A Necessary Evil

Sports are often referred to as the opium of the masses. It’s simple- Pick your preferred team on the basis of varied criteria, ranging from analysed and collated performance data all the way to the exact number of bodacious cheerleaders.  Now support this team to death and your 2-step program is complete. Unknown foreign players from distant unimaginable lands become household names. They’re praised in bundles for their success and insulted in truckloads for their failures. They’re boycotted, railed upon and in some cases even physically harmed in the process of proving your fandom.

Clearly, a lot of people invest (Match fixers and bookies aside) a ton of emotions and expectations in sports. All this does is increase the pressure to perform. But the unfortunate beginning to our subject is that not everyone can perform under the pressure. They’re left with two basic alternatives. Retire a failed hero and spend your days reminding people why you look familiar. Or (the less dramatic but more taxing alternative) perform better.

Simple laws of the universe tell us- Outperforming the opponent is easy. Play better or make them play worse. Taunts and aggression test the mental stability of the opponents and also serve as a means of distraction. To be highly psychological, a player who can withstand this kind of mental torture can genuinely be called the most able player. Getting affected by these taunts causes a player to lose his concentration and skill, benefiting the opponent player or team. This brings me to the topic of interest today: - Aggression in Sports- A Necessary Evil?

The earliest FIFA World Cup I can remember dates back to 2006. Any time before that, I doubt I knew how to spell 'football'. But 2006 is highly regarded as the last year of the legends. 

Truly, a beautiful world cup marred by incidents of aggression. It was one of those famous instances when people realised that aggression in sports brought results. 

Take Portugal as an example. On paper, they reached the semi-finals and eventually placed 4th. Incredible achievement. On field, however, it was far from graceful. Portugal Vs Netherlands was an all out war in the guise of a football match. 16 yellow cards and 4 red cards, with only one goal being scored. 

Then there is the infamous Cristiano Ronaldo wink, which came immediately after Wayne Rooney was sent off. They applied aggression, and it paid off, at the cost of sportsmanship and morals. But in a result-oriented world, one would hardly blame them. 

Same World Cup, the final this time. Zidane's last game for France, with a chance to have a glorious exit. 110 minutes into the game, scores level, almost certain to go into penalty shootouts. Italy wary of the fact that France has a magnificent penalty-taking line-up and very little could rile them up. Marco Materrazi is aware of all this, as well as the fact that Zidane has a temper. He instigates Zidane to a level that brings on an attack, Zidane is sent off, France loses their premier penalty taker, captain and their morale as well. Predictably, they end up losing the shootout.

Now, from a neutral view, Italy seems to be the enemy in this story. But they were eventually the ones who lifted the Cup. 

Did the ends justify the means? Do results justify this loss of sportsmanship?

There are many sports like Boxing and Combat which encourage aggression. In a pit filled with blood and testosterone, why not add a little bit of anger and premeditated violence? This reminds us of Conor McGregor and his antics. 

His methods are simple. Taunt and aggravate the opponent both on and off the ring. Get him angry, get him frustrated. And then, when he comes all punches blazing, take advantage of the fact that he's lost the concept of defence.

 Aggression is being used as a strategic tool and as a tactic to forward one's cause. 

He even used his taunts on social media and in interviews to bring Floyd Mayweather out of retirement. Win or lose, he stands to earn upwards of a 100 million dollars for one fight.
Aggression in his sport now earned him a profit. When all of us need to put in more hours and more effort to get a raise in our day-to-day occupations, all he needed to do was taunt his opponent out of retirement. Most of you would say that his motive for aggression was less that of a sportsman and more that of a calculating businessman.

Coming to our pseudo-national sport, we actually have a word attributed just to aggression. Sledging has been known to be both mild and severe, and also both effective as well as not.
Over the years, we’ve obtained many incidents of sledging having dire effects on the perpetrator.
Like when Greg Thomas taunted Viv Richards by sarcastically describing the ball and teased him for not being able to hit it. Viv Richards calmly resorted to hitting a boundary. "Greg, you know what it looks like, now go and find it". 

We all know about Andrew Flintoff's banter with Yuvraj Singh in the 2007 World T20 Cup. What we could never have imagined is the price Stuart Broad had to pay. The aggression grew in Yuvraj and he felt the need to demonstrate to Flintoff how capable he was of retorting. 

The aggression and the sledging backfired, a very rare occurrence in modern sport.
Ben Stokes made an interesting comment after a heated exchange with Marlon Samuels. "We're trying to win a game here playing for our country, so give us a bit of leeway.” This brings me back to my original point about how the tempers and moods flare when it is a matter of national superiority. 

Many are of the opinion that sledging is an alternate to physical confrontations. You would prefer sportsmen baring their temper through words rather than actions. They even believe that sledging an under-performing batsmen or bowler increases their self doubt, causing them to spiral even further away from their form.
However, many also truly believe that the modern sledging borderlines on simple abuse, and is used as a means to offend and not distract. While captains like Virat Kohli and Steve Smith promote aggression and sledging to rile their opponents, many believe that a captain’s job is to cool down his team, not fire them up. Many refer back to the fact that cricket is meant to be a gentleman’s sport and promotes sportsmanship over everything else. Winner, loser doesn’t matter, just play a good game.

So far we have seen how aggression in sports has been helpful to the players. Let us now proceed along the disadvantages of this perpetrated aggression.

·        If players are aggressive, the fans are inspired multi-fold. Fans are known for violent outbursts of anger, when their team underperforms. When India started losing miserably to Sri Lanka in the 1996 World Cup, the fans started throwing water bottles and burning stands. Monica Seles (World #1 at that time) was stabbed in the neck by a deranged Steffi Graf fan. Liverpool and Juventus fans infamously clashed in 1985, causing the death of 39.
The simple reason is that youngsters and fans are inspired by their role models. Their aggression gives them leeway to fuel their own aggression.

·        Very often, the players involved in an aggressive on-pitch squabble end up injured. This injury very often ends their season or even their career at times. While the attacker is levied a fine and gets a temporary ban, the opposing team loses out on a possible star player and maybe even their hopes of winning the match. Many a time, young and less useful players are asked to attack the more prominent players of the opposing team, acting as virtual battering rams. They exploit the fact that the damage they cause is irreplaceable, and worth the fines and bans.

The biggest problem the sports committees of the world face is that they can only take so much action against a player. Intent isn’t always naturally visible. They often turn out to be too lenient, while the other team/player suffers greatly.

Aggression in sports is a complete and utter loss of sportsmanship. It is applicable in certain scenarios, but must always be kept under watch and control. The penalties for breaking the limit should be severe and career-ending, to prevent other players from following pursuit. Each and every player needs to know that win or lose; the greatest importance should be respect towards the game and the opponents. There are very few sports that involve only one person, and we must always thank our lucky stars for good competition, not insult them for it. It is nice to have valid competition; it pushes you to do better.

Quoting Gianni Versace at the end of the day-
“It is nice to have valid competition; it pushes you to do better.”

-         Rahul Ghosh

-          Second Year B.Tech