Fair Play in sports

Yesterday, I communicated with a young friend through MSN, he brought up the issue of 'Fair Play'. As he is an organizer in a sporting event, he is a bit worry about this matter. I told him that he need to talk to all of the officials involve in the event, that they should based on Olympic Spirit and Fair Play principle to carry out their duties, so that the participants won't waste their training efforts and enjoy the game.

By the way, what is fair play?
According to Canadian Centre of Ethic of Sports: The notion of Fair Play is a universally understood concept, which underpins all of sport. Without fairness, sport is devoid of any meaning or purpose. Worse still, it can be a detrimental experience for its participants.

But Fair Play is also a philosophy - one of respect for others, and respect for the institution of sport. It leads to an agreement, between all of those involved in sport, on the values and lessons that we want sport to teach our children, and ourselves.

Playing fair also has to do with making choices. As we interact with each other in sport, or as spectators of sport, we must regularly consider and define what we think is right and what is not. Sport engages us in a collective effort to pursue human excellence. As our children interact with each other in sport, their ability to make good choices about fair play issues matures along with their ability to think and learn about what makes for a rewarding and fulfilling life in society (Extracted from http://www.cces.ca/forms/index.cfm?dsp=template&act=view3&template_id=122&lang=e).

Of course, in my experience, I have heard people who are referees in the games, loudly announced that the greatest and most powerful person in the arena is the officials conducting the games. People with such attitude is merely unqualified to be in the arena, as he has disrespect the hard work and sporting spirit of the athletes. He is abusing his given authority and tarnishing the Sport Spirit of the game.

In the Beijing Olympics, there was an incident that an athlete whacked the referee at the end of his bout, he reason was the referee was unfair!

See, Fair Play really could damage a game, but the cause is not the game, it is the HUMAN!