Sportswashing

“By dint of talking about sport, we neglect its practice. By dint of saying that it is formidable, we forget that it is necessary to devote method and means to it. By dint of making a business of it, we only make a show of it. By dint of making it a symbol of success, we are preparing for its failure. » We strongly believe in the positive virtues of sport and in the idea that it is essentially good for our societies. Sociologists and historians may well highlight its excesses, but we totally reject the scandals that tarnish its “purity”: unbridled race for profit, political instrumentalization, infernal pace of professional athletes, racism, etc. But these facts would only be the temporary usurpation of an immutable ideal: the simple practice of sport would generate social success, courage, friendship, solidarity, respect for others, surpassing oneself, the taste effort, honesty, etc. Managing Director of an association that has used sport as a lever for social change for twenty years, David Blough questions this doxa and explains how this collective imagination ends up overshadowing the social potential of sport. By detailing, not without humor, the different realities of modern sport, he demonstrates that this phenomenon of sportwashing hides dubious political or commercial ambitions and calls for putting ethics back at the center of the game. In this edifying essay, David Blough demystifies sport so that it can take the measure of its social potential.