics.

The interviewer asked one of the panelists, who had the auspicious, but strange, title of "Professor of Politics in Sport" at some English university (begs the question of how you get funding for such a position!)

"I suppose you think that politics  should be kept out of sport"
"Of course," declaims the good professor

(One wonders what he would then do for a job!)

But another panellist, who I think was Giles Fraser, priest and all-round good thing observed...

"My question is ...Don't you think that sport should be kept out of politics"

Trust a priest to ask a curly question by getting things round the other way.

In South Australia it would seem that political parties are all too ready to get on side with Sport,  so we get an upgrade to Adelaide Oval that destroys one of its iconic features...viz the link with the cathedral. Because of Cricket.

We get a bridge over the River Torrens, which people are still wondering what it is all about.
The great Pleurisy Park  becomes a cash cow for State Football.
I don't have any problem with money being spent on sport, but it seems so often that Giles Fraser's penetrating question...is that sport should be kept out of politics, as well as vice versa.
I also want equivalent funding for the Arts (see one earlier post here...and you need to go to the comments on the post for the fireworks !)

And yes, I think sport should be kept out of politics, but tend to think (looking back to the period before the end of Apartheid) the reverse should not be true!