Sports is the new religion

The recent World Cup and the enthusiasm it aroused has amazed me. In India of course cricket is the religion and in my mind soccer is a close second, despite the fact that India does not have any soccer team or player of any significance.

Over the last few years I have found that people follow the UK or European soccer teams with such passion not just in the home country but in far away places which have no direct connection,but where the population is as knowledgeable about certain teams and players as their own country inhabitants. According to the media in India, the Bengalis in West Bengal are as passionate about the Brazilian team as the Brazilians themselves. It used to be the dream of every budding billionaire from the emerging markets to make movies in Hollywood.One can understand that as this is a way ( expensive perhaps) to get meet the starlets. But now every emerging market billionaire from Russia to India to Thailand wants to own a football club in the United Kingdom.

The passion about this game cuts across all race and religion and I would not be surprised if the Taliban fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan had special satellite connections and were watching the World Cup matches and cheering for their adopted teams.

Instead of spending billions of dollars on weapons , the world should set up soccer ,cricket and other sports clubs all over Afghanistan, Iraq and other areas. Sports is the new religion and the ruling deities are Messi, Ronaldo, Tendulkar among others. Have clubs which are allowed to hire from other countries , so you can have mixed teams from different countries, race and religion.

Australia and Indian cricketers used to have verbal jousts every time they played ,with the media playing up every slight and gesture. Since the Australians started playing in IPL teams and spending some time in India, there seem to be fewer such incidents.This convinces me now more than ever that the solution to many of the problems is to have people meet on the sports field rather than the battle field with a much lower casualty rate.