The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 04:29 PM PDT

JUNE 28 — Having spent the last couple of weeks lazing on the beaches of Dubai and the Caribbean, Premier League footballers are now preparing to return to work for the dreaded prospect of pre-season training, which commences for most clubs at the beginning of July.

It feels like football has never been away — the Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United took place only just a month ago — but already one Premier League team, Fulham, are preparing for their first competitive fixture of the season as they host NSI Runavik from the Faroe Islands in the preliminary round of the Europa League on Thursday.

It hasn't always been this way. Travel back to the year of my birth, 1973, for instance, when Liverpool won the last of their titles under the management of Bill Shankly.

In that year, the Reds played their concluding league game on Saturday, April 28 (a 0-0 home draw against Leicester) and didn't begin the new season until Saturday, August 25 (a 1-0 home win against Stoke). That's a gap of four full months between the end of one league season and the start of the next one.

By contrast, this year Kenny Dalglish's side brought their Premier League season to an end with a 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa on Sunday, May 22 and are scheduled to kick off the new campaign at home to Sunderland on Saturday, August 13. That's less than three months after the previous season concluded, and a break no less than five weeks shorter than their predecessors in 1973.

Football seasons really are finishing later and starting earlier than ever before, and that effect is not just confined to competitive fixtures; over the course of the last few years, pre-season has effectively become an extension of the regular season, with every training session and warm-up game eagerly devoured by hungry supporters and media.

Pre-season friendly fixtures used to be sparsely attended, low-key affairs that received very little media coverage and barely entered the consciousness of most supporters. The only pre-season game that occasionally attracted any interest was the Charity Shield, with all other games relegated to minor references in local newspapers.

Now, Liverpool are preparing to embark upon a 10-day tour of Asia where they will play reasonably competitive fixtures in front of sell-out crowds and global television audiences in China (Guangzhou) and Kuala Lumpur, before returning to Europe to face Valerenga in Norway and then hosting major Spanish club Valencia at Anfield.

The contrast between 1973 and 2011 is by no means exclusive to football, as most other mainstream sports have experienced the same thing. International cricketers, for example, are now forced to endure a seemingly endless procession of test matches and one-day internationals, while the desire of club owners to extend the season is one of the most significant factors behind the current "lock out" in American Football's NFL.

As with most changes wrought upon professional sport in the last couple of decades, the elongation of the season and the heightened profile of previously peripheral pre-season activities have been overwhelmingly driven by one key factor: television.

Like it or not, the main function of professional sport in contemporary culture is to satisfy the demands of 24-hour television, which takes great delight in sport's unmatchable ability to fill schedules, attract viewers and lure advertisers but most certainly does not appreciate lengthy gaps between the end of one season and the start of the next.

Sky Sports, ESPN, Fox and Co are simply not prepared to accept a 1973-style break of four months without Premier League football. They spend billions of dollars on procuring the broadcast rights for their most popular products, and in return they expect them to become pretty much year-round spectacles.

And so the end of one season is pushed further and further into May, with the start of the next pulled back ever closer towards the start of August, and a steady diet of hyped-up, glamorous friendlies and an assortment of international tournaments (youth age groups, women, etc) is seamlessly slotted in to fill the remaining two months.

Of course, the broadcasters are only keen to establish such a state of affairs because it's what they believe their viewers want, and the large crowds and fevered discussion amongst supporters that now accompany pre-season activities suggest they are right.

No doubt it's all part of our modern "fast-food" psyche. In days gone by, we were prepared to exercise patience (remember patience? People sometimes used to be patient, I've heard it said) and calmly wait for their next fix. These days, in the world of broadband Internet access, mobile phones, Twitter, Facebook, satellite TV and microwave meals, we want everything now, now, now! Or preferably five minutes ago.

That includes our football. Can you imagine the Premier League and its clubs being put to one side at the end of April and not re-emerging until the end of August? Impossible; that's not how we live anymore. And so our TV networks await, with feverish excitement, the next update on Steven Gerrard's groin injury.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

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Strapping on quotas

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 04:16 PM PDT

JUNE 28 — We sure do love our quota-based "fixes" over here, don't we?

The most recent being the announcement by the prime minister that corporate Malaysia will observe a 30 per cent women-in-the-boardroom quota by 2016.

Yes, indeed. "Equality" by government-sanctioned allocation is our way forward, it would appear. Last I checked we don't actually get to dictate the abstract of equality; it can only arise from conditions that are conducive.

What I actually found more disconcerting was that according to news reports, the women in the audience gave a big round of applause when the announcement was made. And afterwards, women's interest organisations were quoted as "lauding" the development. Yes, lauding.

Now for that to actually happen would mean that many still don't get the crux of causes; in this case, what the Suffragettes suffered for and what the bigger picture "feminist causes" are about.

Or perhaps I am the one missing the point here? Perhaps in a Machiavellian way, to achieve the cosmetic, external objectives by any means is also equally acceptable.

My understanding of the cause is that it is not about forcing the arm of the establishment, it is about changing people's mindsets. It is not about bypassing meritocracy; it is about getting a fair and equal shot. And if that were in fact achieved, why stop at 30 per cent?

And no, a "thick glass ceiling" shouldn't mean having a hole carved out for you by the Invisible Hand; it should mean smashing through the darned thing and consigning it to the dustbin of culture and history and evolutionary psychology shaping.

Besides, does anyone really think that enacting a quota is going to change the views of the typical Male Chauvinist Pigs out there, the ones in the boardroom? It's going to backfire rather epically, more like.

It's not hard to envisage a state of affairs where no woman in the boardroom is going to be free from that extra level of scrutiny and scepticism; just like any successful Bumiputera might be now. In that sense, enacting a 30 per cent quota for women is about as acceptable as the 30 per cent Bumiputera quota, if you ask me.

Perhaps it is true: sometimes, women are their own worst enemies. I seriously doubt the true blue feminists are going to be amused. Like I was commenting on Twitter rather crudely, I admit — it's the equivalent of giving them a strap-on and saying: "there you go; now you can play in the boardroom with the boys."

And going further back, what was that we all heard from this administration about the age of "government-knows-best" being over? That is hardly true, based on current evidence (and yes, I'm also referring to the rest of our current affairs developments right now).

While we're busy dismantling our economic crutches like subsidies we're also busy enacting its new equivalents in our human capital sphere, it seems. Not content with the racial interest dimensions of Teraju hijacking the New Economic Model (now that's something we're hearing less and less about eh?), we've now got a gender agenda to contend with on top of that.

Really now, how are corporations supposed to be the engine for economic growth and high-income generation if they can't be left alone to do their job? Whatever happened to just pushing for good old meritocracy?

Can the government learn to stay out of business, for once? Sheesh.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

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Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Selasa, 28 Jun 2011

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

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