speech on “Sports have become the new religion”
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COMMERCIALISED sport is fast becoming the new secular religion and is threatening family values, real leisure time and religious worship on the sabbath, according to Jesuit sociologist Micheal McGreil.
Many athletes have become "mobile ads" for large businesses that exploit the mass addiction to sport, while the provision by certain media corporations of round-the-clock sports coverage is undermining distinctive cultures in the remotest parts of the planet, he said yesterday.
Father McGreil, a retired sociology lecturer at NUI Maynooth and author of the 1970's study 'Prejudice and Tolerance in Ireland', particularly criticised the extension of the annual Galway races to a seven-day event. He said that such large sports meetings were threatening the continuity of small community-based sports.
"I am totally in favour of sport in a family-based community structure," he said. "However, the mass exodus of mainly men to Croke Park every Sunday means that many families have very little leisure time together."
Fr McGreil said that the extension of the Galway Races to Sundays meant that smaller sporting events now have to be rescheduled to suit larger