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Should sports be about inclusivity, community and mass participation or winning, money, advertising, a plaything for billionaires? Peter Kelly delves into the arguments…

The culture wars are tedious and annoying but also hard to ignore. And as much as we would like to ignore them, they matter.

Unscrupulous politicians will use every opportunity they have to weaponise the culture wars to their ends.

So, unless you engage with culture war debates and try to untangle the messy grey areas they create you leave massive space for the incompetent and self-serving to operate.

Should transgender women be allowed compete in women sports? It is a question that creates a major point for weakness for progressive politics. I believe if you asked most people the following question, they will answer yes.

Should we accept everyone for who they are and try and treat everybody fairly? And if the answer to this question is yes, then we should accept transgender woman and transgender men for who they are.

A real conundrum for progressive politics

If we do this then transgender women get accepted as women and transgender men get accepted as men. Then it stands that transgender women get to compete in women’s sports and vice-versa.

Now, I believe if you ask most people this question, their answer will be no. Is it fair for transgender women to compete in women’s sports? This is a real conundrum for progressive politics. I personally feel this raises a far more interesting question. ‘What is sports?’

Baron Pierre de Coubertin is the founder of the modern Olympic Games. A French educator and historian, he was the driving force behind the revival of the ancient Greek athletic festival as a modern international event.

He founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, organised the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, designed the iconic Olympic Rings symbol in 1913. He was an all-round good guy and sports legend.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin stated in relation to the spirit of the Olympics: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part; the important thing in life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.”

We all heard this growing up; it is not the winning that matters, it is the taking part that counts.

Vince Lombardi was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1913. He is considered to be one of the greatest coaches and leaders in American sports.

No coach in NFL history achieved more success in less time than Lombardi did during his nine seasons with the Green Bay Packers. He won five NFL championships, including SuperBowls 1 and 2. The trophy handed to the winners of the NFL every year is called the Vince Lombardi trophy.

Lombardi popularised the phrase ‘winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing’. It was first coined by UCLA coach Red Sanders. The phrase is controversial. Some see it as motivational, while others believe it devalues effort, sportsmanship and growth from losing.

I believe this phrase sums up the hijacking of sports by corporations. Sport is now more about money, sports washing and corporate partnerships then it is about participating.

It is a lottery system for people from deprived communities to distract from extreme inequality. It is a platform for gambling companies to advertise to children. It is a vehicle for autocratic states to garner soft power.

During the Covid pandemic, the big push in relation to sports was not to get mass participation games going again to help young people deal with the mental stress of social isolation. The push was to get big sports events up and running to entertain and distract and get the business of sports running again.

And from what I can see, the main business of sports today is the promotion of gambling companies. Gambling ads are ubiquitous in English football now. This should be a much bigger concern that transgender women competing in women sports.

The harm of football-mad children being bombarded with gambling ads before they are legally allowed to gamble will have far bigger consequences for the health and safety of the nation than transgender women competing in women’s sports.

Do transgender women have an unfair advantage in women’s sports? Is it dangerous for women to compete against transgender women in sports? Maybe, sometimes, not aways.

I believe if you see sports the way Baron Pierre de Coubertin saw sports, then you should not have an issue with transgender people competing in sports. However, if you see it the way Vince Lombardi saw it, you will.

Should sports be about inclusivity, community, mass participation, a healthy body is a healthy mind? Or should it be all about winning, money, advertising, a plaything for billionaires and dictators to flex and feel important?

As always, the answer is probably somewhere in between.

Peter Kelly is a community pharmacist based in London and a stand-up comedian.