Mona Siddiqui

Available for 27 days

I don’t really follow football but this past week there seemed to be a lot of it in the news. One of the most contentious stories has been that of Southampton who admitted to spying on their opponents training sessions. They’ve now lost their appeal against expulsion from the Championship play-offs, which they described as `manifestly disproportionate.’ For many of the fans who are hurt it may seem like an unfair and collective punishment. But while the fallout has been enormous, the issue isn’t really about the consequences for breaking a rule. Football survives mistakes, controversy and questionable refereeing decisions every week. What it can’t survive is the erosion of trust. Once clubs begin believing covert spying and deception are acceptable routes to competitive advantage, the integrity of the sport itself starts to erode. Competition in all areas of life must still have moral boundaries because if winning becomes the only value left, then every other principle gradually becomes negotiable. Whether in football, politics business or our relationships, a culture obsessed purely with outcomes eventually loses the moral language needed to restrain itself. Success begins to justify deception and eventually people no longer even recognise dishonesty because it has become so normalised by success. But if restraint is important so is the principle of proportionality. The Qur’an says, ` we have made you a middle nation’ a verse which inspired Muslim thinkers to regard balance and equilibrium as a spiritual act. A small wound shouldn’t become a lifelong bitterness, a mistake shouldn’t lead to total exile and justice should always be distinguishable from revenge. This isn’t weakness, its God consciousness contained in the sacred words, `By justice, the heavens and the earth endure.’ When so much of our culture encourages us towards extremes, cutting people off, letting disagreement turn to dehumanising, and destroying peoples reputations, the courage to remain fair even when you’re hurting or angry is a difficult but necessary virtue. On losing their appeal Southampton issued a statement apologising to their fans and supporters stating that `trust now needs to be rebuilt’ and that they were determined to act with humility and `put things right.” And in the end that is all any of us can hope to do whether in sport or in life in general. All of us carry a relationship we could mend, a trust we can uphold, and while its not always easy, perhaps one of the quietest forms of spiritual maturity is the ability to put something right before time makes the repair impossible.