Sport is not a commodity, but rather the oldest protocol of transforming energy into meaning: a brief
republic where the rules are clear, time is scarce, and effort has a vote. We mistook it for content, packaged
and throttled, scripted by calendars that flatter sponsors and break bodies. We answer: play is a civic right,
not a franchise. The game belongs first to the players and the place.
Prestige is reserved for rationed fields. Leagues are monopolized, schedules are made up for television
and youth stockpiled. We refuse the plug model. Let pyramids be open, with promotion and relegation
earned on grass, not purchased in boardrooms. Let clubs be member-owned or transparently governed,
their books visible to the people who sing in their stands. If a league cannot survive competition, it is a
cartel, not a culture.
Health is better than the spectacle. Calendars must honor recovery; training must follow evidence, not
folklore. Independent doctors clear players, not payrolls. Concussions are not plot points; they are exits.
Due Process. Doping control is theater, for example-, notified rights, B-samples, chain-of-custody in
daylight, and penalties that fit intent and harm. No medal is worth ruining one’s life.
Athletes are not assets. There is no term in which a child owes a federation their childhood. Contracts end,
buyouts are public, and non-competes are narrow and rare. Risk and reward travel together: equal prize
money for equal events; safe housing, childcare where needed, and pensions that outlast applause.
Corruption in selection gates through favoritism or abuse must force the athlete to have an ombuds with
the power to stop the bus, not merely file a note.
A body produces data, and so data is no longer free. Biometric streams, GPS traces, injury histories—
owned by the athlete, shared by revocable consent, stored minimally and securely. Surveillance by
analytics is a tax on trust. Cameras that help judge are welcome; cameras that hunt reputations are not.
Rules must clearly be public and enforced by adults one can respect. Referees deserve protection and
accountability: clear standards, post-match reports, appeals that measure competence rather than
outrage. Technology, assistant, not sovereign. If a decision changes a season worth defining, it ought to fit
on a page and stand daylight. Mystery is for novels; fairness is for finals.
Public money buys public access. Every child should be able to play on the grass in this stadium-not only
look up at it through gates-when it is built by citizens. Broadcast rights include a free-to-air window for the
games that bind a town together. Betting markets cannot set the clock; conflicts are declared and
disciplined before the anthem, not after the scandal.
A coach trains; not a drill sergeant. Underpinned by pedagogy and care, their license is not volume. Child
safeguarding is a wall, not a poster – background checks, two-adult rules, hotlines that trigger action, and
zero tolerance for the old cult of “toughness” to excuse harm. The best program will produce citizens who
still love the game when no one is watching.
Our means fit our ends, however. We will build community leagues with open bylaws, publish budgets,
cap travel to restore local rivalries, and measure success by minutes played, injuries prevented, and
dropouts reversed. Teams will be encouraged who graduate girls and boys into life-long participants, not
just champions. We will back unions bargaining for humane calendars and data rights to starve federations
treating athletes as scenery.
This is not nostalgia but maintenance of something worth inheriting. More children will shout at dusk on
safe fields; ordinary bodies will participate in more events; fewer careers will end because of a calendar
and secrets; more finals will be decided by courage instead of contracts. Access is our signature; fairness
is our seal; joy that survives the scoreboard is our receipt. Down here, under our names, is where
permissioned sport ends, while there is still time to play for the love of the game and the dignity of those
who play it.
