Sport as a source of ethics in human beings

THE EXPERT’S OPINION

As the famous sports psychologist Pierre Parlebas points out, sport must be understood above all as a motor situation subject to rules that define a competition. It could be counterpointed to its oldest Latin root – understood as deportare, which means to move or transport outside the walls of the city – that is, it is an activity and a moment of freedom, against compliance with a normativity.

Ethical practice has generated a problem throughout history; it has been and will continue to be tarnished, regardless of the sport in any of its disciplines, the level of competition, or the name of the competition, because not only the desire to win of the different athletes or participants intervenes but also the public and private sector participation in such practices in order to test regulated and unregulated drugs or to obtain better funding from sponsors, sometimes carried out for political purposes and overtones.

Examples and cases of unethical practices have become part of film productions, television series, and of course, matters aired in the Courts of different countries, having consequences of custodial sentences and disqualification of athletes (and with it the loss of their medals and recognitions) and, even, the disqualification of entire delegations in the Olympic Games.

These cases will continue to appear every day, as long as a sport from its most basic or amateur levels is seen with the purest eyes that Olympic sports poetry has made known to us, leaving aside economic interests, or, as long as it is insisted on demonstrating that a population is superior in physical and sports faculties than others. It is important to remember that sport and business are not in constant fight, however, the fight will be at the moment we forget that the latter delves into the integral development of people, that is, in their growth from the most intimate step to their development in this adventure called life.

In order for the athlete at any of the levels of practice to live the practice of ethics, he must be educated on three different topics, such as the body -body-, the mind -mind- and the soul/spirit -soul-, that is, the athlete seen as a person and not only as a practitioner of physical activity.

Master Manuel Vargas Almaraz

Law Degree, Master in Taxes; Bioethicist. Managing Partner of the firm Ragna Legal & Consulting Group.

Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuel-vargas-almaraz-961a7022a/