Transform the world: not given! - Dr. Gilles Klein

Transform the world: not given!

  

Dr. Gilles Klein, 09 October 2017

  

Summer

At the end of last June, I wished readers of this blog a great summer. We left off on a giant matter. We summarized our attempt to reduce the inequalities in youth access to physical activity and sport by taking up the metaphor used by the philosopher and physicist Newton: "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants ". This summer, by installing ourselves on the shoulders of the giants of this world, we will have experienced dramas and long-term challenges, of which the sporting spectacles have struggled to divert us.

  

Transform

  

The dramas and challenges that have constantly brought us back to the imperative necessity affirmed by the United Nations to transform the world in the years to come. Transforming the world! Let's try to understand with the first episodes dedicated to this theme that relaunch our blog. This second series will focus on the Sport, Development, and Peace (SDP) sector, which is the set of organizations that are trying to contribute to the achievement of the United Nations goals through sport. We will express our vision, our action plan and of course our results, hoping that this time they will be at the meeting of our assiduous attempts.

Olympus

Cocorico! The French cock crows every morning in the courtyard of the farm. However, even the awarding of the Olympic Games did not provoke any particular excitement. Our readers remember the Blair-Chirac strategic duel for the 2012 Olympic Games. This time, the news was not surprising. On 13 September, Paris officially obtained the organization of the 2024 Olympic Games. After the creation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Paris on June 23, 1894, the French capital organized the Games in 1900 and again in 1924, for the last time. The victory came after the agreement between the IOC and the last rival city, Los Angeles, which has been awarded the Olympics four years later.

Jupiter

  

Let's praise the performance! The game was well played by all the actors. By associating the entire sporting world, relying on champions and practitioners, France launched the game and since May 2017 by focusing on the very Jupiterian President Emmanuel Macron, "young, dynamic and open to the world" according to the words of Tony Estanguet, co-chair of the Paris-2024 committee. It plans to stage its world famous sites, such as the Eiffel Tower (triathlon and marathon), the Champs Elysees (cycling), the Palace of Versailles (horseback riding) or the Grand Palais (fencing). To complete the project, the project is estimated at 6.6 billion euros, a figure lower than the most recent Games thanks to existing infrastructures. More generally, France displays its ability to organize a major sporting event by anticipating environmental, social and good governance issues.

  

Prof

Return to London. At the World Athletics Championships, for the last 100m of his career, August 5th in the Olympic Stadium, Usain Bolt is beaten by two Americans, including Justin Gatlin, who becomes the new boss of the sprint under the whistles of the British public. In Beijing, athletics had found its king. In London, everyone praised his brilliant career. In a decade he has successfully taught billions of people, that which every physical education teacher and coach tries to teach his students every day: to pass in a few seconds from the most complete physical and psychological relaxation to the most intense effort, the one that makes it possible to mobilize all your resources to prevail on the line. Come on! For the French Cocorico, I took great pleasure in the victories of Pierre-Ambroise Bosse, a 800-meter “no-filter” worker, of Kévin Mayer, the modest pushing back the limits at the decathlon, and the obstinate and indefatigable Yohann Diniz in the 50 kilometers.

  

Dollars

  

During the summer, I had to rework the question of financing sports: the decline in public finances, the importance of local authorities, the use of private sector through public-private partnerships, Corporate Social Responsibility, and the environmental, social and good governance (ESG) orientations of enterprises, as well as the participatory funding through crowd-funding, the appeal of federations to practitioners, etc. In short, watching on one side of the scales, the inequalities of youth access to physical education and sport, both within and between countries, due to the disengagement of public authorities. On the other side of the scales, studying the sports industry and its overall annual budget of 700 billion US dollars.

  

Prince

  

My reflections were confirmed by the arrival of a prince in the French Football League. Throughout July, negotiations were intense, before the decision was announced on 2 August. Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior officially left FC Barcelona for Paris Saint-Germain. The Qatari leaders of the Paris club signed a cheque for 222 million euros corresponding to the amount of the release clause of the Brazilian, who will receive a 30 million annual salary for five years. If this figure appeared unreasonable to all those who struggle to balance family budgets, the amount of the transfer was not surprising for those who follow Qatari sports policy.

Commodity

  

This policy initiated in the early 2000s by Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is based on a few principles that combine sport, finance, and diplomacy: investment in the sports industry, organization of major events, promotion of athletes, diplomacy through sport, brand image. Qatar, confronted with the decline in its gas resources, transforms sports into a commodity, into merchandise, in other words, sports are nothing but an ore. Neymar is a golden nugget that allows the exploration and exploitation of the vein more deeply. The sums invested remain low in relation to the potential benefits.

Gaudi

The sport of summer has struggled to distract us and has constantly brought us back to the questions of the moment: geopolitics, money, the weight of the media and inequalities, as we shall see below. Questions close, so close to the news of this world. Nothing truly can divert anyone from the rest of the news, so heavy and painful this summer. Let's remember. After Paris, Brussels, Nice, Berlin, London, Manchester, Stockholm ... On Thursday, August 17, a young Moroccan, takes to the Rambla, Barcelona's most popular avenue. Over 500 meters, he mows down dozens of people of 35 nationalities, whilst driving a rental van. The result is heavy: 16 dead, 120 wounded. We found out later. Gaudi's Sagrada Familia was the initial target of the terrorists. Following September 11, 2001, the replicas of American geopolitics remain formidable. Until when? We have thought a lot about our friends in Barcelona and Catalonia, an autonomous community member of our organization.

Health

Egg products are withdrawn from French shops from 7 August. Their concentration of fipronil was above the European regulatory limit. The use of this product is strictly prohibited in animals intended for human consumption. At the origin of the scandal: the Netherlands, where one hundred and eighty (180) farms are suspected of having used fipronil, sometimes in high doses. What can be done to ensure that public health takes precedence over financial interests?

Diplomacy

President Trump stayed in the headlines all summer, mainly because of his arm-of-iron with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. On August 8, following the Pyongyang attempt, the US president promises "fire and anger as the world has never seen it." North Korea threatens to destroy the island of Guam before tempering the remarks and "observing the idiotic and stupid behavior of the Yankees". The replicas of the Iraqi occupation seem not to be enough. The American president, conquered in Paris by the military parade, cannot content himself with being a spectator, he makes everyone run the risk of passing from the pageantry parade to the theatre of operations.

Inequalities

President Trump, again. August 13 in Charlottesville, Virginia. A youth from the far-right movement Unite the White rushes into the anti-racist crowd and kills Heather Heyer. Violent clashes broke out between anti-racist militants and American extreme right-wing groups. The Klu Klux Klan is back. The state governor declared a state of emergency and the police banned the gathering. After attempting to appease, President Trump is only fanning the fires. He raises a shield by claiming that responsibility for the violence that shook Charlottesville had to be sought "on both sides." In an attempt to compensate, he sent back some advisers like the sultry nationalist Steve Bannon. The damage is done. On the sports fields, the players put their knees on the ground in a mark of solidarity during the American anthem. With the white tunics and pointed hoods of the white supremacist movement, we come back to the question of race inequalities and their corollaries, inequalities of gender, social status, capacity, sexuality, from the depths of the 1950s and 1960s.

Environment

July 19, publication of a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. A figure of 8.3 billion, which corresponds to the number of tons of plastic made by man since 1950. Almost 3/4 of this plastic has become waste. Shortly before, another published study issued a warning. The sixth mass extinction in Earth history, vertebrate history, has accelerated at an unprecedented rate since 66 million years ago and the extinction of dinosaurs. If Neymar was not bought on credit by Paris Saint Germain, on the other hand, the Earth still lives on credit earlier than last year: on 2 August we consumed all the natural resources that the planet can produce in a year.

2030

Last week, in Lausanne, the Sport, development and peace sector made its comeback. On the agenda, stakeholder policies and action plan to show the contribution of sport to the 2030 Sustainable Development Program adopted by the United Nations General Assembly under the title "Transforming Our World". Summer has shown us, it is not given. What are the challenges of such a transformation? How could sport contribute? Under what conditions could sport play a role in these major challenges of the world, particularly the issue of inequality? I will come back to it during our weekly meetings.

  

Next: Monday 16 October 2017 – Transform the world: a diplomatic feat!