Merriman Summer School: The recent growth in violence in amateur sport may indirectly have been caused by tolerance of violence in professional sports, according to the national director of Special Olympics Ireland, Ms Mary Davis.
Ms Davis told the Merriman Summer School yesterday: "When it is acceptable to see cynical professional fouls in sport it is often hard to convince impressionable young people that they cannot act in a similar fashion in their own sporting activities."
Addressing the school in Ennistymon, Co Clare, Ms Davis added: "In many cases, bad behaviour and violent conduct is an accepted part of being involved in sport. This is unfortunately not limited to professional sport but is also seen in local sport and in some cases even in children's sport."
The former chief executive of the 2003 World Special Olympics said: "The effect on young people from seeing that their idols can behave inappropriately and badly is very damaging."
In her paper, The Professionalisation of Sport: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Ms Davis added: "In certain cases we have seen players behaving badly or treating others with a lack of respect and they receive no sanction from their club or sport."
Ms Davis went on to say that "the focus and speculation of the media around celebrity sportsmen and women must also have an effect on behaviour".
"The high-profile 'negative' side of sport is always more widely reported than the positive achievements of the less well-known sportspeople.
"Over the last number of years we have been bombarded with lurid tabloid tales of violent brawls, spousal abuse, sexual misconduct and nefarious financial dealings carried out by high-profile sportsmen and women.
" In many cases a major international, sporting event is only an excuse to drag up the bad news stories of yesteryear in order to be ready for the inevitable scandal that will emerge."
Focusing on the "good" aspects of sport, Ms Davis said that the "behind-the-scenes" roles which ordinary people take to keep sports clubs and organisations alive could not be underestimated.
"The commitment and dedication brought to bear by people who truly believe in something can never be matched by the size of a pay packet.
"In the future, the challenge for the professionals in sport will be to manage their relationships with the volunteers."
Ms Davis added: "It is incumbent on everyone involved in sport at all levels to make sure that the value of what is supposedly done for nothing is not taken for granted."
Expressing confidence that through the professionalisation of sport, the good would outweigh both the bad and the ugly, she said: "Even by simply identifying what is bad, we are already on the right track to remedy and to changing things for the better."
