The road to hell is paved with good intentions. So is the road to nationwide obesity and more couch potatoes. I got to thinking about this when a consultation exercise about commercialising sports facilities was held last year. The idea behind the draft legislation seems quite laudable – trying to ensure that sports associations can stand on their own feet, financially speaking, by allowing them to commercialise the public land ceded to them at beneficial rates.

To date, the sports organisations that had benefitted from subsidised rents on public land were legally prohibited from using that land for profit-making purposes. In reality a good number of them ignore this prohibition and have catering outlets on site.

It is being proposed that we now do away with any remaining prohibition and give the green light to total commercialisation of sports facilities. That means hotels, malls, restaurants (or more of them) on the grounds initially intended for the practice of sports and athletic activities.

According to the marketing-speak, this will ensure a new “revenue stream” to contribute towards professionalism in sport. In other words – more money for better facilities and stuff.

In theory that’s how it’s supposed to work. In practice, what is bound to happen is that the commercial element inevitably takes over and becomes the predominant factor. We end up with huge hyper-stores with children running around sadly on Astro-turfed roofs, massive hulking restaurants overshadowing tiny five-a-side pitches, or swimmers weaving through diners on the beach to get to the sea. The commercial element be­comes the tail that wags the dog.

Those trying to reinvent the Malta wheel should realise that it isn’t necessary. It’s already there

Inevitably the practise of sport becomes sidelined, slotted in between the constant eating and shopping which seem to be the only activities catered for around here.

I’ve heard all the arguments about this being necessary so that sports clubs have a steady source of sorely-needed income for maintenance and improvement. And of course, this is not a local phenomenon. Practically all sports facilities abroad house the obligatory gift shop selling branded tat. And somewhere on site you will find private boxes where elite club members can wine and dine in luxury and ignore the game – infamously dubbed the “prawn sandwich brigade”.

I can’t imagine anything more far removed from my conception of sport – fun-filled physical exertion, on-pitch rivalries and a slice of time where the game is the thing. I have the feeling that in 10 to 20 years’ time we will be looking at entire generations for whom the notion of sport and physical acti­vity is entirely alien, having spent most of their growing years hoverboarding through mall adjuncts to ‘sporting’ venues. I’d love to be proved wrong.

▪ Malta has made it to the National Geographic Best of the World 21 Must-See Places for 2017. Billed as “Magic Malta”, it’s listed as a destination which is on the up culturally speaking, historically rich and naturally beautiful.

Lisa Abend, the Copenhagen-based journalist who wrote the piece, wrote about the Game of Thrones series, which really put us on the map, as well as the more recent Assassin’s Creed filming. Diving sites and the rocky beaches scalloping Malta’s shores got a special mention. High-rises did not.

So did Gozo. In fact, there is a lovely passage where Abend writes about her experience there. “My most memorable moments connected with Malta’s past, not its future – especially a nighttime walk in Victoria…from the medieval citadel I took in a 360-degree view of the entire island. In the near distance, every few miles, I could make out the glowing dome of a church; beyond, I spied the sea’s edge. It was a sublime moment that came from an unmediated communion, I thought, with history.”

Most of us have experienced much the same thing: the thrill of savouring the beauty of our unspoilt heritage. I found it interesting that an outsider looking in would ultimately be won over by it, especially as she had initially expressed some disappointment that Malta wasn’t “daring” or “hip” enough – mainly because of the lack of pour-over coffee and our (admitted) inability to do “truly new things with food”.

Abend’s conclusions as to Malta’s charm are spot-on. She writes: “Malta may not experience the Bilbao effect. But perhaps I’d been wrong to think of the creation of some brand-new, clearly contemporary work as the only possible sign of modernisation. The past and the future are not opposites, after all, but points along a continuum. Change doesn’t have to come in the form of rupture. It can come gently, in small and slow reinventions of what has been.”

Those trying to reinvent the Malta wheel should realise that it isn’t necessary. It’s already there. Why spin it to oblivion?

drcbonello@gmail.com

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