Regarding Canadian women’s soccer player Christine Sinclair’s four-game suspension for her Olympic comments against the referees:
Canadian women’s soccer player Christine Sinclair recently defended her outbreak of poor sportsmanship at the London Olympics by crassly stating “I was emotional and I wouldn’t want to change that.”
This is the wrong attitude. Everyone gets emotional during sporting events but that is not a reason to persist in blaming others (referees) for one’s loss. Both players and fans have to learn to control their emotions not defend them when they deteriorate in such a way that they lead to bad behaviour.
It is additionally troubling that The Canadian Soccer Association has posthumously (after Canada’s loss) decided to support Sinclair’s spoil sport convictions by picking up her 3,000 Swiss francs (C$3,152), plus 500 Swiss francs (C$525) fine.
Sports should be a vehicle to develop good character, to make people courageous, loyal, generous losers, and gracious victors. We have to recover these original principles of sports so that we can work together to forge greater bonds between people and help overcome the real and terrible social problems of our time.
Paul Kokoski
