Mo Farah having been asked about his omission from the top three in the recent BBC Sports Personality of the Year during his eve of race press conference at Holyrood last weekend, a lively discussion ensued among a group of English journalists immediately afterwards.
It is not unusual for those who spend too much time cocooned in any one sport to become a bit precious about their particular favourites and much hypothesis resulted, including the notion, which was by no means dismissed out of hand by those involved in the conversation who clearly did not care who heard what they had to say, that there was a racial element to it.
It was tempting to point out that if such considerations were at play then in terms of nationality, as opposed to race admittedly, there has been rather more social media questioning of the right of the bloke who won that award for a record third time to represent Britain than there has been of the man who has doubled Andy Murray’s haul of Olympic gold medals.
Worth noting too, had the day's work-load not precluded getting snarled up in what could have been a lengthy discussion, the fact that Farah’s recent knighthood did see a couple of issues raised on the net, his on-going associations with coach Alberto Salazar continuing to cause unease for some, while others suggested that he now appears to live in a form of tax exile having previously taken substantial funding from what is effectively the British public purse for many years.
It is easy to understand, on exposure to Farah, why some would be so militant on his behalf because he has a lovely way with him, extremely engaging and open. So much so that it seems there are those who think this 33-year-old man needs to be protected from himself, to the extent that we had had a ludicrous intervention from the press conference compere when ruling out of order a question asking Farah to elaborate on previous social media observations he had made on the newly appointed American president.
One subject Farah was permitted to address fully, however, was immigration, firstly his capacity to be an exemplar of all that is good about it from a British perspective, but also, when invited to question the presence in last weekend’s European team of Turkish athletes who have, more recently, switched allegiance from Kenya.
The way Somalia-born Farah’s successes have been embraced across the UK reflects well on all concerned at a time when it is more important than ever before that we recognise the importance of being good world citizens. However his response regarding those routinely referred to as ‘Turkish Kenyans’ suggested he has been sucked into accepting what is seen as conventional wisdom in the British athletics community.
“When you represent your country you have to be able to represent a country that you love and you have been there like myself and it’s hard,” said Farah.
“I don’t actually agree in terms of you’re there to compete for one country and then you decide to switch in a short space.
“It’s hard, but I don’t agree to be honest because we love representing our country and you should be able to represent the country that you love and that is your country.
“It’s a different thing in terms of being there for seven, eight years. Yes, that’s fine, but to just switch overnight is difficult and it makes athletics look boring.”
At face value, fair enough. Nothing more than a suggestion that people must serve some sort of qualification period before being allowed to switch. However it is perhaps worth placing that in the broader context of the current political narrative hereabouts.
It is the UK that has, more than anywhere else in recent years, turned medal winning into an industry, funding being directed at potential winners and ruthlessly removed from those failing to hit targets.
Turkish politicians have, it would seem, also decided that medal winning is something they want to use to aggrandise themselves and have hit upon what looks an even faster shortcut than ignoring popular sports and focusing spending on those in which other countries are less competitive.
In doing so they are meanwhile surely only echoing another policy espoused by many of the most influential British politicians right now, in terms of only wanting to open the door to immigrants to this country who can be immediately beneficial to the national economy.
My own preference, very much at odds with the populist agenda currently being pursued, is to open doors as wide as possible recognising both the responsibilities as world citizens of those who are better off, not to mention the role the west in general and Britain in particular, has played over years, decades and centuries in causing the imbalance in terms of that wealth and the consequent global unrest.
Take that line and we may then be entitled to pass comment on the immigration and recruitment policies of fellow European nations.
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