Another start among the organizers of the Tokyo Olympics. The person in charge of the opening ceremony was dismissed from his post because of a joke on the Holocaust dating back more than twenty years, those responsible for the event announced Thursday (July 22).
“We learned that during a past artistic performance”, Kentaro Kobayashi “Had used mocking language about a tragic historical fact”Organizing Committee President Seiko Hashimoto told reporters. ” The organizing committee has decided to remove Mr. Kobayashi from his post. “
The consequences of his ouster for the opening ceremony on Friday night were still uncertain. “We are still thinking about how we can ensure the ceremony tomorrow”, confided Mme Hashimoto, specifying that she wanted to draw conclusions “As quickly as possible”.
Filmed in 1998
In a comedy sketch that aired on video in 1998, Mr. Kobayashi and another comedian impersonated a famous host duo of a Japanese children’s television show. Pretending to imagine a DIY activity where it would be a question of creating and installing small paper dolls, Mr. Kobayashi had told his partner: “Those of the last time you said “let’s play the holocaust” », triggering laughter from the audience. The duo then joked by imagining the anger of the producer of the show because of this reference to the Holocaust.
What a sketch, “That I had written, contained lines which were extremely inappropriate”, apologized in a statement Mr. Kobayashi, a personality of the entertainment world in Japan. “It goes back to a time when I couldn’t get people to laugh the way I wanted to, and I think I tried to get people’s attention in a thoughtless way. “
The Simon-Wiesenthal center for the fight against anti-Semitism and racism condemned on Wednesday, in a statement, the past remarks of Mr. Kobayashi, denouncing his “Malicious and anti-Semitic jokes”. “No one, however creative, has the right to make fun of the victims of the genocide [commis par les] nazis », wrote the organization, judging that “Any association of this person with the Tokyo Games would insult the memory of six million Jews and cruelly mock the Paralympic Games”. In other skits, Mr. Kobayashi also joked about people with disabilities.
Serial resignations
This dismissal comes just a few days after the departure of Keigo Oyamada, composer of one of the musical themes of the opening ceremony. The Japanese artist, known by the pseudonym Cornelius, had been pinned down because of old interviews he gave in the 1990s. In them he lightly recounted how he persecuted disabled classmates in his youth.
In March, another artistic director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games, Hiroshi Sasaki, had also resigned for having suggested internally to dress up as a pig a Japanese actress and star of social networks with assumed curves, Naomi Watanabe. In February, it was the President of the Olympics and former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who had to step down over sexist remarks that sparked a global outcry.
These cascading scandals have further tarnished the image of the Tokyo Olympics, already unpopular with a large part of the Japanese population who fears that the event will worsen the health crisis in the country.
Due to the restrictions in the face of the pandemic and the closed doors decided for almost all Olympic competitions, barely 950 “VIP” spectators are expected to attend the opening ceremony on Friday in the new Olympic stadium in Tokyo.
Another start among the organizers of the Tokyo Olympics. The person in charge of the opening ceremony was dismissed from his post because of a joke on the Holocaust dating back more than twenty years, those responsible for the event announced Thursday (July 22).
“We learned that during a past artistic performance”, Kentaro Kobayashi “Had used mocking language about a tragic historical fact”Organizing Committee President Seiko Hashimoto told reporters. ” The organizing committee has decided to remove Mr. Kobayashi from his post. “
The consequences of his ouster for the opening ceremony on Friday night were still uncertain. “We are still thinking about how we can ensure the ceremony tomorrow”, confided Mme Hashimoto, specifying that she wanted to draw conclusions “As quickly as possible”.
Filmed in 1998
In a comedy sketch that aired on video in 1998, Mr. Kobayashi and another comedian impersonated a famous host duo of a Japanese children’s television show. Pretending to imagine a DIY activity where it would be a question of creating and installing small paper dolls, Mr. Kobayashi had told his partner: “Those of the last time you said “let’s play the holocaust” », triggering laughter from the audience. The duo then joked by imagining the anger of the producer of the show because of this reference to the Holocaust.
What a sketch, “That I had written, contained lines which were extremely inappropriate”, apologized in a statement Mr. Kobayashi, a personality of the entertainment world in Japan. “It goes back to a time when I couldn’t get people to laugh the way I wanted to, and I think I tried to get people’s attention in a thoughtless way. “
The Simon-Wiesenthal center for the fight against anti-Semitism and racism condemned on Wednesday, in a statement, the past remarks of Mr. Kobayashi, denouncing his “Malicious and anti-Semitic jokes”. “No one, however creative, has the right to make fun of the victims of the genocide [commis par les] nazis », wrote the organization, judging that “Any association of this person with the Tokyo Games would insult the memory of six million Jews and cruelly mock the Paralympic Games”. In other skits, Mr. Kobayashi also joked about people with disabilities.
Serial resignations
This dismissal comes just a few days after the departure of Keigo Oyamada, composer of one of the musical themes of the opening ceremony. The Japanese artist, known by the pseudonym Cornelius, had been pinned down because of old interviews he gave in the 1990s. In them he lightly recounted how he persecuted disabled classmates in his youth.
In March, another artistic director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games, Hiroshi Sasaki, had also resigned for having suggested internally to dress up as a pig a Japanese actress and star of social networks with assumed curves, Naomi Watanabe. In February, it was the President of the Olympics and former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who had to step down over sexist remarks that sparked a global outcry.
These cascading scandals have further tarnished the image of the Tokyo Olympics, already unpopular with a large part of the Japanese population who fears that the event will worsen the health crisis in the country.
Due to the restrictions in the face of the pandemic and the closed doors decided for almost all Olympic competitions, barely 950 “VIP” spectators are expected to attend the opening ceremony on Friday in the new Olympic stadium in Tokyo.
Having given up on any festive aspect, the Tokyo Olympics turned into an obsession with health. The Japanese government and the organizers have multiplied prevention protocols and measures since February, worried about the impact on Covid-19 contamination of such an unpopular event.
The latest decision to date, the executive on July 11 asked duty-free stores to verify the date of entry into Japan of their customers. This involves monitoring compliance with the fourteen days of isolation to which they are required upon their arrival in the Archipelago, and which prohibits them from using public transport or from interacting with people outside of Olympic activities.
For the participants in the Olympics, this decision is in addition to the state of emergency – which fixes the closure of bars and restaurants at 8 p.m. – imposed in Tokyo to deal with an increase in contamination, and a whole series of measures detailed by the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee in six “Playbooks”. These are supposed to guarantee “Safe and healthy games”, with the credo of locking the participants in a sanitary bubble including the wearing of a mask, respect for distances and repeated tests, while avoiding contact with the local population.
Each Playbook concerns a category of participants: athletes, the press, the “Olympic family” or even members of federations and other marketing personnel. They detail the behaviors to follow upon arrival, during the stay and when leaving.
Quarantine controlled by GPS
The measures for “athletes and officials” are undoubtedly the most severe since they provide for daily tests (every four days for journalists). Their movements are limited to round trips between the hotel and the training and competition venues. They must leave Japan the day after their ordeal.
For all categories, each delegation or company must designate a CLO, “Covid-19 Liaison Officer”, responsible for liaising with the organizers to transmit the scheduled timetables.
All participants must also download two applications, called Ocha and Cocoa. The first concerns immigration procedures, even those of a quarantine controlled by GPS, as well as daily health reports. The second should facilitate the search for contact cases of a person with Covid-19.
You have 21.73% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
Having given up on any festive aspect, the Tokyo Olympics turned into an obsession with health. The Japanese government and the organizers have multiplied prevention protocols and measures since February, worried about the impact on Covid-19 contamination of such an unpopular event.
The latest decision to date, the executive on July 11 asked duty-free stores to verify the date of entry into Japan of their customers. This involves monitoring compliance with the fourteen days of isolation to which they are required upon their arrival in the Archipelago, and which prohibits them from using public transport or from interacting with people outside of Olympic activities.
For the participants in the Olympics, this decision is in addition to the state of emergency – which fixes the closure of bars and restaurants at 8 p.m. – imposed in Tokyo to deal with an increase in contamination, and a whole series of measures detailed by the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee in six “Playbooks”. These are supposed to guarantee “Safe and healthy games”, with the credo of locking the participants in a sanitary bubble including the wearing of a mask, respect for distances and repeated tests, while avoiding contact with the local population.
Each Playbook concerns a category of participants: athletes, the press, the “Olympic family” or even members of federations and other marketing personnel. They detail the behaviors to follow upon arrival, during the stay and when leaving.
Quarantine controlled by GPS
The measures for “athletes and officials” are undoubtedly the most severe since they provide for daily tests (every four days for journalists). Their movements are limited to round trips between the hotel and the training and competition venues. They must leave Japan the day after their ordeal.
For all categories, each delegation or company must designate a CLO, “Covid-19 Liaison Officer”, responsible for liaising with the organizers to transmit the scheduled timetables.
All participants must also download two applications, called Ocha and Cocoa. The first concerns immigration procedures, even those of a quarantine controlled by GPS, as well as daily health reports. The second should facilitate the search for contact cases of a person with Covid-19.
You have 21.73% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
He didn’t think his slogan would be taken literally. « Discover tomorrow » (“Discover tomorrow”) urged the Tokyo Organizing Committee in 2013 to convince the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to award the capital of Japan the Olympic Games, then scheduled to take place in the summer of 2020. Tomorrow is sometimes far. Friday July 23, one year less than a day after the scheduled date, the Olympic cauldron will ignite and the Olympic Games of « Tokyo 2020 » will open.
But after more than a year of pandemic linked to the new coronavirus, the “discovery” promises to be the opposite of what Japan anticipated eight years ago: under the sign of uncertainty, as illustrated by the few. cases of Covid-19 detected within the Olympic Village or among the athletes due to attend, a few days before the launch of the Games.
Like the organizers, the athletes had to deal with a changing situation and adapt their preparation. “Every day and every week is different, you never know what’s going to happen, insisted French judoka Clarisse Agbegnenou in March. Even though we know that the Games are coming, it’s a bit complicated to train properly: last week, for example, we were at rest, with cases of Covid-19. “
Designated since flag bearer of the French delegation – in tandem with the gymnast Samir Aït Saïd -, the five-time world champion explained that she spent a year « bizarre » : “You have to know how to adapt, you lose hours of training, you have to do things differently. “
Cozy atmosphere
While the health crisis has not spared any country, not all athletes have experienced it the same way. For some, the postponement was a breath of fresh air. “In February and March 2020, I was not throwing very far, I was tired of Doha [les Championnats du monde 2019]. I lacked teeth, relates the French hammer thrower Quentin Bigot. When I was told the postponement, it relieved me. “ Having become a dad, the vice-world champion (in 2019) made some adjustments and said to take ” more pleasure “, noting his progress. “Passion allows me to be two to three meters more than the same period last year, which is not nothing. “
Others have experienced the lag less well. “I feel like I took another year”, blows Maxime Beaumont. Silver medalist in Rio in single-seater sprint (200 m), the kayaker wondered when the postponement was announced. “I had some doubts about my ability to keep the level. At 39, will the body follow suit? “ A year later, reassured about his performance, the Frenchman will be at the start of “These very special Olympic Games, in the era of the health crisis”. With one goal: “I still want to be an Olympic champion. “ Even if the medal ceremony may ring hollow.
You have 64.94% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
He didn’t think his slogan would be taken literally. « Discover tomorrow » (“Discover tomorrow”) urged the Tokyo Organizing Committee in 2013 to convince the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to award the capital of Japan the Olympic Games, then scheduled to take place in the summer of 2020. Tomorrow is sometimes far. Friday July 23, one year less than a day after the scheduled date, the Olympic cauldron will ignite and the Olympic Games of « Tokyo 2020 » will open.
But after more than a year of pandemic linked to the new coronavirus, the “discovery” promises to be the opposite of what Japan anticipated eight years ago: under the sign of uncertainty, as illustrated by the few. cases of Covid-19 detected within the Olympic Village or among the athletes due to attend, a few days before the launch of the Games.
Like the organizers, the athletes had to deal with a changing situation and adapt their preparation. “Every day and every week is different, you never know what’s going to happen, insisted French judoka Clarisse Agbegnenou in March. Even though we know that the Games are coming, it’s a bit complicated to train properly: last week, for example, we were at rest, with cases of Covid-19. “
Designated since flag bearer of the French delegation – in tandem with the gymnast Samir Aït Saïd -, the five-time world champion explained that she spent a year « bizarre » : “You have to know how to adapt, you lose hours of training, you have to do things differently. “
Cozy atmosphere
While the health crisis has not spared any country, not all athletes have experienced it the same way. For some, the postponement was a breath of fresh air. “In February and March 2020, I was not throwing very far, I was tired of Doha [les Championnats du monde 2019]. I lacked teeth, relates the French hammer thrower Quentin Bigot. When I was told the postponement, it relieved me. “ Having become a dad, the vice-world champion (in 2019) made some adjustments and said to take ” more pleasure “, noting his progress. “Passion allows me to be two to three meters more than the same period last year, which is not nothing. “
Others have experienced the lag less well. “I feel like I took another year”, blows Maxime Beaumont. Silver medalist in Rio in single-seater sprint (200 m), the kayaker wondered when the postponement was announced. “I had some doubts about my ability to keep the level. At 39, will the body follow suit? “ A year later, reassured about his performance, the Frenchman will be at the start of “These very special Olympic Games, in the era of the health crisis”. With one goal: “I still want to be an Olympic champion. “ Even if the medal ceremony may ring hollow.
You have 64.94% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
InvestigationNasser Al-Khelaïfi, Qatari boss of PSG and BeIN Sports, was targeted by spyware Pegasus in the midst of diplomatic and commercial battle between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
The spies weren’t looking for information about the next transfer window. At the end of 2018, agents engaged in a match between States, far from football fields, used the powerful Pegasus software to target two mobile numbers of the boss of Paris-Saint-Germain (PSG), Qatari Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, and a landline number assigned to the Parisian club’s communications director, Jean-Martial Ribes.
The analyzes carried out by The world, with which the Forbidden Stories organization and Amnesty International shared a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers targeted by Israeli company NSO Group spyware, show that during this period a customer used Pegasus to target the management of BeIN Media Group, chaired by Mr. Al-Khelaïfi. This same client also targeted numerous senior Turkish, Emirati and Lebanese officials and several voices critical of the Saudi monarchy, suggesting, with a very high degree of confidence, that it is a Saudi security service. But for lack of being able to examine the phones of Mr. Al-Khelaïfi or other BeIN employees, The world cannot confirm whether these devices have been infected with Pegasus. However, the presence of multiple numbers linked to BeIN and its leaders in the list leaves little doubt about the will to put them under electronic surveillance.
Mysterious pirate chain
At the time of targeting, the diplomatic and trade conflict between Qatar and Saudi Arabia is at its height. Riyadh accuses Doha of being too close to its Iranian rival, accuses it of supporting terrorist organizations and of using its Al-Jazeera satellite television channel for the “Defame” ; accusations denied en bloc by Qatar. The two countries severed all their relations in June 2017 and then engaged in a violent communication war. One of the battlegrounds of this conflict is the broadcasting of major football competitions: since 2017, a mysterious pirate channel, BeoutQ, broadcasts by satellite and on the Internet, for a low price, all of BeIN’s sports programs, some of which were acquired at a high price.
Very quickly, the emirate accused Saudi Arabia. The latter vigorously denies, while leaving behind a long list of clues showing very clearly that BeoutQ is operating with her passive, even active support. In 2019, the United States will confirm the existing ties between Riyadh and BeoutQ by placing the kingdom on a list of countries that do not respect copyright.
You have 48.81% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
InvestigationNasser Al-Khelaïfi, Qatari boss of PSG and BeIN Sports, was targeted by spyware Pegasus in the midst of diplomatic and commercial battle between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
The spies weren’t looking for information about the next transfer window. At the end of 2018, agents engaged in a match between States, far from football fields, used the powerful Pegasus software to target two mobile numbers of the boss of Paris-Saint-Germain (PSG), Qatari Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, and a landline number assigned to the Parisian club’s communications director, Jean-Martial Ribes.
The analyzes carried out by The world, with which the Forbidden Stories organization and Amnesty International shared a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers targeted by Israeli company NSO Group spyware, show that during this period a customer used Pegasus to target the management of BeIN Media Group, chaired by Mr. Al-Khelaïfi. This same client also targeted numerous senior Turkish, Emirati and Lebanese officials and several voices critical of the Saudi monarchy, suggesting, with a very high degree of confidence, that it is a Saudi security service. But for lack of being able to examine the phones of Mr. Al-Khelaïfi or other BeIN employees, The world cannot confirm whether these devices have been infected with Pegasus. However, the presence of multiple numbers linked to BeIN and its leaders in the list leaves little doubt about the will to put them under electronic surveillance.
Mysterious pirate chain
At the time of targeting, the diplomatic and trade conflict between Qatar and Saudi Arabia is at its height. Riyadh accuses Doha of being too close to its Iranian rival, accuses it of supporting terrorist organizations and of using its Al-Jazeera satellite television channel for the “Defame” ; accusations denied en bloc by Qatar. The two countries severed all their relations in June 2017 and then engaged in a violent communication war. One of the battlegrounds of this conflict is the broadcasting of major football competitions: since 2017, a mysterious pirate channel, BeoutQ, broadcasts by satellite and on the Internet, for a low price, all of BeIN’s sports programs, some of which were acquired at a high price.
Very quickly, the emirate accused Saudi Arabia. The latter vigorously denies, while leaving behind a long list of clues showing very clearly that BeoutQ is operating with her passive, even active support. In 2019, the United States will confirm the existing ties between Riyadh and BeoutQ by placing the kingdom on a list of countries that do not respect copyright.
You have 48.81% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
Brisbane officially won, Wednesday, July 21, the organization of the Summer Olympics (OG) 2032, allowing the Olympic world to prepare for the future, two days before the opening of the Tokyo Games, tumultuous for the city host and troubled by the pandemic.
Alone in the running, the Australian city was elected by the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) gathered for their 138e session in the Japanese capital and will therefore succeed Paris, host of the 2024 Olympics, then Los Angeles, which will host those of 2028.
Never before has the biggest sporting event in the world been entrusted without a competition. This designation without competition may come as a surprise, as the ceremony of the vote separating the candidate cities to host the Games has punctuated decades of Olympic life, with its costly lobbying behind the scenes and then its opening of the envelope followed by hugs or tears. But the reform adopted in June 2019 allows the IOC to initiate a “Targeted dialogue” with a candidate “Preferential”, with the aim of defusing the growing reluctance to organize the Olympic Games, to reduce costs and to constitute a breeding ground for future host cities.
Aided by the influence of Australian IOC Vice President John Coates, Brisbane had been on track since February to secure the 35e Summer Games, despite the Olympic ambition of Qatar then the joint candidacy of North Korea and South Korea. None of these files was put to the vote of the session. In June, the head of the instance, Thomas Bach, had, moreover, praised the file ” irresistible “ and “Love” Australians for sport.
Third Summer Olympics in Australia
Australia, among the few countries to have never missed an edition of the Summer Games, is “A huge Olympic village” with its multiple nationalities, ethnic origins and approximately 300 spoken languages, underlined, Wednesday, the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, by videoconference.
The capital of Queensland, already a candidate for the 1992 Olympics awarded to Barcelona and involved in 2018 in hosting the Commonwealth Games, also promises “84% of existing and temporary sites”, a key criterion since the Olympic body began its hunt for Olympic facilities that were subsequently abandoned.
This is the third time in its history that Australia will host the Summer Games, after Melbourne in 1956 and Sydney in 2000. Its designation also confirms the traditional continental rotation organized by the IOC, after Asia this year, then Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028, while Africa is still awaiting its first Olympic Games.
The metropolis of 2.3 million inhabitants hopes that the Games will generate a net gain in international notoriety, while it remains considered by many tourists as a simple gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.
“Everywhere I have traveled people ask me “Where is Brisbane?”, and you have to pull out a map to show them it’s an hour from Sydney by plane ”, says the president of the Queensland Olympic Council, Natalie Cook. “It’s going to change and it’s very exciting. “
His case provides for a budget of 4.5 billion Australian dollars (2.8 billion euros), justified by the existing infrastructure and very much lower than the 13 billion euros spent for the Tokyo Olympics.
Brisbane officially won, Wednesday, July 21, the organization of the Summer Olympics (OG) 2032, allowing the Olympic world to prepare for the future, two days before the opening of the Tokyo Games, tumultuous for the city host and troubled by the pandemic.
Alone in the running, the Australian city was elected by the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) gathered for their 138e session in the Japanese capital and will therefore succeed Paris, host of the 2024 Olympics, then Los Angeles, which will host those of 2028.
Never before has the biggest sporting event in the world been entrusted without a competition. This designation without competition may come as a surprise, as the ceremony of the vote separating the candidate cities to host the Games has punctuated decades of Olympic life, with its costly lobbying behind the scenes and then its opening of the envelope followed by hugs or tears. But the reform adopted in June 2019 allows the IOC to initiate a “Targeted dialogue” with a candidate “Preferential”, with the aim of defusing the growing reluctance to organize the Olympic Games, to reduce costs and to constitute a breeding ground for future host cities.
Aided by the influence of Australian IOC Vice President John Coates, Brisbane had been on track since February to secure the 35e Summer Games, despite the Olympic ambition of Qatar then the joint candidacy of North Korea and South Korea. None of these files was put to the vote of the session. In June, the head of the instance, Thomas Bach, had, moreover, praised the file ” irresistible “ and “Love” Australians for sport.
Third Summer Olympics in Australia
Australia, among the few countries to have never missed an edition of the Summer Games, is “A huge Olympic village” with its multiple nationalities, ethnic origins and approximately 300 spoken languages, underlined, Wednesday, the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, by videoconference.
The capital of Queensland, already a candidate for the 1992 Olympics awarded to Barcelona and involved in 2018 in hosting the Commonwealth Games, also promises “84% of existing and temporary sites”, a key criterion since the Olympic body began its hunt for Olympic facilities that were subsequently abandoned.
This is the third time in its history that Australia will host the Summer Games, after Melbourne in 1956 and Sydney in 2000. Its designation also confirms the traditional continental rotation organized by the IOC, after Asia this year, then Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028, while Africa is still awaiting its first Olympic Games.
The metropolis of 2.3 million inhabitants hopes that the Games will generate a net gain in international notoriety, while it remains considered by many tourists as a simple gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.
“Everywhere I have traveled people ask me “Where is Brisbane?”, and you have to pull out a map to show them it’s an hour from Sydney by plane ”, says the president of the Queensland Olympic Council, Natalie Cook. “It’s going to change and it’s very exciting. “
His case provides for a budget of 4.5 billion Australian dollars (2.8 billion euros), justified by the existing infrastructure and very much lower than the 13 billion euros spent for the Tokyo Olympics.
Baseball inspires writers, whether they come from the United States or Cuba. Passing through Japan, where this sport is very popular, which has led to it being put back on the Olympic Games program this year in Tokyo. Teacher in Quebec literature at the University of Quebec in Montreal (Canada), Michel Nareau has devoted a book to this question, Double game. Baseball and American literature (Éditions du Quartanier, 2012).
Why is baseball suitable for literature?
The goal of the game is to make a journey, to take place in the opposing territory to come back home, more alive, stronger. Which allocates a point. By its agonistic structure, it is therefore a journey that is told, a story of transformation. It is a sport marked by strong individual confrontations in a team sport, between the pitcher and the batter in particular.
Baseball is also a sport of jerky, constantly interrupted action. The ball is put into play by the pitcher, it will be hit or not. There is a grace in this alternation between the anticipation, the suspense of the throw and the explosion of movements that a hit ball causes.
Baseball is a speech. The frequent stops in this sport force you to tell a story, to invest expectations with meaning, to create stories from its many silences. They say baseball is only boring for those who have no friends to share a summer chat with in the sun.
How is baseball portrayed in the fiction books where the sport appears?
Staging baseball in novels is as much about emphasizing individual achievements – as in the novel The Celebrant, Eric Rolfe Greenberg – than on those of a team, even when their exploits are lousy – as in The Great American Novel, by Philip Roth. It is also out of the fame of the players to dwell on the memory of the game, especially that of childhood. I think of the beautiful novel elsewhere by Don DeLillo, who follows a collector’s bullet passed from hand to hand throughout the Cold War.
What other sports, in America or elsewhere, have provided such literary material?
American football is such a warlike metaphor that few good works transform the sport. Boxing, with its intensity, with its straightforward confrontations, has given rise to excellent novels. The relationship to origins, social classes, cultural groups is always present in this sport. The writers have counted on this element, which is also found in baseball.
Your thesis is concerned with the literary functions of baseball as a « continental pastime », leisure of the Pan-American continent. Is there a difference between the way to tell this sport in Cuba or in the United States?
In my thesis, I wanted to show that even if baseball is often perceived as a national sport, for example in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the United States, it was treated by novelists in such a way as to bring out components that were found throughout the Americas. There is a tension between the home (the house) and the boundary, between the known and the unknown. It is a component related to the colonial history of the Americas, writers move it and recompose it in their novels, often to give it a critical look.
There is also the desire to create a long memory of baseball, to associate it with the past, both individual and collective, to use it as a point of reference. Philip Roth, Paul Auster and Don DeLillo, New York novelists, create memories to build this duration. Leonardo Padura Fuentes, in Cuba, also builds a very nostalgic vision of baseball in the streets of Havana. In both countries, this memory obtained by baseball challenges the official history and its discourses which marginalize specific groups in society, notably homosexuals in Padura.
In Japan, Haruki Murakami has often expressed his taste for baseball. Does the country have a body of literary texts on this sport?
I know little about Japanese literature, but I do know that baseball is used extensively in manga, and that it is a visual element frequently used in these graphic works. As for Murakami, I had read his story about running (Self-portrait of the author as a long-distance runner, 2009), where allusions to baseball are numerous but geared towards training. Murakami places baseball and running in an aesthetic logic of control and repetitions that lead to the story of the self.
Baseball inspires writers, whether they come from the United States or Cuba. Passing through Japan, where this sport is very popular, which has led to it being put back on the Olympic Games program this year in Tokyo. Teacher in Quebec literature at the University of Quebec in Montreal (Canada), Michel Nareau has devoted a book to this question, Double game. Baseball and American literature (Éditions du Quartanier, 2012).
Why is baseball suitable for literature?
The goal of the game is to make a journey, to take place in the opposing territory to come back home, more alive, stronger. Which allocates a point. By its agonistic structure, it is therefore a journey that is told, a story of transformation. It is a sport marked by strong individual confrontations in a team sport, between the pitcher and the batter in particular.
Baseball is also a sport of jerky, constantly interrupted action. The ball is put into play by the pitcher, it will be hit or not. There is a grace in this alternation between the anticipation, the suspense of the throw and the explosion of movements that a hit ball causes.
Baseball is a speech. The frequent stops in this sport force you to tell a story, to invest expectations with meaning, to create stories from its many silences. They say baseball is only boring for those who have no friends to share a summer chat with in the sun.
How is baseball portrayed in the fiction books where the sport appears?
Staging baseball in novels is as much about emphasizing individual achievements – as in the novel The Celebrant, Eric Rolfe Greenberg – than on those of a team, even when their exploits are lousy – as in The Great American Novel, by Philip Roth. It is also out of the fame of the players to dwell on the memory of the game, especially that of childhood. I think of the beautiful novel elsewhere by Don DeLillo, who follows a collector’s bullet passed from hand to hand throughout the Cold War.
What other sports, in America or elsewhere, have provided such literary material?
American football is such a warlike metaphor that few good works transform the sport. Boxing, with its intensity, with its straightforward confrontations, has given rise to excellent novels. The relationship to origins, social classes, cultural groups is always present in this sport. The writers have counted on this element, which is also found in baseball.
Your thesis is concerned with the literary functions of baseball as a « continental pastime », leisure of the Pan-American continent. Is there a difference between the way to tell this sport in Cuba or in the United States?
In my thesis, I wanted to show that even if baseball is often perceived as a national sport, for example in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the United States, it was treated by novelists in such a way as to bring out components that were found throughout the Americas. There is a tension between the home (the house) and the boundary, between the known and the unknown. It is a component related to the colonial history of the Americas, writers move it and recompose it in their novels, often to give it a critical look.
There is also the desire to create a long memory of baseball, to associate it with the past, both individual and collective, to use it as a point of reference. Philip Roth, Paul Auster and Don DeLillo, New York novelists, create memories to build this duration. Leonardo Padura Fuentes, in Cuba, also builds a very nostalgic vision of baseball in the streets of Havana. In both countries, this memory obtained by baseball challenges the official history and its discourses which marginalize specific groups in society, notably homosexuals in Padura.
In Japan, Haruki Murakami has often expressed his taste for baseball. Does the country have a body of literary texts on this sport?
I know little about Japanese literature, but I do know that baseball is used extensively in manga, and that it is a visual element frequently used in these graphic works. As for Murakami, I had read his story about running (Self-portrait of the author as a long-distance runner, 2009), where allusions to baseball are numerous but geared towards training. Murakami places baseball and running in an aesthetic logic of control and repetitions that lead to the story of the self.
Don’t look for sumo in this selection of Olympic sports with a strong Japanese connotation. No lobbying would have been effective enough to include this traditional discipline and very little international, in spite of some Mongolian and Bulgarian champions on the Olympic program.
Conversely, judo, another national sport, is of course included. This martial art, created by Jigoro Kano in 1882, was lucky enough to be introduced to the Olympic Games during the first Tokyo Games in 1964. And has spread around the planet.
Tokyo 2021 will see the presence of another Japanese martial art, karate. But its ephemeral performance – it is already canceled in Paris in 2024 – has led us to this necessarily subjective choice.
Baseball, on the other hand, seemed essential. The opportunity to recall its Japanese history and its import from the 19th century by the Americans present in the archipelago.
Finally the Keirin, a funny track UFO born in 1948, deserved a presentation. And this even if the Japanese cyclists do not dominate at the world level their discipline, Olympic since 2000.
-
Judo, the Olympic martial art and of excellence
The Tokyo karate interlude – which made a flash appearance at the Games before disappearing from the Olympic program – does not change the case. In Japan, how to compete against judo, accustomed to the big meeting since the 1964 Olympics? Japanese judokas have thus gleaned 36 gold medals, or 27.7% of the titles in the country’s history.
Pierre Flamand, 49, French judoka and member of the public relations committee at the Japanese federation, notes the supremacy of this sport in the Archipelago: “It is the only Japanese martial art at the Olympics, he explains. That judo became an Olympic sport in 1964 and settled definitively in 1972, that gave it an international dimension. “
But, unlike football, which quickly escaped its English creators, judo remains an emblem and a national sport. “Japan constantly reminds all foreign nations that judo is Japanese. It is still the benchmark. No other country has grabbed it. Their judokas still teach the world. “
Trainer at Keio University, Pierre Flamand admires the simplicity of this original judo: “You have to grab hold of it with both hands and make it fall. The ippon still has value. The movements are made to excellence. When you watch a fight by a Japanese, it’s immediately recognizable and unique. “
Traditional, judo is not part of a dynamic of growth. “He suffers from the image of severe, harsh discipline. It’s not an easy sport, you have to hurt yourself, notes Flamand. There is a steady loss of practitioners. It is not – and by far – the most practiced discipline. ”
Despite this phenomenon, the institutions perpetuate the tradition: “From college, then to high school and university, young people have a lot of hours of practice. Sometimes six or seven a week is intensive. It maintains excellence, even if there are fewer judokas. ” And, unlike fashionable sports, judo retains a significant advantage: “A Japanese who practices judo seriously knows he can become an Olympic champion. It’s a hell of a source of motivation. “
-
Keirin, an “old-fashioned” discipline
We have known more effective lobbying. Invented in Japan in 1948 and introduced at the Olympics in 2000 under murky conditions (for a payment of $ 3 million, or € 2.5 million, to the International Cycling Union, according to BBC information in 2008 ), the keirin is far from having given the expected fruits. In five editions (two with women), Japan has won only a modest bronze medal in its discipline of track cycling, contested at the Olympics in the form of a short sprint between six riders.
“In Japan, it takes place on a concrete track, in an open velodrome, with a steel bicycle and a spoked wheel”, François Pervis, former world champion
Double keirin world champion 2014 and 2015, François Pervis explains this curious shift: “Internationally, it’s almost not the same rules as Japanese keirin, explains the Frenchman. Over there, it takes place on a concrete track, in an open velodrome [le pays en compte 47], with a steel bicycle and a spoke wheel. They are called heating pipes. It’s really old-fashioned… ”
The keirin, on which the Japanese are betting, is a microcosm that brings 3,000 runners to life: “In Japan, you are only disqualified if you knock your opponent down. You have the right to helmet blows, fish tails, shoulder to shoulder. Globally, it has become sanitized. You no longer have the right to touch the opponent. “
The Mayennais made the trip to Japan several times. “Local runners don’t have the international level. Most train like they did in the 1970s. 80 kilometer runs, little or no strength training or sprints, keirin is considered a profession and we go through the only school in the country, he says. The manager – an ex-runner who won it all in the 1960s – imposes his outdated training method. “
Faced with this delay, a Frenchman was chosen to transform the elite of the Japanese keirin: the national team. “In five years, Benoît Vêtu, the best trainer in the world, has transformed average runners. To beat Japanese riders in international competitions, you have to be pretty damn fit now. “ The change is diffused internally: “These runners are starting to import their know-how into the national keirin. It takes time. “
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Baseball, an imported passion
Baseball in Japan? From ancient history, recalls Yves Cadot-Daunizeau, teacher-researcher at Jean-Jaurès University in Toulouse: “This sport symbolizes the opening of the country from 1868.” Taking advantage of the desire for modernization of Emperor Meiji (1852-1912), the Americans settled in Asia and imported their entertainment there. “The Japanese seized this input from the West, then finally got it. “Japanese-style”, as with different techniques that arrived at that time. “ And this is how, for Japanese speakers, baseball is called the yakyu.
This game of the ball and the bat first developed in schools, especially among an elite. “Sports newspapers will be enthusiastic about the first inter-school meetings”, says Yves Cadot-Daunizeau, also attached to the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Inalco). Beyond the language barrier, baseball “Also allows a dialogue” between Japanese and American universities through sporting events, from the beginning of the 20th centurye century.
The local popularity of yakyu explains today his punctual return to the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, after four editions between 1992, in Barcelona, and 2008, in Beijing. Results for Japan so far: one silver and two bronze, the Americans, Cubans and Koreans sharing the gold.
If this team sport today faces competition from football, baseball can claim a singular virtue. “Some consider this sport to be even more spiritual than physical training., adds Yves Cadot-Daunizeau. As if to miss a bullet was to miss a dodge or a saber attack. “
Fans of Japanese literature also owe the work of Haruki Murakami to baseball, at least in its early days. The Japanese writer has often recounted the click that preceded his first book (Listen to the song of the wind, 1979), in the middle of a baseball game. “When I heard the sound of the ball against the bat, he tells the World in an interview published in 2019, I thought maybe I could write. “
Don’t look for sumo in this selection of Olympic sports with a strong Japanese connotation. No lobbying would have been effective enough to include this traditional discipline and very little international, in spite of some Mongolian and Bulgarian champions on the Olympic program.
Conversely, judo, another national sport, is of course included. This martial art, created by Jigoro Kano in 1882, was lucky enough to be introduced to the Olympic Games during the first Tokyo Games in 1964. And has spread around the planet.
Tokyo 2021 will see the presence of another Japanese martial art, karate. But its ephemeral performance – it is already canceled in Paris in 2024 – has led us to this necessarily subjective choice.
Baseball, on the other hand, seemed essential. The opportunity to recall its Japanese history and its import from the 19th century by the Americans present in the archipelago.
Finally the Keirin, a funny track UFO born in 1948, deserved a presentation. And this even if the Japanese cyclists do not dominate at the world level their discipline, Olympic since 2000.
-
Judo, the Olympic martial art and of excellence
The Tokyo karate interlude – which made a flash appearance at the Games before disappearing from the Olympic program – does not change the case. In Japan, how to compete against judo, accustomed to the big meeting since the 1964 Olympics? Japanese judokas have thus gleaned 36 gold medals, or 27.7% of the titles in the country’s history.
Pierre Flamand, 49, French judoka and member of the public relations committee at the Japanese federation, notes the supremacy of this sport in the Archipelago: “It is the only Japanese martial art at the Olympics, he explains. That judo became an Olympic sport in 1964 and settled definitively in 1972, that gave it an international dimension. “
But, unlike football, which quickly escaped its English creators, judo remains an emblem and a national sport. “Japan constantly reminds all foreign nations that judo is Japanese. It is still the benchmark. No other country has grabbed it. Their judokas still teach the world. “
Trainer at Keio University, Pierre Flamand admires the simplicity of this original judo: “You have to grab hold of it with both hands and make it fall. The ippon still has value. The movements are made to excellence. When you watch a fight by a Japanese, it’s immediately recognizable and unique. “
Traditional, judo is not part of a dynamic of growth. “He suffers from the image of severe, harsh discipline. It’s not an easy sport, you have to hurt yourself, notes Flamand. There is a steady loss of practitioners. It is not – and by far – the most practiced discipline. ”
Despite this phenomenon, the institutions perpetuate the tradition: “From college, then to high school and university, young people have a lot of hours of practice. Sometimes six or seven a week is intensive. It maintains excellence, even if there are fewer judokas. ” And, unlike fashionable sports, judo retains a significant advantage: “A Japanese who practices judo seriously knows he can become an Olympic champion. It’s a hell of a source of motivation. “
-
Keirin, an “old-fashioned” discipline
We have known more effective lobbying. Invented in Japan in 1948 and introduced at the Olympics in 2000 under murky conditions (for a payment of $ 3 million, or € 2.5 million, to the International Cycling Union, according to BBC information in 2008 ), the keirin is far from having given the expected fruits. In five editions (two with women), Japan has won only a modest bronze medal in its discipline of track cycling, contested at the Olympics in the form of a short sprint between six riders.
“In Japan, it takes place on a concrete track, in an open velodrome, with a steel bicycle and a spoked wheel”, François Pervis, former world champion
Double keirin world champion 2014 and 2015, François Pervis explains this curious shift: “Internationally, it’s almost not the same rules as Japanese keirin, explains the Frenchman. Over there, it takes place on a concrete track, in an open velodrome [le pays en compte 47], with a steel bicycle and a spoke wheel. They are called heating pipes. It’s really old-fashioned… ”
The keirin, on which the Japanese are betting, is a microcosm that brings 3,000 runners to life: “In Japan, you are only disqualified if you knock your opponent down. You have the right to helmet blows, fish tails, shoulder to shoulder. Globally, it has become sanitized. You no longer have the right to touch the opponent. “
The Mayennais made the trip to Japan several times. “Local runners don’t have the international level. Most train like they did in the 1970s. 80 kilometer runs, little or no strength training or sprints, keirin is considered a profession and we go through the only school in the country, he says. The manager – an ex-runner who won it all in the 1960s – imposes his outdated training method. “
Faced with this delay, a Frenchman was chosen to transform the elite of the Japanese keirin: the national team. “In five years, Benoît Vêtu, the best trainer in the world, has transformed average runners. To beat Japanese riders in international competitions, you have to be pretty damn fit now. “ The change is diffused internally: “These runners are starting to import their know-how into the national keirin. It takes time. “
-
Baseball, an imported passion
Baseball in Japan? From ancient history, recalls Yves Cadot-Daunizeau, teacher-researcher at Jean-Jaurès University in Toulouse: “This sport symbolizes the opening of the country from 1868.” Taking advantage of the desire for modernization of Emperor Meiji (1852-1912), the Americans settled in Asia and imported their entertainment there. “The Japanese seized this input from the West, then finally got it. “Japanese-style”, as with different techniques that arrived at that time. “ And this is how, for Japanese speakers, baseball is called the yakyu.
This game of the ball and the bat first developed in schools, especially among an elite. “Sports newspapers will be enthusiastic about the first inter-school meetings”, says Yves Cadot-Daunizeau, also attached to the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Inalco). Beyond the language barrier, baseball “Also allows a dialogue” between Japanese and American universities through sporting events, from the beginning of the 20th centurye century.
The local popularity of yakyu explains today his punctual return to the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, after four editions between 1992, in Barcelona, and 2008, in Beijing. Results for Japan so far: one silver and two bronze, the Americans, Cubans and Koreans sharing the gold.
If this team sport today faces competition from football, baseball can claim a singular virtue. “Some consider this sport to be even more spiritual than physical training., adds Yves Cadot-Daunizeau. As if to miss a bullet was to miss a dodge or a saber attack. “
Fans of Japanese literature also owe the work of Haruki Murakami to baseball, at least in its early days. The Japanese writer has often recounted the click that preceded his first book (Listen to the song of the wind, 1979), in the middle of a baseball game. “When I heard the sound of the ball against the bat, he tells the World in an interview published in 2019, I thought maybe I could write. “
The Milwaukee Bucks won, Tuesday, July 20, the second NBA title in their history by winning at home against the Phoenix Suns (105-98) after a bitter and disputed match, worn by a Giannis Antetokounmpo who has gone down in legend.
Throughout the meeting, the Greek winger will have reigned in both defense and attack, achieving one of the most striking performances in the history of the league, with 50 points and 14 rebounds in the end. Dropped a good part of the meeting by his lieutenants Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday, the « Greek Freak » has further raised his level, he who already averaged more than 32 points so far in this final.
Opposite, Phoenix played with the energy of despair, led by his leader Chris Paul (26 points) who was at the end of his strength. After having started the game very badly, the Suns had yet found themselves behind by 13 points at the end of the first quarter (29-16), unable to take a long shot.
A success on the wire
With a heroic defense, which caused a shovelful of stray bullets, Phoenix came back and held the entire game, giving himself the opportunity to believe it until the end, or almost.
But after delivering several very high-end performances in this final, the Suns’ back Devin Booker stalled (14 of his 22 missed shots), especially at the end of the match, losing 6 balls in total. A last shot from Middleton, very awkward so far, at the entrance of the last minute, followed by two throws, permanently put the visitors of Arizona at a distance (102-96).
Once again during these play-offs, these Bucks sometimes considered too tender in previous seasons have achieved success on the wire, full of authority. Phoenix comes out of the final with his head held high, even if he undoubtedly missed an opportunity in Game 5 at home on Saturday.
The Milwaukee Bucks won, Tuesday, July 20, the second NBA title in their history by winning at home against the Phoenix Suns (105-98) after a bitter and disputed match, worn by a Giannis Antetokounmpo who has gone down in legend.
Throughout the meeting, the Greek winger will have reigned in both defense and attack, achieving one of the most striking performances in the history of the league, with 50 points and 14 rebounds in the end. Dropped a good part of the meeting by his lieutenants Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday, the « Greek Freak » has further raised his level, he who already averaged more than 32 points so far in this final.
Opposite, Phoenix played with the energy of despair, led by his leader Chris Paul (26 points) who was at the end of his strength. After having started the game very badly, the Suns had yet found themselves behind by 13 points at the end of the first quarter (29-16), unable to take a long shot.
A success on the wire
With a heroic defense, which caused a shovelful of stray bullets, Phoenix came back and held the entire game, giving himself the opportunity to believe it until the end, or almost.
But after delivering several very high-end performances in this final, the Suns’ back Devin Booker stalled (14 of his 22 missed shots), especially at the end of the match, losing 6 balls in total. A last shot from Middleton, very awkward so far, at the entrance of the last minute, followed by two throws, permanently put the visitors of Arizona at a distance (102-96).
Once again during these play-offs, these Bucks sometimes considered too tender in previous seasons have achieved success on the wire, full of authority. Phoenix comes out of the final with his head held high, even if he undoubtedly missed an opportunity in Game 5 at home on Saturday.
Two days before the official opening ceremony, the sports events for the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games (OG) began on Wednesday, July 21, in Fukushima at 9 a.m. (2 a.m. in France), with the softball match, a women’s version of the baseball, between Japan and Australia.
The organizers of the Olympics, postponed for a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, wanted to symbolically mark the occasion, by starting their Games in Fukushima, in an area ravaged by the nuclear accident of March 2011, after a powerful earthquake of magnitude 9.0 and a gigantic tsunami which caused the fusion of the cores of three reactors of the plant.
“Reconstruction games”
This first day of competition gives pride of place to women’s events with three softball matches, followed by the first six games of the women’s football tournament. With the resurgence of contamination due to Covid-19, these “Reconstruction games” however, will argue behind closed doors.
It is therefore in a stadium with only the teams, staffs, officials and media that the Japanese, crowned Olympic champions in 2008 for the last appearance of the discipline at the Olympics, launched the tournament and the Olympics against the Australia.
Present for the first time on the Olympic program in 1996 in Atlanta, in one of the cradles of the discipline with Japan, softball has written its history with the Games in extremely fine lines, even in dotted lines.
An Olympic discipline from 1996 to 2008, softball is one of the five additional sports of these Olympics, proposed by the organizing committee and approved by the International Olympic Committee, along with karate, rock climbing, surfing and skateboarding.
Moreover, the discipline will not be celebrating in Paris in three years, but still hopes to be part of the list of the lucky ones elected in Los Angeles in 2028, in the country of softball and baseball.
Two days before the official opening ceremony, the sports events for the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games (OG) began on Wednesday, July 21, in Fukushima at 9 a.m. (2 a.m. in France), with the softball match, a women’s version of the baseball, between Japan and Australia.
The organizers of the Olympics, postponed for a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, wanted to symbolically mark the occasion, by starting their Games in Fukushima, in an area ravaged by the nuclear accident of March 2011, after a powerful earthquake of magnitude 9.0 and a gigantic tsunami which caused the fusion of the cores of three reactors of the plant.
“Reconstruction games”
This first day of competition gives pride of place to women’s events with three softball matches, followed by the first six games of the women’s football tournament. With the resurgence of contamination due to Covid-19, these “Reconstruction games” however, will argue behind closed doors.
It is therefore in a stadium with only the teams, staffs, officials and media that the Japanese, crowned Olympic champions in 2008 for the last appearance of the discipline at the Olympics, launched the tournament and the Olympics against the Australia.
Present for the first time on the Olympic program in 1996 in Atlanta, in one of the cradles of the discipline with Japan, softball has written its history with the Games in extremely fine lines, even in dotted lines.
An Olympic discipline from 1996 to 2008, softball is one of the five additional sports of these Olympics, proposed by the organizing committee and approved by the International Olympic Committee, along with karate, rock climbing, surfing and skateboarding.
Moreover, the discipline will not be celebrating in Paris in three years, but still hopes to be part of the list of the lucky ones elected in Los Angeles in 2028, in the country of softball and baseball.
“Every crisis is an opportunity. “ This maxim in vogue in the management and personal development departments, PSG seems to want to push it to its climax: a very serious crisis – one that affects European professional football -, very great opportunities. At least that’s what its already spectacular transfer window suggests.
The arrivals of Dutchman Georginio Wijnaldum, Spaniard Sergio Ramos, Moroccan Achraf Hakimi and Italian Gianluigi Donnarumma are all resounding operations as the transfer market is expected to confirm its slowdown this summer, and where even clubs the richest are weakened. Like FC Barcelona, forced to downsize its workforce to simply keep Lionel Messi.
To the obligation to sell first, which is imposed on most clubs, Paris preferred the possibility of buying (even if three of the recruits were at the end of their contract, their salaries will weigh heavily). We could see a headlong flight: after losses of nearly 230 million euros last season, those for the coming year are budgeted between 250 and 300 million, according to L’Équipe.
In comparison, the PSG hopes sales for 180 million euros. However, the sporting director Leonardo shines more in acquisitions than in disposals: for the time being, only the Dutchman Mitchel Bakker has found a buyer (Leverkusen, 7 million).
The policy of great leaps forward
This way of playing it all in the rubble of the football economy is a bit like the summer of Ligue 1: the arrival of highly coveted hopes and coaches with ideas makes it very exciting a season under threat of economic collapse. The bet of the PSG is however reasoned.
It mainly risks alienating its great European rivals a little more. But, on this political level, the legitimist position of its president during the crisis of the Super League earned him the good graces of UEFA. Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, who has been on its Executive Committee since 2019, also took over the presidency of the European Association of Clubs in April.
Above all, the relaxation of financial fair play, granted by the European confederation because of the crisis, opens up a good window of opportunity for it to take advantage of the lavishness of its Qatari owner and repeat the coup de force of 2017 with the transfers of Kylian Mbappé and Neymar Jr. Since 2012, QSI prefers big leaps forward to the policy of small steps.
The club knows, however, that considerable resources are not a guarantee of success. If his investments have allowed him in ten years to promote his brand and anchor himself in the continent’s Gotha, they have not yet brought him the Champions League. He therefore also needs football intelligence.
The sporting and accounting results of this summer market will certainly depend on the future of Kylian Mbappé – to whom it is a question of demonstrating the Parisian ambitions -, but the arrivals of Wijnaldum and Hakimi already indicate that the leaders are tackling the glaring shortcomings of the ‘effective.
The quest for sports leadership
On the other hand, the signing of Sergio Ramos still seems to stem from this “casting policy” which did not do that good, even if we can also credit the Spaniard with this “experience” and this maturity which were lacking in Parisians in the last European square.
Regarding human management, if the acquisition of Donnarumma is a great operation due to the absence of transfer compensation, the goalkeeper being free, it constitutes a slap in the face for Keylor Navas, who was irreproachable last season. Did he need an inevitably confrontational situation in this sensitive post?
This kind of problem (of the rich) refers to the basic problem, that of the governance of the club, which still lacks a firm sporting direction, both literally and figuratively, to bring the egos in line and place them at the service of a coherent game plan under the unchallenged authority of the coach.
Recent experience reminds us that its technicians have never been placed in such conditions, Unai Emery and Thomas Tuchel even ending up giving up implementing their ideas. Will the very Florentine Leonardo give Mauricio Pochettino more leeway?
In this 2021 offseason, “the opportunity” that PSG must seize is not so much that of spending without counting as that of raising its sports policy to the level of its economic policy. This shows the need to invest in the game as much as in the players.
“Every crisis is an opportunity. “ This maxim in vogue in the management and personal development departments, PSG seems to want to push it to its climax: a very serious crisis – one that affects European professional football -, very great opportunities. At least that’s what its already spectacular transfer window suggests.
The arrivals of Dutchman Georginio Wijnaldum, Spaniard Sergio Ramos, Moroccan Achraf Hakimi and Italian Gianluigi Donnarumma are all resounding operations as the transfer market is expected to confirm its slowdown this summer, and where even clubs the richest are weakened. Like FC Barcelona, forced to downsize its workforce to simply keep Lionel Messi.
To the obligation to sell first, which is imposed on most clubs, Paris preferred the possibility of buying (even if three of the recruits were at the end of their contract, their salaries will weigh heavily). We could see a headlong flight: after losses of nearly 230 million euros last season, those for the coming year are budgeted between 250 and 300 million, according to L’Équipe.
In comparison, the PSG hopes sales for 180 million euros. However, the sporting director Leonardo shines more in acquisitions than in disposals: for the time being, only the Dutchman Mitchel Bakker has found a buyer (Leverkusen, 7 million).
The policy of great leaps forward
This way of playing it all in the rubble of the football economy is a bit like the summer of Ligue 1: the arrival of highly coveted hopes and coaches with ideas makes it very exciting a season under threat of economic collapse. The bet of the PSG is however reasoned.
It mainly risks alienating its great European rivals a little more. But, on this political level, the legitimist position of its president during the crisis of the Super League earned him the good graces of UEFA. Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, who has been on its Executive Committee since 2019, also took over the presidency of the European Association of Clubs in April.
Above all, the relaxation of financial fair play, granted by the European confederation because of the crisis, opens up a good window of opportunity for it to take advantage of the lavishness of its Qatari owner and repeat the coup de force of 2017 with the transfers of Kylian Mbappé and Neymar Jr. Since 2012, QSI prefers big leaps forward to the policy of small steps.
The club knows, however, that considerable resources are not a guarantee of success. If his investments have allowed him in ten years to promote his brand and anchor himself in the continent’s Gotha, they have not yet brought him the Champions League. He therefore also needs football intelligence.
The sporting and accounting results of this summer market will certainly depend on the future of Kylian Mbappé – to whom it is a question of demonstrating the Parisian ambitions -, but the arrivals of Wijnaldum and Hakimi already indicate that the leaders are tackling the glaring shortcomings of the ‘effective.
The quest for sports leadership
On the other hand, the signing of Sergio Ramos still seems to stem from this “casting policy” which did not do that good, even if we can also credit the Spaniard with this “experience” and this maturity which were lacking in Parisians in the last European square.
Regarding human management, if the acquisition of Donnarumma is a great operation due to the absence of transfer compensation, the goalkeeper being free, it constitutes a slap in the face for Keylor Navas, who was irreproachable last season. Did he need an inevitably confrontational situation in this sensitive post?
This kind of problem (of the rich) refers to the basic problem, that of the governance of the club, which still lacks a firm sporting direction, both literally and figuratively, to bring the egos in line and place them at the service of a coherent game plan under the unchallenged authority of the coach.
Recent experience reminds us that its technicians have never been placed in such conditions, Unai Emery and Thomas Tuchel even ending up giving up implementing their ideas. Will the very Florentine Leonardo give Mauricio Pochettino more leeway?
In this 2021 offseason, “the opportunity” that PSG must seize is not so much that of spending without counting as that of raising its sports policy to the level of its economic policy. This shows the need to invest in the game as much as in the players.