Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Money for elite athletes

I know I've said this before, but spending any money on elite athletes so that they can win medals or whatever is so wrong as to be almost sinful. Why should taxpayers fund athletes? Why? What benefit does this bring the nation? Listening to George Hamilton wax lyrical when some Irish athlete gets a silver medal at the World Championships is insufficient recompense for even one penny of my money.

Scrap the Irish Institute of Sport and build decent playgrounds around the country. Or make it less expensive for kids to play sports (I know it costs around €180 per year for one kid on a basketball team). Or, even better, give me back my money so I can choose how I want to 'contribute to Irish sport'.