Came across this news item today, well its not exactly news is it. People have been doing these kind trades for sometime now. What is news, atleast to me is the bidding and haggling part.
A quote from the article -
During several months of haggling, a consortium of Croatian firms tried to keep Draganja at home, but its offer of $800,000 plus perks was vastly overmatched by the oil-rich country.
For a long time Olympic games was an amateur sport. The big countries pushed to make it a professional sporting event, because they found that most of their atheletes were not particularly interested in participating in this arena, where not money was at stake. Then there was the television rights. Given that the US pays the biggest bucks for the TV rights for this mega event, the games are also tweaked to meet the expectation of the US population. Well for right now, it is just focused on timing of important events to coincide with the US primetime hours.
But even before this became a money sport, the rich countries were able to attract some talent to switch affliations of their country, to ensure a gold, silver or bronze. The south african, runner Zola Budd was a big milestone in that series of migration and 'switch royalties game'. Of course these migrations were isolated and only the rich countries benefited. Now with this news, it shows that this game is not isolated to the prowess of the rich. And more importantly it is not isolated to nation countries, but soon will be a blood sport indulged by corporations.
So get ready, buckle up and lets zoom into the Google Arena for the 100 metres finals.
Croatia's top swimmer to swim for Qatar and money
Tags: olympics, sport, professional+sport, amateur+sport
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