Players as products: are we pushing our sportspeople too far?

Manchester City star Rodri recently said that football players are close to calling a strike in opposition to an increase in the amount of games they are being asked to play. Footballers are not the only ones asking questions about workload.

Cricketer and England Test captain Ben Stokes retired from playing One Day Internationals saying: 'I feel that my body is letting me down because of the schedule and what is expected of us.' World number three tennis player Carlos Alcaraz also claimed the administrators are 'trying to kill us' with injuries mounting up due to a compressed calendar.

So why is this happening?

I think it’s because we’ve forgotten that these men and women we see on our TV screens are actually human beings like we are. They are made, like us all, with God-given limitations and yet we dehumanise them and expect them to be super-human, to be unlike the rest of us.

Whereas we need to sleep and rest for a third of our lives, we expect them to never stop entertaining us. Our culture needs them to never stop entertaining us. There are interesting parallels with YouTube stars who have burnt out under the relentless pressure from fans to keep releasing new creative content day after day.

I don’t want a weekend without major sport. If I look at myself honestly, I want the distraction that comes from checking the score a few times every day. All the companies that operate on the periphery of live sport - the TV studios, betting companies, sponsors - also need the show to stay on the road. And for that we need the products, the players.

Remembering human limitations

For them, it’s difficult to speak up, especially the lower down the food chain you get. Sportspeople may not want to show their management any weakness in case they’re labelled unprofessional or ‘soft.’ Missing just one game could lead to you losing your place on the team for the rest of the season or losing out on significant ranking points.

Like other workplaces the world of sport needs to reckon seriously with the issue of burnout. Players and administrators need to remember their human limitations, to remember that their very identity is not defined by their job, or their performance. We worship a God who rested and made rest a key part of the fabric of the whole of creation, even the modern day phenomenon of sport.

S,o I say if it takes strike action to reset the unhealthy patterns much of modern day professional sport has found itself, then strike away. We can all do with a weekend without live sport to watch, it may even be good for us to have a day of rest.