Blame the Organ Grinder

Although I don't have broadband at home, I was tempted to go to Morecambe Library to publish this blog. Do you remember the football match between Germany and Austria in 1982? They played out a less than convincing 1 - 0 win to Germany which happened to mean that both teams qualified from their group. Was it cheating or just tactics? Well the teams didn't mind and I suppose both nations supporting their team's qualification. However it was fairly obvious that this sort of thing shouldn't be allowed and the organisers realised their mistake and changed the rules so that it couldn't happen again. Final group matches are now played simultaneously.

There are times when teams field a weakened team. Sometimes they are penalised but there must be many occasions when a team does not commit itself completely because it has higher priorities (their 'gold' lies elsewhere) and there must be many occasions when they are not penalised. It may be hard for the supporters to know that their team is not doing their best but I suppose they appreciate that the team may do better elsewhere. I also suppose that there are many more occasions when the supporters believe that their team could do better even when they have tried their best. Sometimes it works in the team's favour if they don't do so well. A fine example is when a player is touched and they fall over. They are definitely not trying their best but the result may be that they win a penalty which wins the match.

This brings me to the Olympics. There were eight women badminton players who were disqualified from the games after being accused of "not using one's best efforts to win". The players reasoned that a loss would give them an easier path to a gold medal. This is a disgraceful situation, not because the players did not try their best, They were trying their best to win a gold medal. It is a disgrace because the International Olympic Committee has not taken the blame. Worse than that they disqualified the players because of the committee's failure to organise the games correctly.

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