The magic of Leicester City goes well beyond football

Ed Smith in The Guardian

The Premier League has become a case study in capitalism – which is why this underdog team’s success matters

 

Leicester’s manager Claudio Ranieri celebrates with players at the end of the Premier League game with Swansea City on 24 April. Photograph: Rui Vieira/AP

Saturday 30 April 2016 09.00 BST


Great sport strikes an optimal compromise between excellence and surprise. The pure randomness of throwing dice is never going to draw a crowd. But if the “best” team wins every time, and there is no room for luck and uncertainty, then the drama becomes both boring and depressing. We turn to sport for inspiration and reassurance as well as virtuosity.

Football is inherently good at surprise – one reason it’s the world’s favourite sport. Because the value of an individual goal is so huge (even a run in baseball isn’t as important) luck and unpredictability are hardwired. A shot hitting the post, a single refereeing decision, a goal against the run of play: these allow football to sustain justified faith among underdogs, both on the pitch and in the stands. On any given Saturday, the favourite is less likely to win at football than in any other sport.

The problem, however, is that over the course of a long season, this unpredictability disappears. The same teams keep winning. The rich ones. That’s why the success of Leicester City, who could win the Premier League title this weekend, has breathed fresh life into football.

One telling tribute has come from a segment of principled Arsenal followers. I know several who transferred their allegiance to Leicester, even when their own team still had a shot at the title. Madness? Perhaps. But their logic was in the spirit of Arsenal’s manager, Arsène Wenger. The phrase “financial doping” – the idea that sporting success that has been bought by a super-rich owner is at best semi-legitimate – was first attributed to Wenger in 2005. Leicester stand 17th in the league in terms of wage spending, first by points ranking. By Wenger’s own logic, a Leicester triumph would be more virtuous than victory for his Arsenal.

Not everyone has joined the party. Successes such as Leicester’s, gift-wrapped for screenwriters, inevitably inspire a rationalist backlash. “Debunking” the Leicester miracle has now become a popular intellectual counter-rhythm, as though the romantic bandwagon needs to be kept in check.

The revisionists have proposed that Leicester’s success is about systems, not romance. Leicester have invested in marginal gains, ranging from a pioneering scouting system to rotational fouling, aimed at reducing yellow cards. This savviness, however, doesn’t undermine the story at all: doubtless David had a very elastic sling when he felled Goliath. Besides, we do not have to turn Leicester into saints to marvel at their success.

The Premier League has an especially bad track record at producing improbable title winners. In its 23 seasons, it has coughed up only five champions – with the four giants of Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City sharing 22 titles, and a single triumph for Blackburn Rovers (even that victory was powered by an injection of cash).

The league’s first two decades were dominated by successive duopolies (Manchester United and Arsenal, then Manchester United and Chelsea), so much so that England’s top tier was less like a sports league and more like the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. Once, while I was giving a speech about competitive equipoise in sport, I read out the successive winners of the Premier League: one, then the other, then the first one again, then the other one. It became so repetitive that it felt only marginally different from saying “Oxford, Cambridge, Cambridge, Oxford.” So while improbable things certainly do happen, they have proved remarkably reluctant to happen inside English football.

The idea of an establishment, or at least the dominance of entrenched interests, has become the prevailing theme of our times. It is a slippery concept and often mishandled, but sport has done little to undercut the gloomy narrative of the top 1% greedily carving up the booty. There is an 89% correlation between wage spending and league position, as Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski identified. Put differently: financial doping works.

A connected point is the burgeoning influence of possessing a glamorous sporting history. It is reputation that drives the club’s brand, magnifying its financial clout. Super-clubs such as the New York Yankees or Manchester United support Thomas Piketty’s theory of capital: they are able to exploit past successes to ensure they keep a grip on present advantages. The sale of Yankees baseball caps is remarkably resilient, even when the team is having a bad season – which inevitably reduces the probability of bad seasons happening. Owning history in sport is like owning London property: you’re pretty much made.

Sport’s embrace of ultra-professionalism has created new ways for money to express an advantage. In the late 1970s Brian Clough’s tactical and psychological skills made Nottingham Forest champions of Europe. Since then, rich teams have benefited from the new layers of professionalism – physiotherapy, prehab and all the rest – making it harder for the enlightened maverick to stand out.

Elite football, in fact, could almost be a case study in late capitalism. The game as now played (loosely analogous with absolute standards of living) has undeniably improved at dizzying speed. In terms of skill, speed and attacking flair, is it easy to forget how much the game has evolved. The greatest leap forward was the proliferation of the yellow card, which gave the attacker the advantage, not the thug in long spikes. A leading commentator told me that when he watches archives of 1970s football, he estimates that half the players would today be sent off for violent fouls.

Yet while the game itself dazzles, the top flight has become an increasingly closed shop. One former footballer, now a leading figure in the sports industry, confided recently: “Each season, I am 1% more in awe of what happens on the pitch. And 1% more disgusted by the industry behind it.” Football has delivered magnificently as a spectacle, but failed at sport’s version of social mobility. Until now, that is.

And that’s why Leicester’s success matters beyond the game itself. Sport has never been a level playing field, but it does rely on an essential splash of surprise. There is room for some dynastic continuity, but not a rigid caste system. And every now and then in life, just as in football, an outsider has to steal the show.

What actually is antisemitism?

Leftist antisemitism tends not to be about treacherous genes, but the treacherous heart. It links Judaism to Zionism, Zionism to imperialism, and imperialism to global control.


Eric Heinz in The Independent


Simmering tension within the British Labour Party over claims of antisemitism has boiled over. First MP Naz Shah was suspended; now theparty’s former London mayor, Ken Livingstone has joined her. It’s an ideal moment to consider what antisemitism actually is.

Many probably – perhaps secretly – gave up puzzling over antisemitism long ago. They’ve moved on to some other issue, like battery hens, where the oppressors are shamefaced and the victims can’t speak.

The first step towards conquering antisemitism fatigue is to admit that you have the problem. I need to do it every day. Perhaps Shah and Livingstone, and a few others, might do so too. Allow me, if I may, to return to a few basics for deciphering our perennial “Jewish problem”.

Semitic cultures and languages, largely traceable to the Middle East, include both Arabs and Jews. Unsurprisingly, people often bristle at the very phrase “antisemitic”: how dare the Jews act as if they’re the only Semites, let alone accuse Arabs of antisemitism?

Indeed, how dare the Jews even pose as victims of racism, detracting attention from victims of “real” racism? After all, the average European Jew often physically and socially resembles the average indigenous European. So problems with Jews are simply “white on white”.

For more than a millennium a term such as “anti-Jewish” would have made more sense than “antisemitism”. Some Jewish writers still believe it better captures the earlier source of the hostilities, which were often justified in theological terms. The term “antisemitic” kicks in with the Enlightenment, through the rise of race theory and the concomitant racialisation of Jews.

Heart of the matter

By the 19th century, rapidly growing upheavals wrought by market forces propelled the association of Jews with finance and behind-the-scenes control. Of course, Jews had over centuries turned to finance in part due to their rigorous exclusion from other economic activity, and, far more importantly, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority lived in poverty.

Leftist antisemitism tends not to be about treacherous genes, but the treacherous heart. It links Judaism to Zionism, Zionism to imperialism, and imperialism to global control. Of course, many Jews have long pioneered leftist and anti-imperialist politics. When they criticise Israel with fervour, they all too easily become the voice of authenticity, the pure hearts.

Resentment is also commonly expressed at the particular association of the Holocaust with Jews. The death camps, after all, claimed other victims, such as communists, Roma, homosexuals, the disabled, and Christian clergy. Millions of people were slaughtered by Nazi forces throughout Europe.

Of course, anyone who seriously follows Holocaust remembrance knows that Jews have never claimed to be the only victims, and recall others in their commemorations. Nor, contrary to ubiquitous opinion, do Jews “use” the Holocaust to justify their presence in Israel or that state’s controversial military and security measures. To reduce the intricacies of the Arab-Israeli conflict to such a simplistic formula is an act of epic reductionism.

Still, the distinctness of a particularly Jewish Holocaust runs far deeper.

Nazi doctrine of course vilified many humans they deemed to fall short of some fantasy Aryan ideal. Other groups were at times portrayed as useless or defective, but Jews were singled out as the signal enemy of all humanity – ironically, the hidden force behind both imperial capitalism and Soviet Bolshevism.

That image of Jews not merely as less-than-human but as the opposite of human, merely racialised, hence modernised, the age-old equating of Judaism with Satan. Even secular Europeans continue to believe de-contextualised appropriations of the maxims “eye for an eye” or “chosen people”. These are turned into opposites of what they originally meant: that Jews ought not to seek justice out of proportion to any wrongdoing done to them, and that God bestows not particular privileges but rather particular duties upon Jews.

Hate crimes

So yes, others were unquestionably brutalised in the Holocaust. But when the citizens of Vienna chose to force a group to its knees to clean the streets it was not any of those other groups. It was Jews. When shop windows were systematically painted in a boycott campaign and then later destroyed, they belonged to Jews. When towns boasted their compliance with Aryanisation, they erected signs advertising themselves “Free of Jews” (Judenrein).

Hitler, in countless speeches and writings rehearsed gripes against any number of groups, but when he dug to the “root” of all those problems he found not them, but Jews. When Nazi tabloid Der Stürmer adopted front-page slogans about Germans’ misfortune, the group causing it was none of those others, but Jews. When a German film about treating cancer included an “educational” animation, it displayed SS-men exterminating not members of any other group, but a tight cluster of grotesequely caricatured Jews.

No apologies

Anyone who denies the outright racialisation of Jews, and antisemitism as full-blown racism, perpetrated not only by Nazis but throughout Europe over centuries, reveals a frightful ignorance about the histories, meanings, and consequences of racism.

When invective like “Nazi” or “apartheid” is then hurled at Jews, often with breathtakingly myopic readings of colonial and post-colonial histories – and yes, even when dissident Jews dramatise their views with such language, however well-meaning may be their intentions – then don’t be surprised that it comes across as antisemitism. Because it is.

When we read daily reports revealing massive new waves of antisemitism by educated and influential people, tidied up with “apologies” (quite frankly, open and candid admissions about what they really do think would serve us all far better than the endless train of “Oops, I didn’t really mean it” fudges), then don’t be surprised that it comes across as antisemitism. Because it is.

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Rs. 29,000Cr Coal Scam: Who are the Real Culprits?

An Economist's Guide to Debating Bhakts

A cheat-sheet for an intellectual argument with the Right. Warning—it's not pithy or witty enough for social media

SHAILESH CHITNIS in Outlook India

 

June 2004, deep in the heart of George Bush's presidency, the Onion, a satirical magazine, ran a story on how America's liberals were suffering from outrage fatigue. The article explained that liberals were overwhelmed with stories of abuses of civil liberties, unchecked military aggression and policies that ran roughshod over the environment. Most liberals were just exhausted from protesting and had decided to take a break. They couldn't sustain their anger anymore. 

Like any good satire, it was funny because it was close to the truth.

India's liberals probably feel the same today. From the mundane to the sublime, every facet of our society is now a cultural battleground. Each week is a new fight, from the meat we eat to the size of our nationalism. The prevalence of social media has only served to amplify differences and harden opinions. If you can't say it in a witty sentence that neatly fits in a Tweet or a Facebook post, it's probably not worth saying.

I've frequently thought of engaging with people who are ardent BJP supporters. But the thought of defending against charges of being a Congress agent or a closet Pakistan supporter (the horror!) makes me keep my opinions to myself.

But what if there was a genuine discussion? What if you were able to get more than 140 characters across? Here's an attempt at imagining an intellectual argument to four assertions frequently trotted out by the right.

(BS = Bhakt says)

[BS]: India needs a strong, authoritarian leader to develop faster. Look at what Singapore and China has achieved.

The idea that a benevolent autocrat can transform a chaotic country into a disciplined economic engine is very seductive. Unfortunately it has no basis in fact. Data shows that autocracy is a gamble, the country could be governed by a Lee Kuan Yew or a Mugabe.

The economist William Easterly has shown that the chances for the latter scenario are much higher. He measured countries that had experienced big growth success and failure over a forty year period. Easterly found that the probability of sustained high growth under an autocracy are only 10 per cent, it's more likely that the country implodes or experiences sluggish growth. Democracy doesn't yield spectacular gains either, but it does limit the chances of total failures. Human fallibility assures that more centralised societies will have more volatile performances.

Given our history with leaders who experienced total power, we are better-off taking our chances in an imperfect democracy than a perfect autocracy.

[BS]: The minorities (i.e. Muslims) have been coddled for too long

This is an easy claim to refute. Successive government and independent agencies have found that the socio-economic indicators of Muslims are the lowest among all groups, only marginally better than SC/STs. The poverty rate among urban Muslims is 38 per cent compared to national average of 23 per cent. Only 24 per cent of Muslims complete high school, against a national average of 43 per cent.

It's not just human development indicators. A recent study found that even though Muslims constitute 13 per cent of the population, only 2.6 per
cent are senior executives at BSE 500 companies. And in the last 2 years, Muslims got only 2 per cent of the priority loans from public sector banks. What the statistics mask is that the dismal state of Muslims in India isn't a recent phenomenon. It reflects a steady decline since the country's independence relative to all other groups.

In light of these numbers, it's entirely fair to ask why aren't the country's Muslims angrier?

[BS]: Why can't they just respect the wishes of the majority?

This argument rests on the utilitarian idea of the greatest good for the greatest number of people. If a certain policy brings happiness to 80 per cent of the population, but leaves the rest 20 per cent worse-off, surely the society as a whole is better off. But this view isn't compatible with protecting everyone's rights.

The philosopher John Rawls proposed a fairer way to decide on justice and rights. He suggested that before deciding any rules, members of a society stand behind a veil of ignorance. Behind this veil no one knows their class, gender, race, wealth, religion or any other detail that gives them a hint of their place in society. The laws that this group decides will, by its very nature, be just and equal. Since no one knows their position in society once the veil is lifted, they'd want to make sure they were protected.

Rawls' veil is a thought experiment of course, but it does seek to illustrate the fallacy of using majority to determine rights.

[BS]: Reform takes time; it'll take time to see the results

On this issue, the Bhakt has a point. The pass-through benefits from structural reforms take time. India's growth rate surged in the 80s, with the loosening of a few regulations. But the big reforms of the 90s didn't lead to a corresponding burst of growth in that decade.

The economist, Arvind Virmani, has found a J-shaped growth curve. Following structural reforms, growth initially falls and then begins to rise. In the 90s, the removal of import restrictions and currency volatility were a shock to the protected industries, resulting in lower productivity. As firms learned to cope and then benefit from the new technologies, output improved dramatically from the 2000s.

But as we complete two years of the Modi government, we have yet to witness any meaningful reforms — no GST bill, no significant disinvestment of PSUs and no major labour market reforms. We aren't at the bottom of any J-curve, nor should we expect a growth spurt a few years later.

[You ask] While on the economy, it's a good idea to pose the paradox of BJPs economic ideology. Narendra Modi is a self-professed free-marketer, who believes in less government. Free markets are open; open to capital, open to ideas. And yet, the RSS continues to espouse the glories of Swadeshi economics that seeks Indian solutions to Indian problems. How can Mr. Modi reconcile such opposing views?
Now observe how the BJP defenders try to square their love of the "Gujarat model" with their fealty to the RSS.

If you have made it this far without being called sickular, AAP-tard or any such pejorative, stop and congratulate your Bhakt. You are speaking with a right-wing supporter who is respectful and is confident in their views. A rare species. May their tribe grow.

Next, pinch yourself to interrupt your musings. A discussion like this can only happen in your imagination.