Sport needs a good old burp
The Tuesday Farken’ell*
At the weekend I learnt I am a house burper. Outside magazine ran a piece on the German practice of lüften, which is the opening of windows and doors in winter to ventilate your abode and bring in fresh air. It is now trendy because it is on TikTok. I’m an old hand at burping houses, well ahead of my time. I’ve been doing it for years.
Open the doors, let the sun shine in, invite a fresh breeze in to usher the sweaty, nasty things out. Makes sense. That said, as a writer I’ve never held fast to the burping / farting mantra of “better out than in” when writing or editing and I refuse to be drawn on my leaning when it comes to bodily functions. Safe to say I won’t die from holding in gas or fizzy drinks.
(Screenshot - The Times)
Sports burping. There’s something I could get behind because there are many people in sport that are better out than in, some full of wind it would take years of burping to release it. The ICC (International Cricket Council) has a BCCI problem. Bangladesh have been withdrawn from the T20 World Cup after the ICC refused to let them move any of their matches to be played in India to Sri Lanka, the co-hosts.
Long story short. BCCI kicked a Bangladesh player out of the IPL because of political tensions between the two countries. Bangladesh got the wind up and hit back with a potential boycott, but the ICC-BCCI called their bluff and replaced them with Scotland. Now the Pakistan board are refusing to play in India just as India refused to play in the 2025 Champions League matches in Pakistan.
If Pakistan don’t play the February 15 match, who suffers? Not the BCCI nor the Indian side.
Should Pakistan actually forfeit that match, the ICC will lose something like $450m in broadcast revenue. It’s the richest single game in international sport outside the soccer World Cup final. It wouldn’t affect the BCCI, which takes 38.5% of the global revenue share and has the $6.5bn IPL as its other piggy bank. And the PCB have just sold two new franchises in the expanded Pakistan Super League, so it’s feeling flush. But it would dramatically affect all of the small associate nations and even Test-playing nations such as Sri Lanka, New Zealand, the West Indies and (especially) South Africa. – Neil Manthorp in Business Day
India could feel the pinch in 10 years. They are bidding to host the 2036 Olympics and the IOC, unlike the ICC, are less tolerant of political interference of any kind. If cricket is seen to be under the thumb of the BCCI, as is the case, the IOC will not allow India to pick and choose who will play and where. As it is, the T20 World Cup is in chaos.
The increasing politicisation of the game represents a huge crisis at a critical time for international cricket, challenged as it is by the advance of the franchise leagues. Cricket is said to be the world’s second-most popular sport, but it is vulnerable because of how concentrated it is in one, politically unstable area of the world. More and more, the game is being used there as a tool for political point-scoring, with the result that global events have become increasingly compromised. – Mike Atherton in The Times
The IOC is having an Epstein and ICE squeaky bum moment at the Winter Olympics. On Sunday IOC president Kirsty Coventry was asked about the presence of an ICE Homeland Security Investigations unit with the US team at Milano Cortina and Casey Wasserman, chairman of the 2028 Los Angeles Games, appearing in Epstein documents.
I think anything that is distracting from these Games is sad, right? We’ve learned over the many years there’s always been something that has taken the lead leading up to the Games, whether it has been communities, whether it’s been Zika, Covid, there has always been something. – Kirsty Coventry, IOC President
Zika and Covid are a little different to paedophilia and a secret army arresting five-year kids, you would say. As is threatening to invade Greenland, taking away visas from Olympic countries and a potential request for Taco Don to pocket a gold Olympic medal in a few years. It may be a small protest and barely noticed, but the word ICE has been removed from the US team’s hospitality area.
US Figure Skating, USA Hockey and US Speedskating decided to change the name of The Ice House to The Winter House. “Our hospitality concept was designed to be a private space free of distractions where athletes, their families, and friends can come together to celebrate the unique experience of the Winter Games. This name captures that vision and connects to the season and the event,” the three said in a joint statement provided to USA TODAY Sports.
Who else needs a burp? Gianni Infantino, obviously. He wants Russia to be unbanned because the ban has achieved nothing and “created more frustration and hatred”. World Rugby have decided the opening game of next year’s World Cup will be a non-event between the Wallabies and Hong Kong. It’s a big step down from France taking on the All Blacks in game one in 2023 and the Boks hosting Australia in 1995. The Boks against Italy in Adelaide will be the only “tier one” match of the weekend. Not so much starting with a bang as a whimper.
Burp.
All Over The Bar Shouting is my regular and irregular take on what grabs me, from sport to music, from food to comedy. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber for the price of a couple of coffees each month or a once-off pot of coffee. If you prefer I’ve set up a BuyMeACoffee portal. Click Here
* Doug Place inadvertently came up with this title after mistaking ‘Farnarkel’ for ‘Farken’ell, which has now evolved into a competition to see how many ways we can use Farken.
“Farnarkel” is Australian slang for wasting time or acting “in a careless and inconsequential manner”. It was coined by comedian John Clarke, who parodied television sports reporters with commentary on “farnarkeling”, the competitive sports of doing nothing. It appeared on the 1980s Australian TV show, The Gillies Report.