Category Archives: sport

February 26, 2023 · 20:58

Surprise, surprise

That is how I felt an hour ago when Arab News gave me (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2257936/sport) ‘Saudi Arabia beat Indonesia by 8 wickets at 2023 ACC Men’s Challenger Cup’ I honestly did not know that Saudi Arabia has a Cricket Team. That is not even close to the end of it. 

You see, Saudi Arabia has 11 associations. They are Western Province Cricket Association, Jeddah Cricket Association, Riyadh Cricket Association, Riyadh Cricket League, Eastern Province Cricket Association, Yanbu Al Sinayiah Cricket Association, Aseer Cricket League, Jizan Premier Cricket League, Jizan Region Cricket Association, Madina Cricket League, and the Madina Cricket Association. I will do you one wilder, Saudi Arabia is playing Thailand tomorrow and when you search “Saudi Arabia Cricket” in Google, we see the match come up and in the whole first page of News Nine’s Wide World of Sports is the only one in the entire page who mentions it. The first three pages go back to August 2022, BBC sports never shows up and neither do most of the Australian papers. And Cricket is their bread and butter? How about giving possible opponents in the world a fair mention? You still think that Australian news is about sports and facts? Where were these facts filtered out? The fact that I never knew that Saudi Arabia did not have a Cricket team is on me, but I had help, for the most the sports world of Australia and England went out of their way not to mention it, nothing at all. That part is seen in the top three pages in Google Search. You tell me why the media ignores it, I have no idea.

So what else are we not being told? This is a simple setting, this you can look up and there you see how western newspapers treat other teams, especially the ones that are filtered out. Is this a storm in a teacup? Yes, I will admit that it is, there should not be so much focus on one element, but what is the element that we should ignore, that Saudi and Indonesian cricket events do not make the news, or the fact that neither show up at all? Because a few days ago the news was full of Women Cricket (and I am fine with that), but nothing at all on other events? I honestly cannot tell what the filtering was all about, but when one party comes with the BS excuse that they ran out of space all whilst the BBC app is rehashing news from Feb 4th, I will throw a tantrum. 

That is the news that the west gives us, all unbiased and honest, too bad it does not give us the additional “Filtered for the need of shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers” because I personally reckon that was part of that deal.

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December 31, 2022 · 21:18

At the finish of the year

Until about 5 minutes ago I was unclear whether I would touch this. You see Football is not my game. It just isn’t hockey (the real version, on ice) . I am not a fan of the game, never was. I sometimes watch part of a game and there is no call to national teams either. But for me, like for a whole lot of people, our world was abruptly called to a halt. On the 22nd November 2022 the game changed. Saudi Arabia defeated Argentina, a result no one saw coming and I reckon that a lot of people lost a lot of money gambling on that game. On the 22nd of November Saudi Arabia became a contender in football.

So whilst I see all these news items and BS tweets on how Ronaldo ‘betrayed’ the game, how he became a mercenary and a lot more rubbish, the bulk of the people are missing the point. You see being a sportsman on THAT level has a limited timeline. You can only be the best in the world for a limited time. OK, lets just say he is one of the three in the top of that game (apparently for some unknown reason no one in Argentina thinks he is the best in the world). But even if he is one of three on that top level, it has an expiration date, and he is no longer a teenager, he needs to keep his future safe. So he can continue on that streak (being paid decently well), or he can take an insane amount of money, being set for life and shaping football for Saudi Arabia. What would you do? Continue on a timeline with half a dozen prima donna’s, or create a dozen Ronaldo’s? Getting over a quarter of a billion each year doing so?

This is not merely the money (but it is nice to have a safe retirement 20 years in advance), he can shape the game for Saudi Arabia. This year they amazed EVERYONE, so what do you think will happen when Cristiano Ronaldo, the Number 7 trains the Saudi’s and in 2024 THEY end in the quarter finals? What a legacy to create and for Saudi Arabia, what an achievement to get. But we do not see any of that in all the newscasts or tweets, merely some SBS news girl standing pretty (and not much more) stating how sad she is, so why is she sad? Do we care? 

We saw the beginning of the game changing to a degree we never saw coming and Ronaldo, the number 7 can add spice to that equation and get over a dozen players a lot closer to the upper level of football than ever before. FIFA is about to get a new contender in this game and it is not a European team, yet that too is left unmentioned. So as I saw the sad amount of innuendo and attacks on number 7, I decided to write this. Consider this point of view, reject it, or form your own opinion, but think back to November 22nd. Did you see that game coming? I sure as hell didn’t and it was the subsequent deal with Al Nassr of Saudi Arabia where a new age of football is heralded in, heralded in by a Portuguese, Vasco da Gama would be proud of this day. At this point I wonder what the Saudi team will achieve in 2024, in Mexico because that will be a world cup no one wants to miss at this point.

 

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