INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

A. Kings have tried to ban sports because they felt that sports
interfered with military training, developed too much selfreliance
and independence in the common people; because they
felt that they were too dangerous for the participants; or just
because they thought sports wasted too much time better spent in
working.
B. The church has banned sports at times because of their emphasis
on pleasure and on the physical, because they thought sports
encouraged pagan practices. The early Christians thought that
devotion to sport was an evil pursuit of carnal pleasure.
C. Now and then the academicians have tried to ban or limit sports
because they felt that the sports took too much time and interest
away from studies, and because they felt that sports were rough
and dangerous.
D. The common man down through the ages has persisted in sports
competitions even in spite of religious edict or Royal decree
forbidding them.
Reasons the sociologists and psychologists give for the persistence
of sports in various societies follow:
(1) Sport is man’s means of developing and preserving group
morale, group pride, group belongingness and coherence, security
within the group; the gang spirit and the we-feeling. Working
together, or vicariously participating in a common goal seems to be a
need of man. Some national solidarity seems to result from national
teams. For example, football game is the only thing that unites
Nigerians (President Obasanjo; Abati, 2004). Football tournaments
always bring out the best in the average Nigerian. When there’s a
football match to be won or lost, Nigerians suddenly become patriotic.
At such moments, they do not talk about ethnicity or religion. There is
no protest about the application of quota system in the national team.
Rather the people are driven by a determination to win and excel. In
the recent African Nation’s Football Competition Cup, (2004) nothing
gave Nigerians more joy than the trashing of Cameroon. The Great
Super Eagles made the country proud.
(2) A cultural heritage of ritual and ceremony accompanying the
physical and emotional activity of sports contests, for example,
- 54 -