Martin Scorsese’s ‘Shutter Island’ is the perfect specimen of deception. Teddy Daniels reaches the brink in search of the truth and it ends up taking a breakdown for him to realise that he was a key part of the art of deception. A story which began with the search of someone missing turned into a painful tale of self-exploration through trauma and finally facing up to what was always right in front of us and Teddy. After one point – as Scorsese usually likes, the curtain was truly drawn from the inevitable truth.
While the game and the business of football isn’t a psychological thriller movie, it has almost certainly turned out to be a deception. The game has come across one evolution after another in an attempt to grow and realise what it truly stands for, only for fans to now realise that it is like the rest of the world. Rather, it was always like the rest of the world. The signs were always there to see but were essentially cleverly manipulated.
And the last few weeks, through the ensuing conflict in Ukraine, have brought to the fore as to how the game has assumed a fresh responsibility. It is a responsibility of taking stands instead of shying away, even if it means breaking ties with influential powers. Acts like moving the venue for the Champions League final and Russia being banned from the World Cup show that there is a realisation from the game’s behalf that it has a voice – now more than ever. And it is a voice which carries weight that very few can have and it goes beyond the weight that even some countries have. After all, official records suggest the FIFA World Cup in 2018 was watched by more viewers globally than the Tokyo Olympics. But digging deeper, political reasons aren’t hard to find.
And it isn’t just football that has always carried political links. Sport has always been a political tool.