Author : Levan Sebiskveradze
For several years now, our decades-old perception of athletes has been crumbling before our eyes. After all, we were taught from childhood that athletes are exceptional individuals, akin to the Greek Atlases, standing beyond the limits of human capabilities, capable of achieving remarkable sporting successes with extraordinary strength. We were ingrained with the understanding that athletes deserve utmost respect, and we should always applaud them as they represent the face of our country. One could enumerate numerous sterile and clichéd absurdities that we once believed and still uphold.
In recent years, however, these perceptions have shattered like glass, as we can clearly see that often former or, even worse, current athletes turn into common criminals out to prey on or be apologists for violence, carrying out mostly illegal orders from the Black Hundred in power and going after people the government does not like, whose beating or humiliation seems to be part of the political or geopolitical goals of the ruling forces.
Obviously, not every athlete can succeed, and many veteran athletes are left without any savings, and often without basic living conditions, after their sporting careers are over. This is a sad reality in almost every country, and no one is surprised to see a millionaire veteran athlete next to his colleague living in absolute poverty, because a sporting career, like a human life, is often made up of luck. Obviously, not many people are lucky.
The innovative mass “employment” of veterans and athletes with no income belongs to Russia. Since the 1990s, almost every rich person in Russia has had his own armed gang, usually made up of former athletes. These people are hired for a thousand different purposes for a certain remuneration. It seems that the Russian example was perfectly adopted by the pro-Russian Georgian government, and veteran athletes found a “business”.
Beating people during elections has become an integral part of our lives. It is veteran athletes who are often used against politicians and activists, and it has almost become a shameful tradition.
In Western European countries and the United States of America, both governmental and non-governmental organizations have operated for decades, focusing on assisting veteran athletes who find themselves destitute. These organizations primarily aid former athletes in securing regular employment and frequently advocate on their behalf for job opportunities. Special funds also exist where accumulated resources are directed towards supporting athletes with multiple children or those disabled due to sports-related injuries.
In our country, these people are used for violent purposes, and this is precisely where the Georgian authorities extend their “help” to athletes.
The Arithmetic of Hatred (Datunashvili’s story)
It would take too long to list the belligerent, stone-throwing, swearing, aggressive World and European champions. Some of them have managed to expose themselves as violent criminals even from the chair of a member of parliament, instantly losing the respect and love of the people, which we talked about earlier.
Aggression and violence coming from Georgian athletes does not apply to politicians only. What happened to Greco-Roman wrestler Zurab Datunashvili will probably never be erased from the history of Georgia. The Gegeshidze clan, entrenched in the Wrestling Federation and allied with the government, brutally punished a young athlete who spoke out against them (Datunashvili was captain of the national team at the time); first he was publicly beaten and had his face bloodied, then he was forced to flee the country, and now Zura is receiving championship titles on behalf of Serbia, which is particularly heartbreaking.
Unfortunately, society did not properly assess the conflict that began with the president of the Wrestling Federation, Gega Gegeshidze, and we did not do enough to demand that the sports community hold the leadership of the Wrestling Federation accountable. It is not a small story when the first person in the federation beats the captain of the national team to blood and then does everything to remove such a successful athlete from the Georgian national team.
If a similar case had occurred in another country where the rule of law reigns and sports federations do not consider themselves “families”, the president himself would most likely have recognised the need to step down. This would have helped to mitigate the reputational damage to the wrestling federation as a result of the above-mentioned conflict. However, in this case, the situation unfolded differently. Apparently, Gegeshidze had an influential patron, and the society failed to rise to the occasion. Instead, a “who’s who” debate began with a tragic outcome for Georgian sport – Zurab Datunashvili left the country.
After Datunashvili won European gold, many people wrote that they were ashamed because of this boy, which is natural and understandable from decent people. As for those who should be ashamed, we are ashamed instead of them because of what happened, because of such unfairness and injustice, because of expulsion of a young Georgian athlete from the country and, most importantly, because of lost gold medals for Georgia. Indeed, do we have the luxury of losing golden boys and gold medals!
You may recall that a few years ago Gega Gegeshidze became embroiled in a political scandal when, following a beating in the village of Kortskheli in Samegrelo, representatives of the opposition named Gegeshidze and his friends, who are also wrestlers, as the main perpetrators of the beating at the polling station. Gegeshidze was not the president of the wrestling federation at the time, and despite the opposition’s accusations, he was elected president of one of Georgia’s most popular sports right after the Kortskheli incident, which immediately raised additional questions.
Disdain for the Captain (Kashia’s Story)
Despite the fact that sport, and football in particular, is inherently anti-violent and anti-discriminatory phenomenon (and this has been proven by many facts), unfortunately, it is often football that becomes the “arena” for thousands of types and varieties of people who, passionate about their own, or rather “great anti-liberal ideas” imposed on them by the authorities, are ready to restrict the freedom of others, to insult anyone who thinks differently from them, and do it in the name of principles and values.
Guram Kashia, vice-captain of the Georgian national football team, is obviously not the first and probably not the last player who defied the existing “public opinion” and said what he thought was right.
This tenacity was appreciated by the governing body of European football UEFA, and Guram was even given a special award, which many famous legionnaires have never been honoured with. The award was followed by a terrible campaign launched in Georgia against Kashia, as if all the troubles our country is facing are his fault. It is not difficult to guess that this campaign was planned and carried out by pro-Russian groups orchestrated and run by the government.
Social media alone is enough to realise how difficult it is to be an athlete in Georgia, to have a civic position and to defend that position to the end. Fortunately, mass “stoning” did not happen. However, not everyone is as lucky as Kashia.....
