My occasional preoccupation with football was fed plenty of food for thought this week. Charlton's performance last Saturday was as inept as I had seen for a long time. Two goals the result of panic defending followed by an hour trying to create something worthwhile at the opposite end. Then on Tuesday, joy!: eighteen games without a win ended with a cup win at Norwich. Not surprisingly Norwich parted company with their manager the next day. Across the club blogs, despair has turned to hope overnight. Dare we hope for a revival or will this prove to be a false dawn.
But this isn't what caught most of my attention. This blog is about trying to make sense of the world around me. Just recently a number of bishops criticised the government for what they argued was a questionable preoccupation with wealth generation and economic growth:
" In a series of interviews with The Sunday Telegraph, the Bishop of Manchester accused the party of being "beguiled by money" and "morally corrupt" while the Bishop of Hulme said it was "morally suspect" and the Bishop of Durham said it had reneged on its promises." appeared in the Sunday Telegraph just after Christmas.
This week the papers were full of a sensational story: Premiership club Manchester City - currently being bankrolled by extremely wealthy middle eastern owners - were planning to make a bid of £100m or so for Milan's Brazilian star, Kaka. That would just about double the world record transfer fee paid in 2001 by Real Madrid to Juventus for the French international Zinedine Zidane. The rewards for Kaka personally aren't bad either, a weekly wage of £500,000 is one figure I heard quoted.
Given we're in a recession all this proved a tad controversial. People are asking whether this is any sort of example to be setting at a time when jobs are being lost and many people are feeling the credit squeeze. We might like to see professional footballers held up as role models for young people. What sort of a role model would Kaka be?
As it turns out that's an interesting question. Far from being an empty-headed, hedonist taking advantage of the perks that would undoubtedly be available to a 26 year old at the peak of his athletic powers, it turns out Kaka is an evangelical Christian with a very deep faith. Here's a piece from his Wikipedia entry:
At the age of eighteen, Kaká suffered a career-threatening and possibly paralysis-inducing spinal fracture as a result of a swimming pool accident, but remarkably made a full recovery. He attributes his recovery to God and has since tithed his income to his church.
Discuss.
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