subject: Sports in Europe [print this page] Sports in Europe Sports in Europe
How is a sport even defined? This is a question that may seem easy enough, but in todays world, where any(lunatic)one can invent anything his mind comes up with, and then try to pass it out as sport, is a hard one to answer. I will not diminish any so called "sport" but it is a fact that there are some of them out there that do not deserve the epithet of a sport, they were invented because people were bored or wanted to make some money. They probably thought:"Oh, I can do such stupid things, and actually get payed for it!". Now there may be someone out there thinking to himself right now something like:"Hmm, football is also stupid. It's just a bunch of guys chasing a ball." Well then, I only have a couple of things to say to those people. Is that why it is so popular, are millions of people daft any you and a handful of people are only smart? Football may be corrupted, and overpriced, and has a lot of problems,I don't deny that, but it also helps people, promotes non-violence, tolerance towards people of other skin color and so on. It's not just football, it's every sports. It has always been an important part of human life, from the old days of the Greeks, who valued it highly, through middle age games of strength and agility, and today, in this modern, fast world where people do not have time to lead a healthy life, it can help. But back to the original question, sport is defined as an organized, competitive, and skillful physical activity requiring commitment and fair play, governed by a set of rules and regulations. It includes, of course, people, called players, but can also include animals (for example horses) and items such as balls, obstacles etc. There is also a distribution of sports on physical and mind sports, those that require mostly mental skills, and non-competitive sports which are called recreations. In sports there are usually winners and losers, which are determined by a result or by some pre-determined and well-thought criteria.
These are usually the written rules and criteria of a sport, but they include many more, non-formal, "codes of conduct" shall we say. Of course, written rules against hurting your opponent exist almost everywhere, so these non-formal rules don't normally include physical contact, but expected behavior like respecting your opponent and the officials, congratulating the winners, good sportsmanship and so on. These aspects are probably the most problematic ones today, every day we can see them being broken and not followed by players that should be and are idols to children who follow these sports all over the world.
