The tragic passing of star Liverpool forward Diogo Jota has been a stark reminder of how we often perceive our sporting idols as objects, not people.
It took a conversation with Liverpool legend Michael Owen to prick my conscience. Asked what the potential implications of Jota’s death alongside his brother André Silva were to Liverpool, Owen chose instead to focus on what it meant to those closest to him.
He chose to focus on the pain felt by those mourning the loss of a father, son and husband — of a mother who has just lost two sons.
And he has a point.
No matter how many songs Reds fans sing in his honour next season, or what grand gestures are planned in the 20th minute of matches to pay homage to the Portuguese star’s jersey number, it won’t ease the pain of such a great loss for those who mattered most to him.
The timing of the tragedy, during the current transfer window, should also give us pause to reflect on how we view the players we worship — as commodities, mere pawns with little value apart from what we feel we can get out of them. As if the sacrifices they make every day so that the fabric of our humdrum lives can be punctured with 90 minutes of excitement every weekend are not enough.
This may go some way to explaining the outrage from some fans when the news first emerged that Trent Alexander-Arnold would be leaving the Reds to join Real Madrid on a ‘free’ — a misnomer of a term if ever there was one. While a fee was eventually paid to secure his early release from his contract so that he could join his new club for the Fifa club showpiece in the US, the stench from the situation lingers.
Yet what further claim do they have over the life of someone who had given so much to his boyhood club, or over his future ambitions no matter where those lie?
Football governing bodies are no less complicit in the universal exploitation of players, with the ever-expanding list of tournaments increasingly encroaching on precious downtime — and, more importantly, family time.
It is a recipe for disaster further down the line, one that Owen also alluded to.
While calling out those ‘fat cats’ for bleeding the players dry — I recently referred to it as killing the goose that laid the golden egg — we must take responsibility for the callous and inhumane way we view those who bring us so much joy on sporting fields around the world.
We demand PlayStation-like performances from them, and when they don’t measure up to our standards, we are ready to ship them out in search of the next big ‘thing’ to return our clubs to glory or maintain their lofty perch.
We speak about ‘wholesale clear-outs’ and ‘fire sales’, forgetting that these are people and lives we’re referring to, and are quick to label players ‘flops’. We scan sites and blog posts for news, salivating at the prospect of the next blockbuster arrival during every transfer window.
And it may seem harsh, but when they fall victim to tragedy — as in the case of Jota — the first question on the minds of many so-called football supporters is often: who will replace them?
I must confess that I’m just as guilty as the next person in that regard. So when I ask where has our humanity and compassion gone, it is a question directed inwardly as well.
The temptation is often to hide behind the callous excuse that they “earn the big bucks for a reason”. That excuses nothing.
Luckily there are still those, like Owen, there to remind us that our heroes are fallible — but more importantly, human.
