If you choose money over all else, you are a bad guy. If you choose national pride, you're a good person. Does it have to be an either-Or; can't a person choose both? Or neither, for that matter?
Teofilo Stevenson was described by the BBC as “Cuba’s greatest boxer, once its most famous figure after Fidel Castro”. That he was the best Cuba has ever had is beyond doubt. His fame, though, had an interesting story around it, one that boxing enthusiasts know well.
As it was in 1962, the Cuban government chose to outlaw professional sport. As a result, all athletes, whatever their sport, had to compete under the national flag. Countless Cubans have, over the years, chosen to flee, usually to America, to pursue professional sport. Mercenaries, the government called them.
Stevenson was one of the athletes who chose to stay back. By the 1974 World Championships and then the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, Stevenson had established himself as the No 1 amateur heavyweight boxer, a national hero. American boxing promoters, around this time, offered him up to $ 5 million to challenge Muhammad Ali — a match-up made in heaven. He refused. “What is a million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans,” he is reported to have said.
Theories and stories, mostly apocryphal, abound about why Stevenson did what he did. Remember, Ali had beaten George Foreman — Thrilla in Manilla — in 1974. He was, easily, at his absolute best. The 1976 Montreal gold was the second Olympic gold medal Stevenson had won. He, too, was at his very best. What if? The what if around the Ali v Stevenson fight-that-wasn’t remains one of the most enduring questions in the world of sport, the answer to which the Cuban took to his grave in 2012. That’s right. Apart from that love of eight million Cubans thing, Stevenson didn’t say much.
Was he pressured by the Castro government to remain its symbol — the symbol of all that was right about the way Cuba was run — and bought into the idea? Possibly. Probably. But why is it such a topic of debate among the interested many even to this day? Why was it so difficult to accept Stevenson’s version, take him at his word, and accept that pride meant more to him than money? By the same token, why were the ones that decamped mercenaries?
We like our compartments, don’t we? If you choose money over all else, you are a bad guy. If you choose national pride, you’re a good person. Patriotism — oh, what an over-rated virtue it is. Does it have to be an either-or; can’t a person choose both? Or neither, for that matter?
As it is, world sport has been needlessly, arbitrarily, and stupidly, segmented into amateur and professional for years now. Amateurs are the ones that don’t earn their living from sport, or so everyone would like to believe. They all hold day jobs; earn a salary from somewhere else. Professionals make a living from the sport. As such, that’s fine. Everything needs a name, after all.
The problem starts when signboards come up at every juncture. The Olympic Games, the example best suited here, disallows professionals. In theory. A theory explained in words that make no sense, alluding to spirit and suchlike things, and based on thoughts that may or may not have held any real meaning even when they were used — back over a century ago. All right, to be fair, it made sense then. Just about. But now, in 2015?
That’s just the start of the problem. It gets worse when we see that sports such as football and basketball do allow professionals to take part in the Olympic Games, while most other sports don’t.
Take it another level, and a massive sham takes shape — is Usain Bolt a professional sprinter or is he not? Is Abhinav Bindra a professional shooter or is he not? For all practical purposes, yes. To the eyes of the people who matter in the International Olympic Committee — no. Only because they choose to have an official, accounted-for salary, from somewhere else.
As a result, Vijender Singh, who has spent most of his adult life as a boxer, was an amateur sportsperson because he was also an employee of the Haryana Police, a job that, interestingly, came his way because of his exploits as a boxer. But it qualified him to be an amateur boxer and, therefore, compete for India. Who are we kidding!
All right, one last bit of rubbish before trying to tie this up. Boxing in the Olympic Games was the sole preserve of the amateur — until the 2012 edition, that is. The bosses decided after that that professionals would be allowed to take part 2016 onwards but — and a fascinating “but” this is — only the professionals who fight under the aegis of the APB (AIBA Pro Boxing) league would be allowed. The ones that fight elsewhere are out. Again, there’s some warped logic that I don’t quite understand, which explains this. So, if you fight in the APB, you are, somewhat, an amateur, which is taken away elsewhere, leagues that make you a mercenary.
It’s all such typical administrative obduracy that it’s really quite laughable.
Cricket has learnt this the hard way in recent times, when more and more top-notch players have walked away from their national teams to make money from the Twenty20 leagues. The world of football conceded defeat and has lived with the reality for years now. Some, like the Olympic Games bosses, choose to stand with their backs to the future, or even the present, and little can be done to drive sense into them.
Meanwhile, the pro v amateur debate, or the money v pride issue: What is it about really?
What’s so wrong about an athlete who wants to make money? What makes an athlete so different from one of us, who switches jobs depending on the perks? Who are we to judge if Vijender Singh wants money more than anything else, or if Stevenson wants the love of his countryfolk more than anything else? It’s a situation created by decades of ill logic — logic that has no place in the real world. Logic that prevents sports fans from watching the best, take on the best every time. Who gains then?