It was Wittgenstein who made the wise comment here: That whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent. Oft translated into the vernacular as if you don’t know what you;re talking about then shut up. This being very useful advice for Julian Knight MP here.
Premier League and Championship clubs are neglecting low income families by charging up to £700 for children to be mascots at games, according to MPs and fans groups.
West Ham, Nottingham Forest, Norwich and Aston Villa all advertise rates up to £500 and beyond for their biggest matches despite complaints from supporters.
Julian Knight, the new chairman of parliament’s powerful Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, is now pressuring elite clubs to slash charges to help deprived families. Being a mascot, he said, is becoming “the preserve of the well off, completely against the working class roots of the game”.
His comments come as Raheem Sterling, the new face of Gillette, appears in an advert highlighting discrimination which features him walking out of a tunnel hand-in-hand with a young mascot. His club, Manchester City, are among seven top tier clubs now offering places for free and Knight says he cannot understand why all teams are not following suit.
You do not understand what other people are doing Mr. Knight. You do not understand how people are making voluntary exchanges of things they value less for things they value more. You are, in fact, ignorant of the subject under discussion.
A period of silence would therefore be welcome.
In the wider meaning here this is why we have society the way we do. Politics and politicians are, rightly, corralled into deciding on some very small subset of life. Being bears of little brain they find that their heads hurt when considering what vast numbers of people decide to do with their time, labour and assets. Therefore we give the politicians no say over the things they are entirely clueless about.
That is, the free and liberal society is where we enforce Wittgenstein at gunpoint.
Ten million young boys and girls would like to be mascots. Unfortunately, they cannot all be. There has to be some method of rationing. As you correctly observe, money is one such method. If the mascot price is fixed at say £500, which though steep is achievable, surely the list of applicants already overflows, and the ranks must be thinned using a second criterion of the sneaky kind e.g. we were at a posh school together or I’m knocking off your wife. It would be better for the job to be auctioned off, no? But my little Tammy can’t afford… Read more »
They’re paying the thick end of £100 just to watch the match, FFS.
Similarly, a friend likes to sing the National Anthem at the start of baseball games in nearby small cities. But the most nearly big-time events have rejected his offer of free service, in favor of a member of a group that has bought a certain number of admission tickets. He feels unfairly slighted, even more so when they tell him he’s welcome to sing if he just gets out and sells first. But happily, he doesn’t write columns about the injustice.
Julian Knight confirming once again why Gov Dept of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport should be abolished
None should be under Gov control & interference
I would think the clubs do give spaces some to charitable causes etc. and in order for them to claim a charitable donation I suppose the service must have a value that can be demonstrated.