Question:
The dynamics of football as a game are very different from other sports which currently use technology

In other sports there is just one question: was the ball in or out? Was the player safe or out? In football, the issue would not be that simple. Not only would the GLT-operative have to consider whether the ball was wholly over the line or not, but they would also have to look at the build up to ensure that the goal was legitimate. Was there a foul? An offside? As in the notorious case of the 2010 World Cup Qualifier Play-off France v Ireland, was there a handball? This would not only be extremely time-consuming and thus detract from the spectacle of the game, but could also be potentially endless. In cricket or tennis this delay is more natural as matches are expected to take several hours; one of the hallmarks of football is it’s frenetic pace. Challenges could not be limited in an attempt to prevent this, because if a team were to run out and a blatant wrong decision were noticed they would be in the same position as they are now; GLT would have achieved nothing.

GLT would not be used to assess any and every incident in a match; it would only be invoked to support a referee when a goal-line decision was particularly difficult to judge from a distance. The referees would exercise due diligence in referring to it, and it is likely that many games would pass without it being necessary.

There is already a problem with talented teenagers from Africa and other poorer countries being recruited by rich European clubs to train at their academies. This takes them far away from family and friends and ties them into long contracts they don’t understand – some have called it a form of slavery. And if they get injured or turn out to be not quite good enough, then they can be thrown out without proper support. At the same time, poorer footballing countries are deprived of many of their most promising players, without even getting the transfer money paid when adult players move to a new club overseas. The FIFA plan is a step towards preventing such exploitation, the fact it doesn’t solve the problem completely does not prevent it from being a good first step.

Rich athletes from wealthier countries will always have access to the latest, highest quality performance enhancers. On the other side, athletes from poorer countries which do not have the same medical and scientific advances will not be able to keep up. They will always be at a disadvantage regardless of whether performance enhancing drugs are legal or not.

If we were to look at the two possible outcomes we would see that allowing both males and females to compete against each other would actively decrease discrimination. This happens as, in this situation, we perceive the two sexes as being equal, able to compete against each other, both beginning the race from the same starting line, whereas the alternative would be to draw an imaginary barrier between the two sexes claiming that they are so far apart that competition between them would be futile. Those women who come on top on several occasions, such as Danica Patrick who has won NASCAR competitions (1) will show that all those stereotypes are wrong and that they should have been long forgotten. Of course there will be a lot of women who won’t be able to win anything, but the entire spotlight and all the media coverage will be on the ones who will, so they’ll be getting the lion’s share of media attention. As a result, successful stories of women defeating men in their leagues will come as a megaphone for promoting gender equality in society.

(1) Esteban “9 Female Athletes Who Competed Against Men”, Total Pros Sports, October 28, 2011 http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/10/28/9-female-athletes-who-competed-against-men/

Simple analogy: If a person were to kill himself for the sake of entertaining the crowd, this act would still be considered illegal by the government and efforts to hinder and discourage it would be created.

An appropriate example is the one of dangers of alcohol and tobacco, which were not known until after they had become normalized in society. Once the dangers were known, the public were so used to it, that they wouldn’t condone a ban by the State. If alcohol were introduced tomorrow it would be banned, as shown by the attitude towards narcotics and steroid use has shown. Governments have tried to reduce sales by having high levels of tax on tobacco and alcohol anyway. Moreover many states are restricting choice in tobacco and alcohol by introducing limited bans, such as on smoking in public places. The proposition cannot use the fact that tobacco and alcohol are legal as a defense of the use of drugs. This should be seen as an equally detrimental act and thus illegal.

Sport is dangerous. Today’s athletes decide to endanger their lives by participating in sports all the time. They decide to participate in sports with the informed decision that they might get hurt as it is part of the sport. Performance enhancing drugs are no different.

In the USA every year there are nearly 300,000 sports-related traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). Athletes involved in sports such as football, hockey and boxing are at significant risk of TBI due to the high level of contact inherent in these sports. Head injuries are also extremely common in sports such as cycling, baseball, basketball and skateboarding. Many head injuries acquired, playing these sports, lead to permanent brain damage or worse. Yet we do not impose a law to ban athletes from participating in those sports. We trust their assessment of risk (1).

All about Traumatic Brain Injuries: http://www.allabouttbi.com/sports-related-traumatic-brain-injury/ , accessed 05/15/2011

The media can and often is used as a tool for public policy. Examples of this include the broadcasting of public information campaigns against drink-driving or smoking or else bans on certain advertising such as smoking advertisements or sponsorship appearing on TV.[1] What’s more the government has a huge influence in what it deems to be worthwhile news or television programs and documentaries. This is because of the existence of state controlled media organisations, like the BBC, and on a more subtle level, with the imposition on restrictions as to what can and cannot be published or broadcast.

The media coverage inequality between women and men’s sport is a different issue to that made out by the opposition. Floods in Queensland Australia are more relevant to Australians than Europeans because they are more likely to have been affected by them. Women’s sports, however, are potentially as relevant to people’s lives as men’s sports. The increased participation in women’s sport indicates that media coverage is likely to be relevant to more and more people. Even if this was not the case women’s sport should still get air time; with the internet and digital TV it is wrong to suggest that more coverage of women’s sport will come at the expense of men’s sports as there is enough airspace.

[1] ‘Law ends UK tobacco sponsorship’, BBC News, 31 July 2005.

The government can to a degree cover for any potential drop in funding from private sector sources. Focus can remain on developing grass-roots and sports at schools in order to incentivise new generations of athletes, so the harms mentioned by the opposition will by and large not occur. In time, popularity of women’s sport will increase such that it will once again attract large lucrative TV rights deals and large investments from sponsors.

It must also be mentioned that the opposition to an extent present a false dichotomy with their argument. Increased coverage of women’s sport need not take valuable air time away from more popular men’s sport in the way the opposition claims. Matches can be scheduled so that they do not clash with each other, and more TV channels can be created (such as the BBC’s red button service). Additionally, air-time is often packed trivial stories and programs other than popular men’s sporting events. Examples from American TV include reports ‘on supremely unhealthy hamburgers on sale at a minor league baseball parks or basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s contest with a 93-year-old woman’ [1]. Such programs could easily and painlessly be replaced with women’s sporting news or live broadcasting.

[1] Deggans, Eric: “Continued apathy by sports media toward women’s sport a bigger problem than first meets the eye”, National Sports Journalism Centre, June 8 2010.

It is true that it is difficult to decide where to draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate performance enhancement. However we should continue to draw a line nonetheless. This line should be drawn at protecting athletes from harmful drugs and preserving the spirit of fair play and unaided competition between human beings in their peak of natural fitness.

The special diet and sport training equipment, which may seem very hard and exeptional, have been designed based on serious scientific research proved and tested to fit with long-term training of athletes. Hard practice to achieve the best performance with help of these professional methods is completely a different from taking steroids and growth hormones for immediate result.

Bullfighting is not about torturing for enjoyment; clean and quick kills are what is prized most by the bullfighting community. If a matador fails to deliver such a kill, and the bull suffers needlessly, then he will be jeered and shamed. This dynamic demonstrates a clear sense of decency within the bullfighting community.(8)

It is naïve to pretend that the alternative for bulls and cows is a long, happy life in the meadows and then a natural death. Rather, bulls and cows are kept and bred for their meat and eventual slaughter, a process which can be made to seem just as horrific as bullfighting if the same descriptive language is used. There is no significant moral difference between watching a bull die in a bullfight for enjoyment and having a cow killed to make meat so people can enjoy eating it. Must not it be so, according to Bentham's logic, that eating meat for enjoyment displays as much 'want of humanity' as bullfighting? Indeed, in many ways bullfighting is at least more honest: the violence is clear and there for all to see, whereas the death of the cow is hidden from the consumer of a hamburger. Bullfighting is in no way uniquely cruel or even more cruel than eating meat, and so to ban it would be unjustified.

The six-plus-five plan is not banned under EU law. Although it would be illegal to stop clubs in Europe from employing as many overseas players as they wish, this is not what the plan proposes. It simply puts a limit of five on how many foreign players can start a game – so clubs can employ as many foreigners as they want, they just can’t play more than five of them at the same time. Given the tactical use of reserves and the squad rotation common in modern football, clubs are likely to keep signing overseas players. But under FIFA’s plan domestic players will still be given more of a chance than they are now. As the head of the Institute of European Affairs states: "The key aim of the six-plus-five rule in the view of the experts is the creation and assurance of sporting competition. The six-plus-five rule does not impinge on the core area of the right to freedom of movement. The rule is merely a rule of the game declared in the general interest of sport in order to improve the sporting balance between clubs and associations" [1]

[1] Times Online. (2009, February 26). Fifa's six-plus-five rule is not illegal, claims report. Retrieved May 10, 2011, from Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article58...

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Controversy and debate are a part of the game

Controversy will always be a part of the game; because laws must be interpreted by an individual, fouls will always be called on the basis of opinion, even if that is someone re-watching the incident on a monitor. If fans accepted mistakes as exactly that, they would cease to matter; the authority of the referee would be absolute and the game would move on without undue mention. GLT is unnecessary.

Sepp Blatter famously argued that "Fans love to debate any given incident in a game. It is part of the human nature of our sport"1. Supporters love to hate the referee; it provides them with a scapegoat for defeat. With GLT, the authority of referees would be irrevocably diminished. They would become merely cogs in a mechanic process of decision making. If we come to rely on cameras to govern the game, the passion is drained from it.

1 Ian Ladyman, Howard Webb calls for goalline technology as World Cup final referee returns to Barclays Premier League duty, MailOnline, 10th September 2010, (accessed 24/05/11)

Supporters love the game, not the soap opera. As Howard Webb articulated, "Controversy is not the reason why I watch football but we need to be careful not to change what draws millions to football. I still keep an open mind of the future. It's a tricky thing to do."1We must progress on terms of reason, not tradition.

1 Ian Ladyman, Howard Webb calls for goalline technology as World Cup final referee returns to Barclays Premier League duty, MailOnline, 10th September 2010, (accessed 24/05/11)

There is already a problem with talented teenagers from Africa and other poorer countries being recruited by rich European clubs to train at their academies. This takes them far away from family and friends and ties them into long contracts they don’t understand – some have called it a form of slavery. And if they get injured or turn out to be not quite good enough, then they can be thrown out without proper support. At the same time, poorer footballing countries are deprived of many of their most promising players, without even getting the transfer money paid when adult players move to a new club overseas. The FIFA plan is a step towards preventing such exploitation, the fact it doesn’t solve the problem completely does not prevent it from being a good first step.

Rich athletes from wealthier countries will always have access to the latest, highest quality performance enhancers. On the other side, athletes from poorer countries which do not have the same medical and scientific advances will not be able to keep up. They will always be at a disadvantage regardless of whether performance enhancing drugs are legal or not.

If we were to look at the two possible outcomes we would see that allowing both males and females to compete against each other would actively decrease discrimination. This happens as, in this situation, we perceive the two sexes as being equal, able to compete against each other, both beginning the race from the same starting line, whereas the alternative would be to draw an imaginary barrier between the two sexes claiming that they are so far apart that competition between them would be futile. Those women who come on top on several occasions, such as Danica Patrick who has won NASCAR competitions (1) will show that all those stereotypes are wrong and that they should have been long forgotten. Of course there will be a lot of women who won’t be able to win anything, but the entire spotlight and all the media coverage will be on the ones who will, so they’ll be getting the lion’s share of media attention. As a result, successful stories of women defeating men in their leagues will come as a megaphone for promoting gender equality in society.

(1) Esteban “9 Female Athletes Who Competed Against Men”, Total Pros Sports, October 28, 2011 http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/10/28/9-female-athletes-who-competed-against-men/

Simple analogy: If a person were to kill himself for the sake of entertaining the crowd, this act would still be considered illegal by the government and efforts to hinder and discourage it would be created.

An appropriate example is the one of dangers of alcohol and tobacco, which were not known until after they had become normalized in society. Once the dangers were known, the public were so used to it, that they wouldn’t condone a ban by the State. If alcohol were introduced tomorrow it would be banned, as shown by the attitude towards narcotics and steroid use has shown. Governments have tried to reduce sales by having high levels of tax on tobacco and alcohol anyway. Moreover many states are restricting choice in tobacco and alcohol by introducing limited bans, such as on smoking in public places. The proposition cannot use the fact that tobacco and alcohol are legal as a defense of the use of drugs. This should be seen as an equally detrimental act and thus illegal.

Sport is dangerous. Today’s athletes decide to endanger their lives by participating in sports all the time. They decide to participate in sports with the informed decision that they might get hurt as it is part of the sport. Performance enhancing drugs are no different.

In the USA every year there are nearly 300,000 sports-related traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). Athletes involved in sports such as football, hockey and boxing are at significant risk of TBI due to the high level of contact inherent in these sports. Head injuries are also extremely common in sports such as cycling, baseball, basketball and skateboarding. Many head injuries acquired, playing these sports, lead to permanent brain damage or worse. Yet we do not impose a law to ban athletes from participating in those sports. We trust their assessment of risk (1).

All about Traumatic Brain Injuries: http://www.allabouttbi.com/sports-related-traumatic-brain-injury/ , accessed 05/15/2011

The media can and often is used as a tool for public policy. Examples of this include the broadcasting of public information campaigns against drink-driving or smoking or else bans on certain advertising such as smoking advertisements or sponsorship appearing on TV.[1] What’s more the government has a huge influence in what it deems to be worthwhile news or television programs and documentaries. This is because of the existence of state controlled media organisations, like the BBC, and on a more subtle level, with the imposition on restrictions as to what can and cannot be published or broadcast.

The media coverage inequality between women and men’s sport is a different issue to that made out by the opposition. Floods in Queensland Australia are more relevant to Australians than Europeans because they are more likely to have been affected by them. Women’s sports, however, are potentially as relevant to people’s lives as men’s sports. The increased participation in women’s sport indicates that media coverage is likely to be relevant to more and more people. Even if this was not the case women’s sport should still get air time; with the internet and digital TV it is wrong to suggest that more coverage of women’s sport will come at the expense of men’s sports as there is enough airspace.

[1] ‘Law ends UK tobacco sponsorship’, BBC News, 31 July 2005.

The government can to a degree cover for any potential drop in funding from private sector sources. Focus can remain on developing grass-roots and sports at schools in order to incentivise new generations of athletes, so the harms mentioned by the opposition will by and large not occur. In time, popularity of women’s sport will increase such that it will once again attract large lucrative TV rights deals and large investments from sponsors.

It must also be mentioned that the opposition to an extent present a false dichotomy with their argument. Increased coverage of women’s sport need not take valuable air time away from more popular men’s sport in the way the opposition claims. Matches can be scheduled so that they do not clash with each other, and more TV channels can be created (such as the BBC’s red button service). Additionally, air-time is often packed trivial stories and programs other than popular men’s sporting events. Examples from American TV include reports ‘on supremely unhealthy hamburgers on sale at a minor league baseball parks or basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s contest with a 93-year-old woman’ [1]. Such programs could easily and painlessly be replaced with women’s sporting news or live broadcasting.

[1] Deggans, Eric: “Continued apathy by sports media toward women’s sport a bigger problem than first meets the eye”, National Sports Journalism Centre, June 8 2010.

It is true that it is difficult to decide where to draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate performance enhancement. However we should continue to draw a line nonetheless. This line should be drawn at protecting athletes from harmful drugs and preserving the spirit of fair play and unaided competition between human beings in their peak of natural fitness.

The special diet and sport training equipment, which may seem very hard and exeptional, have been designed based on serious scientific research proved and tested to fit with long-term training of athletes. Hard practice to achieve the best performance with help of these professional methods is completely a different from taking steroids and growth hormones for immediate result.

Bullfighting is not about torturing for enjoyment; clean and quick kills are what is prized most by the bullfighting community. If a matador fails to deliver such a kill, and the bull suffers needlessly, then he will be jeered and shamed. This dynamic demonstrates a clear sense of decency within the bullfighting community.(8)

It is naïve to pretend that the alternative for bulls and cows is a long, happy life in the meadows and then a natural death. Rather, bulls and cows are kept and bred for their meat and eventual slaughter, a process which can be made to seem just as horrific as bullfighting if the same descriptive language is used. There is no significant moral difference between watching a bull die in a bullfight for enjoyment and having a cow killed to make meat so people can enjoy eating it. Must not it be so, according to Bentham's logic, that eating meat for enjoyment displays as much 'want of humanity' as bullfighting? Indeed, in many ways bullfighting is at least more honest: the violence is clear and there for all to see, whereas the death of the cow is hidden from the consumer of a hamburger. Bullfighting is in no way uniquely cruel or even more cruel than eating meat, and so to ban it would be unjustified.

The six-plus-five plan is not banned under EU law. Although it would be illegal to stop clubs in Europe from employing as many overseas players as they wish, this is not what the plan proposes. It simply puts a limit of five on how many foreign players can start a game – so clubs can employ as many foreigners as they want, they just can’t play more than five of them at the same time. Given the tactical use of reserves and the squad rotation common in modern football, clubs are likely to keep signing overseas players. But under FIFA’s plan domestic players will still be given more of a chance than they are now. As the head of the Institute of European Affairs states: "The key aim of the six-plus-five rule in the view of the experts is the creation and assurance of sporting competition. The six-plus-five rule does not impinge on the core area of the right to freedom of movement. The rule is merely a rule of the game declared in the general interest of sport in order to improve the sporting balance between clubs and associations" [1]

[1] Times Online. (2009, February 26). Fifa's six-plus-five rule is not illegal, claims report. Retrieved May 10, 2011, from Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article58...

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
There is no distinction between "natural" and synthetic methods of performance enhancement

The natural/unnatural distinction is untenable. Already athletes use all sorts of dietary supplements, exercises, equipment, clothing, training regimes, medical treatments, etc. to enhance their performance. There is nothing ‘natural’ about taking vitamin pills, wearing whole-body Lycra suits, having surgery on ligaments, spending every day in a gym pumping weights or running in shoes with spikes on the bottom. Diet, medicine, technology, and even just coaching already give an artificial advantage to those athletes who can afford the best of all these aids. Since there is no clear way to distinguish from legitimate and illegitimate artificial aids to performance, they should all be allowed. So taking these drugs is no more unnatural than what happens today.

A practical example of an unnatural aid is the Speedo worn in 2008 at the Beijing Olympics. FINA, the world governing body of swimming was concerned about the extraordinary statistics in Beijing where swimmers wearing the Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit won 90 per cent of all available medals and broke 23 world records. Since Speedo launched the suit in 2008, 108 world records have fallen (until February 2009) (1).

Simon Hart, Swimwear giant Speedo hit back at 'unfair advantage' claims, 02/19/2009,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/swimming/4699498/Swimwear-giant-Speedo-hit-back-at-unfair-advantage-claims.html ,accessed 15/05/2011

It is true that it is difficult to decide where to draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate performance enhancement. However we should continue to draw a line nonetheless. This line should be drawn at protecting athletes from harmful drugs and preserving the spirit of fair play and unaided competition between human beings in their peak of natural fitness.

The special diet and sport training equipment, which may seem very hard and exeptional, have been designed based on serious scientific research proved and tested to fit with long-term training of athletes. Hard practice to achieve the best performance with help of these professional methods is completely a different from taking steroids and growth hormones for immediate result.

There is already a problem with talented teenagers from Africa and other poorer countries being recruited by rich European clubs to train at their academies. This takes them far away from family and friends and ties them into long contracts they don’t understand – some have called it a form of slavery. And if they get injured or turn out to be not quite good enough, then they can be thrown out without proper support. At the same time, poorer footballing countries are deprived of many of their most promising players, without even getting the transfer money paid when adult players move to a new club overseas. The FIFA plan is a step towards preventing such exploitation, the fact it doesn’t solve the problem completely does not prevent it from being a good first step.

If we were to look at the two possible outcomes we would see that allowing both males and females to compete against each other would actively decrease discrimination. This happens as, in this situation, we perceive the two sexes as being equal, able to compete against each other, both beginning the race from the same starting line, whereas the alternative would be to draw an imaginary barrier between the two sexes claiming that they are so far apart that competition between them would be futile. Those women who come on top on several occasions, such as Danica Patrick who has won NASCAR competitions (1) will show that all those stereotypes are wrong and that they should have been long forgotten. Of course there will be a lot of women who won’t be able to win anything, but the entire spotlight and all the media coverage will be on the ones who will, so they’ll be getting the lion’s share of media attention. As a result, successful stories of women defeating men in their leagues will come as a megaphone for promoting gender equality in society.

(1) Esteban “9 Female Athletes Who Competed Against Men”, Total Pros Sports, October 28, 2011 http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/10/28/9-female-athletes-who-competed-against-men/

The media can and often is used as a tool for public policy. Examples of this include the broadcasting of public information campaigns against drink-driving or smoking or else bans on certain advertising such as smoking advertisements or sponsorship appearing on TV.[1] What’s more the government has a huge influence in what it deems to be worthwhile news or television programs and documentaries. This is because of the existence of state controlled media organisations, like the BBC, and on a more subtle level, with the imposition on restrictions as to what can and cannot be published or broadcast.

The media coverage inequality between women and men’s sport is a different issue to that made out by the opposition. Floods in Queensland Australia are more relevant to Australians than Europeans because they are more likely to have been affected by them. Women’s sports, however, are potentially as relevant to people’s lives as men’s sports. The increased participation in women’s sport indicates that media coverage is likely to be relevant to more and more people. Even if this was not the case women’s sport should still get air time; with the internet and digital TV it is wrong to suggest that more coverage of women’s sport will come at the expense of men’s sports as there is enough airspace.

[1] ‘Law ends UK tobacco sponsorship’, BBC News, 31 July 2005.

The government can to a degree cover for any potential drop in funding from private sector sources. Focus can remain on developing grass-roots and sports at schools in order to incentivise new generations of athletes, so the harms mentioned by the opposition will by and large not occur. In time, popularity of women’s sport will increase such that it will once again attract large lucrative TV rights deals and large investments from sponsors.

It must also be mentioned that the opposition to an extent present a false dichotomy with their argument. Increased coverage of women’s sport need not take valuable air time away from more popular men’s sport in the way the opposition claims. Matches can be scheduled so that they do not clash with each other, and more TV channels can be created (such as the BBC’s red button service). Additionally, air-time is often packed trivial stories and programs other than popular men’s sporting events. Examples from American TV include reports ‘on supremely unhealthy hamburgers on sale at a minor league baseball parks or basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s contest with a 93-year-old woman’ [1]. Such programs could easily and painlessly be replaced with women’s sporting news or live broadcasting.

[1] Deggans, Eric: “Continued apathy by sports media toward women’s sport a bigger problem than first meets the eye”, National Sports Journalism Centre, June 8 2010.

Football has operated successfully for over 100 years without GLT. Two assistant referees were introduced in 1891, 28 years after the rules of association football were coined; a fourth official was introduced in 1991; and FIFA recently introduced two additional assistant referees in Europa League games. Football has demonstrated that it is willing and capable to adjust to the demands of wider exposure without having to resort to GLT.

Bullfighting is not about torturing for enjoyment; clean and quick kills are what is prized most by the bullfighting community. If a matador fails to deliver such a kill, and the bull suffers needlessly, then he will be jeered and shamed. This dynamic demonstrates a clear sense of decency within the bullfighting community.(8)

It is naïve to pretend that the alternative for bulls and cows is a long, happy life in the meadows and then a natural death. Rather, bulls and cows are kept and bred for their meat and eventual slaughter, a process which can be made to seem just as horrific as bullfighting if the same descriptive language is used. There is no significant moral difference between watching a bull die in a bullfight for enjoyment and having a cow killed to make meat so people can enjoy eating it. Must not it be so, according to Bentham's logic, that eating meat for enjoyment displays as much 'want of humanity' as bullfighting? Indeed, in many ways bullfighting is at least more honest: the violence is clear and there for all to see, whereas the death of the cow is hidden from the consumer of a hamburger. Bullfighting is in no way uniquely cruel or even more cruel than eating meat, and so to ban it would be unjustified.

The six-plus-five plan is not banned under EU law. Although it would be illegal to stop clubs in Europe from employing as many overseas players as they wish, this is not what the plan proposes. It simply puts a limit of five on how many foreign players can start a game – so clubs can employ as many foreigners as they want, they just can’t play more than five of them at the same time. Given the tactical use of reserves and the squad rotation common in modern football, clubs are likely to keep signing overseas players. But under FIFA’s plan domestic players will still be given more of a chance than they are now. As the head of the Institute of European Affairs states: "The key aim of the six-plus-five rule in the view of the experts is the creation and assurance of sporting competition. The six-plus-five rule does not impinge on the core area of the right to freedom of movement. The rule is merely a rule of the game declared in the general interest of sport in order to improve the sporting balance between clubs and associations" [1]

[1] Times Online. (2009, February 26). Fifa's six-plus-five rule is not illegal, claims report. Retrieved May 10, 2011, from Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article58...

Local loyalties went out of the game years ago – it isn’t just overseas players who change clubs often in search of higher wages. Everyone agrees that when teams were only full of local boys the standard of play was worse. And strong local loyalties aren’t always good – they used to spill over into hooliganism as the fans from rival clubs fought. More overseas players in football, many with different colour skins, have helped reduce nationalism and racism in society.

If a play is part of a longer sequence of events, then don’t use video review for that play. Only permit it for when the ball is dead or play stops immediately upon the conclusion of the play. Continuation plays can easily be placed outside the scope of instant replay.

Also, there’s no such thing as “normative” calls on a play. If an umpire deems a “phantom tag” sufficient for an out, he is making an incorrect call. The rules do not allow for phantom tags. If instant replay puts an end to this practice, so much the better.

It should not be dependent on one man or one woman to carry the weight of the nation upon their shoulders. Winning the world cup should not be about just whether an individual plays or not but about the team. Even in the Olympics one individual’s performance makes little difference in most cases to the whole of the team.

Good results may lift a nation but it is wrong to suggest that this should mean that everyone who is called on to represent their nation should have to answer that call. It is up to the coaches and managers to make the best use of the men and women they do have.

Moreover if a country is relying on one individual then they are almost certainly putting too much pressure on them. Instead the country needs to focus on broadening the base of the team by finding more talent so that no one individual is irreplaceable. It should be remembered that individuals are far more often unable to take part in international competition as a result of injury or other reasons rather than a refusal to represent their country.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Controlling, rather than ignoring, performance enhancing substances will improve competitive standards in sport

The use of performance enhancing drugs is based on advances in science. When new drugs and therapies are found, athletes turn to them and as a result are much of the time ahead of the anti-doping organizations, which need to develop methods of athlete testing whenever a new drug that is meant to be untraceable is created. In 2008 it was a big shock when Riccardo Ricco (a cyclist) was caught using the performance-enhancing drug Mircera, which had been considered undetectable for a number of years.

The fact is that a ban of performance enhancing drugs enables mainly athletes from wealthy countries and teams that can afford the newest technology to go undetected, whilst others are disadvantaged (1). So because it gives an unfair advantage to the wealthy one who can pay for the undetectable drugs, we should legalize it.

Millard Baker, Riccardo Ricco Tests Positive

for Undetectable New Drug Mircera at 2008 Tour de France, 07/18/2008, http://steroidreport.com/2008/07/18/riccardo-ricco-and-mircera-pegylated-epo/ , accessed 05/20/2011

Rich athletes from wealthier countries will always have access to the latest, highest quality performance enhancers. On the other side, athletes from poorer countries which do not have the same medical and scientific advances will not be able to keep up. They will always be at a disadvantage regardless of whether performance enhancing drugs are legal or not.

There is already a problem with talented teenagers from Africa and other poorer countries being recruited by rich European clubs to train at their academies. This takes them far away from family and friends and ties them into long contracts they don’t understand – some have called it a form of slavery. And if they get injured or turn out to be not quite good enough, then they can be thrown out without proper support. At the same time, poorer footballing countries are deprived of many of their most promising players, without even getting the transfer money paid when adult players move to a new club overseas. The FIFA plan is a step towards preventing such exploitation, the fact it doesn’t solve the problem completely does not prevent it from being a good first step.

If we were to look at the two possible outcomes we would see that allowing both males and females to compete against each other would actively decrease discrimination. This happens as, in this situation, we perceive the two sexes as being equal, able to compete against each other, both beginning the race from the same starting line, whereas the alternative would be to draw an imaginary barrier between the two sexes claiming that they are so far apart that competition between them would be futile. Those women who come on top on several occasions, such as Danica Patrick who has won NASCAR competitions (1) will show that all those stereotypes are wrong and that they should have been long forgotten. Of course there will be a lot of women who won’t be able to win anything, but the entire spotlight and all the media coverage will be on the ones who will, so they’ll be getting the lion’s share of media attention. As a result, successful stories of women defeating men in their leagues will come as a megaphone for promoting gender equality in society.

(1) Esteban “9 Female Athletes Who Competed Against Men”, Total Pros Sports, October 28, 2011 http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/10/28/9-female-athletes-who-competed-against-men/

The media can and often is used as a tool for public policy. Examples of this include the broadcasting of public information campaigns against drink-driving or smoking or else bans on certain advertising such as smoking advertisements or sponsorship appearing on TV.[1] What’s more the government has a huge influence in what it deems to be worthwhile news or television programs and documentaries. This is because of the existence of state controlled media organisations, like the BBC, and on a more subtle level, with the imposition on restrictions as to what can and cannot be published or broadcast.

The media coverage inequality between women and men’s sport is a different issue to that made out by the opposition. Floods in Queensland Australia are more relevant to Australians than Europeans because they are more likely to have been affected by them. Women’s sports, however, are potentially as relevant to people’s lives as men’s sports. The increased participation in women’s sport indicates that media coverage is likely to be relevant to more and more people. Even if this was not the case women’s sport should still get air time; with the internet and digital TV it is wrong to suggest that more coverage of women’s sport will come at the expense of men’s sports as there is enough airspace.

[1] ‘Law ends UK tobacco sponsorship’, BBC News, 31 July 2005.

The government can to a degree cover for any potential drop in funding from private sector sources. Focus can remain on developing grass-roots and sports at schools in order to incentivise new generations of athletes, so the harms mentioned by the opposition will by and large not occur. In time, popularity of women’s sport will increase such that it will once again attract large lucrative TV rights deals and large investments from sponsors.

It must also be mentioned that the opposition to an extent present a false dichotomy with their argument. Increased coverage of women’s sport need not take valuable air time away from more popular men’s sport in the way the opposition claims. Matches can be scheduled so that they do not clash with each other, and more TV channels can be created (such as the BBC’s red button service). Additionally, air-time is often packed trivial stories and programs other than popular men’s sporting events. Examples from American TV include reports ‘on supremely unhealthy hamburgers on sale at a minor league baseball parks or basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s contest with a 93-year-old woman’ [1]. Such programs could easily and painlessly be replaced with women’s sporting news or live broadcasting.

[1] Deggans, Eric: “Continued apathy by sports media toward women’s sport a bigger problem than first meets the eye”, National Sports Journalism Centre, June 8 2010.

Football has operated successfully for over 100 years without GLT. Two assistant referees were introduced in 1891, 28 years after the rules of association football were coined; a fourth official was introduced in 1991; and FIFA recently introduced two additional assistant referees in Europa League games. Football has demonstrated that it is willing and capable to adjust to the demands of wider exposure without having to resort to GLT.

Bullfighting is not about torturing for enjoyment; clean and quick kills are what is prized most by the bullfighting community. If a matador fails to deliver such a kill, and the bull suffers needlessly, then he will be jeered and shamed. This dynamic demonstrates a clear sense of decency within the bullfighting community.(8)

It is naïve to pretend that the alternative for bulls and cows is a long, happy life in the meadows and then a natural death. Rather, bulls and cows are kept and bred for their meat and eventual slaughter, a process which can be made to seem just as horrific as bullfighting if the same descriptive language is used. There is no significant moral difference between watching a bull die in a bullfight for enjoyment and having a cow killed to make meat so people can enjoy eating it. Must not it be so, according to Bentham's logic, that eating meat for enjoyment displays as much 'want of humanity' as bullfighting? Indeed, in many ways bullfighting is at least more honest: the violence is clear and there for all to see, whereas the death of the cow is hidden from the consumer of a hamburger. Bullfighting is in no way uniquely cruel or even more cruel than eating meat, and so to ban it would be unjustified.

The six-plus-five plan is not banned under EU law. Although it would be illegal to stop clubs in Europe from employing as many overseas players as they wish, this is not what the plan proposes. It simply puts a limit of five on how many foreign players can start a game – so clubs can employ as many foreigners as they want, they just can’t play more than five of them at the same time. Given the tactical use of reserves and the squad rotation common in modern football, clubs are likely to keep signing overseas players. But under FIFA’s plan domestic players will still be given more of a chance than they are now. As the head of the Institute of European Affairs states: "The key aim of the six-plus-five rule in the view of the experts is the creation and assurance of sporting competition. The six-plus-five rule does not impinge on the core area of the right to freedom of movement. The rule is merely a rule of the game declared in the general interest of sport in order to improve the sporting balance between clubs and associations" [1]

[1] Times Online. (2009, February 26). Fifa's six-plus-five rule is not illegal, claims report. Retrieved May 10, 2011, from Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article58...

Local loyalties went out of the game years ago – it isn’t just overseas players who change clubs often in search of higher wages. Everyone agrees that when teams were only full of local boys the standard of play was worse. And strong local loyalties aren’t always good – they used to spill over into hooliganism as the fans from rival clubs fought. More overseas players in football, many with different colour skins, have helped reduce nationalism and racism in society.

If a play is part of a longer sequence of events, then don’t use video review for that play. Only permit it for when the ball is dead or play stops immediately upon the conclusion of the play. Continuation plays can easily be placed outside the scope of instant replay.

Also, there’s no such thing as “normative” calls on a play. If an umpire deems a “phantom tag” sufficient for an out, he is making an incorrect call. The rules do not allow for phantom tags. If instant replay puts an end to this practice, so much the better.

It should not be dependent on one man or one woman to carry the weight of the nation upon their shoulders. Winning the world cup should not be about just whether an individual plays or not but about the team. Even in the Olympics one individual’s performance makes little difference in most cases to the whole of the team.

Good results may lift a nation but it is wrong to suggest that this should mean that everyone who is called on to represent their nation should have to answer that call. It is up to the coaches and managers to make the best use of the men and women they do have.

Moreover if a country is relying on one individual then they are almost certainly putting too much pressure on them. Instead the country needs to focus on broadening the base of the team by finding more talent so that no one individual is irreplaceable. It should be remembered that individuals are far more often unable to take part in international competition as a result of injury or other reasons rather than a refusal to represent their country.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Athletes should be free to take risks when training and competing

Freedom of choice: If athletes wish to take drugs in search of improved performances, let them do so. They harm nobody but themselves and should be treated as adults, capable of making rational decisions upon the basis of widely-available information.

Even if there are adverse health effects in the long-term, this is also true of tobacco, alcohol and boxing, which remain legal. We allow world class athletes to train for 23 hours a week (on average), adjust their diets and endanger themselves by pushing the boundaries of their body. We let them do it, because it is what they chose which is best for them. According to the NFL Player Association the average life expectancy of an NFL player is 58 years of age (1). Thus already we allow athletes to endanger their lives, give them the choice of a lifestyle. Why not also extend this moral precedent to drugs?

Judd Bissiotto, 15 Surprising facts about world athletes,

http://strengthplanet.com/other/15-surprising-facts-about-world-class-athletes.htm , accessed 05/18/2011

Simple analogy: If a person were to kill himself for the sake of entertaining the crowd, this act would still be considered illegal by the government and efforts to hinder and discourage it would be created.

An appropriate example is the one of dangers of alcohol and tobacco, which were not known until after they had become normalized in society. Once the dangers were known, the public were so used to it, that they wouldn’t condone a ban by the State. If alcohol were introduced tomorrow it would be banned, as shown by the attitude towards narcotics and steroid use has shown. Governments have tried to reduce sales by having high levels of tax on tobacco and alcohol anyway. Moreover many states are restricting choice in tobacco and alcohol by introducing limited bans, such as on smoking in public places. The proposition cannot use the fact that tobacco and alcohol are legal as a defense of the use of drugs. This should be seen as an equally detrimental act and thus illegal.

There is already a problem with talented teenagers from Africa and other poorer countries being recruited by rich European clubs to train at their academies. This takes them far away from family and friends and ties them into long contracts they don’t understand – some have called it a form of slavery. And if they get injured or turn out to be not quite good enough, then they can be thrown out without proper support. At the same time, poorer footballing countries are deprived of many of their most promising players, without even getting the transfer money paid when adult players move to a new club overseas. The FIFA plan is a step towards preventing such exploitation, the fact it doesn’t solve the problem completely does not prevent it from being a good first step.

If we were to look at the two possible outcomes we would see that allowing both males and females to compete against each other would actively decrease discrimination. This happens as, in this situation, we perceive the two sexes as being equal, able to compete against each other, both beginning the race from the same starting line, whereas the alternative would be to draw an imaginary barrier between the two sexes claiming that they are so far apart that competition between them would be futile. Those women who come on top on several occasions, such as Danica Patrick who has won NASCAR competitions (1) will show that all those stereotypes are wrong and that they should have been long forgotten. Of course there will be a lot of women who won’t be able to win anything, but the entire spotlight and all the media coverage will be on the ones who will, so they’ll be getting the lion’s share of media attention. As a result, successful stories of women defeating men in their leagues will come as a megaphone for promoting gender equality in society.

(1) Esteban “9 Female Athletes Who Competed Against Men”, Total Pros Sports, October 28, 2011 http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/10/28/9-female-athletes-who-competed-against-men/

The media can and often is used as a tool for public policy. Examples of this include the broadcasting of public information campaigns against drink-driving or smoking or else bans on certain advertising such as smoking advertisements or sponsorship appearing on TV.[1] What’s more the government has a huge influence in what it deems to be worthwhile news or television programs and documentaries. This is because of the existence of state controlled media organisations, like the BBC, and on a more subtle level, with the imposition on restrictions as to what can and cannot be published or broadcast.

The media coverage inequality between women and men’s sport is a different issue to that made out by the opposition. Floods in Queensland Australia are more relevant to Australians than Europeans because they are more likely to have been affected by them. Women’s sports, however, are potentially as relevant to people’s lives as men’s sports. The increased participation in women’s sport indicates that media coverage is likely to be relevant to more and more people. Even if this was not the case women’s sport should still get air time; with the internet and digital TV it is wrong to suggest that more coverage of women’s sport will come at the expense of men’s sports as there is enough airspace.

[1] ‘Law ends UK tobacco sponsorship’, BBC News, 31 July 2005.

The government can to a degree cover for any potential drop in funding from private sector sources. Focus can remain on developing grass-roots and sports at schools in order to incentivise new generations of athletes, so the harms mentioned by the opposition will by and large not occur. In time, popularity of women’s sport will increase such that it will once again attract large lucrative TV rights deals and large investments from sponsors.

It must also be mentioned that the opposition to an extent present a false dichotomy with their argument. Increased coverage of women’s sport need not take valuable air time away from more popular men’s sport in the way the opposition claims. Matches can be scheduled so that they do not clash with each other, and more TV channels can be created (such as the BBC’s red button service). Additionally, air-time is often packed trivial stories and programs other than popular men’s sporting events. Examples from American TV include reports ‘on supremely unhealthy hamburgers on sale at a minor league baseball parks or basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s contest with a 93-year-old woman’ [1]. Such programs could easily and painlessly be replaced with women’s sporting news or live broadcasting.

[1] Deggans, Eric: “Continued apathy by sports media toward women’s sport a bigger problem than first meets the eye”, National Sports Journalism Centre, June 8 2010.

Football has operated successfully for over 100 years without GLT. Two assistant referees were introduced in 1891, 28 years after the rules of association football were coined; a fourth official was introduced in 1991; and FIFA recently introduced two additional assistant referees in Europa League games. Football has demonstrated that it is willing and capable to adjust to the demands of wider exposure without having to resort to GLT.

Bullfighting is not about torturing for enjoyment; clean and quick kills are what is prized most by the bullfighting community. If a matador fails to deliver such a kill, and the bull suffers needlessly, then he will be jeered and shamed. This dynamic demonstrates a clear sense of decency within the bullfighting community.(8)

It is naïve to pretend that the alternative for bulls and cows is a long, happy life in the meadows and then a natural death. Rather, bulls and cows are kept and bred for their meat and eventual slaughter, a process which can be made to seem just as horrific as bullfighting if the same descriptive language is used. There is no significant moral difference between watching a bull die in a bullfight for enjoyment and having a cow killed to make meat so people can enjoy eating it. Must not it be so, according to Bentham's logic, that eating meat for enjoyment displays as much 'want of humanity' as bullfighting? Indeed, in many ways bullfighting is at least more honest: the violence is clear and there for all to see, whereas the death of the cow is hidden from the consumer of a hamburger. Bullfighting is in no way uniquely cruel or even more cruel than eating meat, and so to ban it would be unjustified.

The six-plus-five plan is not banned under EU law. Although it would be illegal to stop clubs in Europe from employing as many overseas players as they wish, this is not what the plan proposes. It simply puts a limit of five on how many foreign players can start a game – so clubs can employ as many foreigners as they want, they just can’t play more than five of them at the same time. Given the tactical use of reserves and the squad rotation common in modern football, clubs are likely to keep signing overseas players. But under FIFA’s plan domestic players will still be given more of a chance than they are now. As the head of the Institute of European Affairs states: "The key aim of the six-plus-five rule in the view of the experts is the creation and assurance of sporting competition. The six-plus-five rule does not impinge on the core area of the right to freedom of movement. The rule is merely a rule of the game declared in the general interest of sport in order to improve the sporting balance between clubs and associations" [1]

[1] Times Online. (2009, February 26). Fifa's six-plus-five rule is not illegal, claims report. Retrieved May 10, 2011, from Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article58...

Local loyalties went out of the game years ago – it isn’t just overseas players who change clubs often in search of higher wages. Everyone agrees that when teams were only full of local boys the standard of play was worse. And strong local loyalties aren’t always good – they used to spill over into hooliganism as the fans from rival clubs fought. More overseas players in football, many with different colour skins, have helped reduce nationalism and racism in society.

If a play is part of a longer sequence of events, then don’t use video review for that play. Only permit it for when the ball is dead or play stops immediately upon the conclusion of the play. Continuation plays can easily be placed outside the scope of instant replay.

Also, there’s no such thing as “normative” calls on a play. If an umpire deems a “phantom tag” sufficient for an out, he is making an incorrect call. The rules do not allow for phantom tags. If instant replay puts an end to this practice, so much the better.

It should not be dependent on one man or one woman to carry the weight of the nation upon their shoulders. Winning the world cup should not be about just whether an individual plays or not but about the team. Even in the Olympics one individual’s performance makes little difference in most cases to the whole of the team.

Good results may lift a nation but it is wrong to suggest that this should mean that everyone who is called on to represent their nation should have to answer that call. It is up to the coaches and managers to make the best use of the men and women they do have.

Moreover if a country is relying on one individual then they are almost certainly putting too much pressure on them. Instead the country needs to focus on broadening the base of the team by finding more talent so that no one individual is irreplaceable. It should be remembered that individuals are far more often unable to take part in international competition as a result of injury or other reasons rather than a refusal to represent their country.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Improving safety standards in sport

It does not take a lot for chemists to produce performance enhancing drugs, the Scientific American reports: “Rogue scientists start with testosterone or its commercially available analogues and then make minor structural modifications to yield similarly active derivatives.” The underground chemists make no effort to test their creations for effectiveness or safety, of course. Production of a simple new steroid compound would require "lab equipment costing maybe $50,000 to $100,000,". Depending on the number of chemical reactions needed for synthesis, "some of them could be made in a week or two. Others might take six months to a year."(1) As a result of legalizing performance-enhancing drugs a backstreet industry can become regulated as a result there will be much more control and testing to ensure the health and safety of the athletes who take the drugs.

Steven Ashley, Doping by Design, Scientific American 01/12/2004, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=doping-by-design , accessed 05/19/2011

There will always be a black market for cheaper or for new untested drugs that will give an athlete an edge before others have a chance to try it. Legalization is therefore unlikely to result in large health benefits as the competitiveness of sport will always result in athletes being willing to take a risk.

There is already a problem with talented teenagers from Africa and other poorer countries being recruited by rich European clubs to train at their academies. This takes them far away from family and friends and ties them into long contracts they don’t understand – some have called it a form of slavery. And if they get injured or turn out to be not quite good enough, then they can be thrown out without proper support. At the same time, poorer footballing countries are deprived of many of their most promising players, without even getting the transfer money paid when adult players move to a new club overseas. The FIFA plan is a step towards preventing such exploitation, the fact it doesn’t solve the problem completely does not prevent it from being a good first step.

If we were to look at the two possible outcomes we would see that allowing both males and females to compete against each other would actively decrease discrimination. This happens as, in this situation, we perceive the two sexes as being equal, able to compete against each other, both beginning the race from the same starting line, whereas the alternative would be to draw an imaginary barrier between the two sexes claiming that they are so far apart that competition between them would be futile. Those women who come on top on several occasions, such as Danica Patrick who has won NASCAR competitions (1) will show that all those stereotypes are wrong and that they should have been long forgotten. Of course there will be a lot of women who won’t be able to win anything, but the entire spotlight and all the media coverage will be on the ones who will, so they’ll be getting the lion’s share of media attention. As a result, successful stories of women defeating men in their leagues will come as a megaphone for promoting gender equality in society.

(1) Esteban “9 Female Athletes Who Competed Against Men”, Total Pros Sports, October 28, 2011 http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/10/28/9-female-athletes-who-competed-against-men/

The media can and often is used as a tool for public policy. Examples of this include the broadcasting of public information campaigns against drink-driving or smoking or else bans on certain advertising such as smoking advertisements or sponsorship appearing on TV.[1] What’s more the government has a huge influence in what it deems to be worthwhile news or television programs and documentaries. This is because of the existence of state controlled media organisations, like the BBC, and on a more subtle level, with the imposition on restrictions as to what can and cannot be published or broadcast.

The media coverage inequality between women and men’s sport is a different issue to that made out by the opposition. Floods in Queensland Australia are more relevant to Australians than Europeans because they are more likely to have been affected by them. Women’s sports, however, are potentially as relevant to people’s lives as men’s sports. The increased participation in women’s sport indicates that media coverage is likely to be relevant to more and more people. Even if this was not the case women’s sport should still get air time; with the internet and digital TV it is wrong to suggest that more coverage of women’s sport will come at the expense of men’s sports as there is enough airspace.

[1] ‘Law ends UK tobacco sponsorship’, BBC News, 31 July 2005.

The government can to a degree cover for any potential drop in funding from private sector sources. Focus can remain on developing grass-roots and sports at schools in order to incentivise new generations of athletes, so the harms mentioned by the opposition will by and large not occur. In time, popularity of women’s sport will increase such that it will once again attract large lucrative TV rights deals and large investments from sponsors.

It must also be mentioned that the opposition to an extent present a false dichotomy with their argument. Increased coverage of women’s sport need not take valuable air time away from more popular men’s sport in the way the opposition claims. Matches can be scheduled so that they do not clash with each other, and more TV channels can be created (such as the BBC’s red button service). Additionally, air-time is often packed trivial stories and programs other than popular men’s sporting events. Examples from American TV include reports ‘on supremely unhealthy hamburgers on sale at a minor league baseball parks or basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s contest with a 93-year-old woman’ [1]. Such programs could easily and painlessly be replaced with women’s sporting news or live broadcasting.

[1] Deggans, Eric: “Continued apathy by sports media toward women’s sport a bigger problem than first meets the eye”, National Sports Journalism Centre, June 8 2010.

Football has operated successfully for over 100 years without GLT. Two assistant referees were introduced in 1891, 28 years after the rules of association football were coined; a fourth official was introduced in 1991; and FIFA recently introduced two additional assistant referees in Europa League games. Football has demonstrated that it is willing and capable to adjust to the demands of wider exposure without having to resort to GLT.

Bullfighting is not about torturing for enjoyment; clean and quick kills are what is prized most by the bullfighting community. If a matador fails to deliver such a kill, and the bull suffers needlessly, then he will be jeered and shamed. This dynamic demonstrates a clear sense of decency within the bullfighting community.(8)

It is naïve to pretend that the alternative for bulls and cows is a long, happy life in the meadows and then a natural death. Rather, bulls and cows are kept and bred for their meat and eventual slaughter, a process which can be made to seem just as horrific as bullfighting if the same descriptive language is used. There is no significant moral difference between watching a bull die in a bullfight for enjoyment and having a cow killed to make meat so people can enjoy eating it. Must not it be so, according to Bentham's logic, that eating meat for enjoyment displays as much 'want of humanity' as bullfighting? Indeed, in many ways bullfighting is at least more honest: the violence is clear and there for all to see, whereas the death of the cow is hidden from the consumer of a hamburger. Bullfighting is in no way uniquely cruel or even more cruel than eating meat, and so to ban it would be unjustified.

The six-plus-five plan is not banned under EU law. Although it would be illegal to stop clubs in Europe from employing as many overseas players as they wish, this is not what the plan proposes. It simply puts a limit of five on how many foreign players can start a game – so clubs can employ as many foreigners as they want, they just can’t play more than five of them at the same time. Given the tactical use of reserves and the squad rotation common in modern football, clubs are likely to keep signing overseas players. But under FIFA’s plan domestic players will still be given more of a chance than they are now. As the head of the Institute of European Affairs states: "The key aim of the six-plus-five rule in the view of the experts is the creation and assurance of sporting competition. The six-plus-five rule does not impinge on the core area of the right to freedom of movement. The rule is merely a rule of the game declared in the general interest of sport in order to improve the sporting balance between clubs and associations" [1]

[1] Times Online. (2009, February 26). Fifa's six-plus-five rule is not illegal, claims report. Retrieved May 10, 2011, from Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article58...

Local loyalties went out of the game years ago – it isn’t just overseas players who change clubs often in search of higher wages. Everyone agrees that when teams were only full of local boys the standard of play was worse. And strong local loyalties aren’t always good – they used to spill over into hooliganism as the fans from rival clubs fought. More overseas players in football, many with different colour skins, have helped reduce nationalism and racism in society.

If a play is part of a longer sequence of events, then don’t use video review for that play. Only permit it for when the ball is dead or play stops immediately upon the conclusion of the play. Continuation plays can easily be placed outside the scope of instant replay.

Also, there’s no such thing as “normative” calls on a play. If an umpire deems a “phantom tag” sufficient for an out, he is making an incorrect call. The rules do not allow for phantom tags. If instant replay puts an end to this practice, so much the better.

It should not be dependent on one man or one woman to carry the weight of the nation upon their shoulders. Winning the world cup should not be about just whether an individual plays or not but about the team. Even in the Olympics one individual’s performance makes little difference in most cases to the whole of the team.

Good results may lift a nation but it is wrong to suggest that this should mean that everyone who is called on to represent their nation should have to answer that call. It is up to the coaches and managers to make the best use of the men and women they do have.

Moreover if a country is relying on one individual then they are almost certainly putting too much pressure on them. Instead the country needs to focus on broadening the base of the team by finding more talent so that no one individual is irreplaceable. It should be remembered that individuals are far more often unable to take part in international competition as a result of injury or other reasons rather than a refusal to represent their country.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Permitting the use of performace enhancers would have a coercive effect on athletes who would otherwise avoid drug use

Once some people choose to use drugs to enhance their performance, other athletes have their freedom of choice infringed upon: if they want to succeed they have to take drugs too. Athletes are very driven individuals, who would go to great lengths to achieve their goals. The chance of a gold medal in two years’ time may out-weigh the risks of serious health problems for the rest of their life. We should protect athletes from themselves and not allow anyone to take performance-enhancing drugs. An example of the pressure is cycling. The American Scientific magazine explains: “Game theory highlights why it is rational for professional cyclists to dope: the drugs are extremely effective as well as difficult or impossible to detect; the payoffs for success are high; and as more riders use them, a “clean” rider may become so noncompetitive that he or she risks being cut from the team.” (1)

Michael Shermer, The Dopping Dillema, 03/31/2008, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-doping-dilemma accessed 05/15/2011

There is no such thing as a forced decision. Everyone has complete control over their own body and their own decisions. Everyone has an absolute right to possession of one’s own body. If you own your body then you can choose what to do with it, and any exchange, such as money to an employer in exchange for use of your body (labour) is justified, because it was a voluntary exchange and you still possess yourself. If you choose to take drugs, you have not been forced into it no matter the peer pressure you may be under or that other having taken the drugs may make you uncompetitive.

There is already a problem with talented teenagers from Africa and other poorer countries being recruited by rich European clubs to train at their academies. This takes them far away from family and friends and ties them into long contracts they don’t understand – some have called it a form of slavery. And if they get injured or turn out to be not quite good enough, then they can be thrown out without proper support. At the same time, poorer footballing countries are deprived of many of their most promising players, without even getting the transfer money paid when adult players move to a new club overseas. The FIFA plan is a step towards preventing such exploitation, the fact it doesn’t solve the problem completely does not prevent it from being a good first step.

If we were to look at the two possible outcomes we would see that allowing both males and females to compete against each other would actively decrease discrimination. This happens as, in this situation, we perceive the two sexes as being equal, able to compete against each other, both beginning the race from the same starting line, whereas the alternative would be to draw an imaginary barrier between the two sexes claiming that they are so far apart that competition between them would be futile. Those women who come on top on several occasions, such as Danica Patrick who has won NASCAR competitions (1) will show that all those stereotypes are wrong and that they should have been long forgotten. Of course there will be a lot of women who won’t be able to win anything, but the entire spotlight and all the media coverage will be on the ones who will, so they’ll be getting the lion’s share of media attention. As a result, successful stories of women defeating men in their leagues will come as a megaphone for promoting gender equality in society.

(1) Esteban “9 Female Athletes Who Competed Against Men”, Total Pros Sports, October 28, 2011 http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/10/28/9-female-athletes-who-competed-against-men/

The media can and often is used as a tool for public policy. Examples of this include the broadcasting of public information campaigns against drink-driving or smoking or else bans on certain advertising such as smoking advertisements or sponsorship appearing on TV.[1] What’s more the government has a huge influence in what it deems to be worthwhile news or television programs and documentaries. This is because of the existence of state controlled media organisations, like the BBC, and on a more subtle level, with the imposition on restrictions as to what can and cannot be published or broadcast.

The media coverage inequality between women and men’s sport is a different issue to that made out by the opposition. Floods in Queensland Australia are more relevant to Australians than Europeans because they are more likely to have been affected by them. Women’s sports, however, are potentially as relevant to people’s lives as men’s sports. The increased participation in women’s sport indicates that media coverage is likely to be relevant to more and more people. Even if this was not the case women’s sport should still get air time; with the internet and digital TV it is wrong to suggest that more coverage of women’s sport will come at the expense of men’s sports as there is enough airspace.

[1] ‘Law ends UK tobacco sponsorship’, BBC News, 31 July 2005.

The government can to a degree cover for any potential drop in funding from private sector sources. Focus can remain on developing grass-roots and sports at schools in order to incentivise new generations of athletes, so the harms mentioned by the opposition will by and large not occur. In time, popularity of women’s sport will increase such that it will once again attract large lucrative TV rights deals and large investments from sponsors.

It must also be mentioned that the opposition to an extent present a false dichotomy with their argument. Increased coverage of women’s sport need not take valuable air time away from more popular men’s sport in the way the opposition claims. Matches can be scheduled so that they do not clash with each other, and more TV channels can be created (such as the BBC’s red button service). Additionally, air-time is often packed trivial stories and programs other than popular men’s sporting events. Examples from American TV include reports ‘on supremely unhealthy hamburgers on sale at a minor league baseball parks or basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s contest with a 93-year-old woman’ [1]. Such programs could easily and painlessly be replaced with women’s sporting news or live broadcasting.

[1] Deggans, Eric: “Continued apathy by sports media toward women’s sport a bigger problem than first meets the eye”, National Sports Journalism Centre, June 8 2010.

Football has operated successfully for over 100 years without GLT. Two assistant referees were introduced in 1891, 28 years after the rules of association football were coined; a fourth official was introduced in 1991; and FIFA recently introduced two additional assistant referees in Europa League games. Football has demonstrated that it is willing and capable to adjust to the demands of wider exposure without having to resort to GLT.

Bullfighting is not about torturing for enjoyment; clean and quick kills are what is prized most by the bullfighting community. If a matador fails to deliver such a kill, and the bull suffers needlessly, then he will be jeered and shamed. This dynamic demonstrates a clear sense of decency within the bullfighting community.(8)

It is naïve to pretend that the alternative for bulls and cows is a long, happy life in the meadows and then a natural death. Rather, bulls and cows are kept and bred for their meat and eventual slaughter, a process which can be made to seem just as horrific as bullfighting if the same descriptive language is used. There is no significant moral difference between watching a bull die in a bullfight for enjoyment and having a cow killed to make meat so people can enjoy eating it. Must not it be so, according to Bentham's logic, that eating meat for enjoyment displays as much 'want of humanity' as bullfighting? Indeed, in many ways bullfighting is at least more honest: the violence is clear and there for all to see, whereas the death of the cow is hidden from the consumer of a hamburger. Bullfighting is in no way uniquely cruel or even more cruel than eating meat, and so to ban it would be unjustified.

The six-plus-five plan is not banned under EU law. Although it would be illegal to stop clubs in Europe from employing as many overseas players as they wish, this is not what the plan proposes. It simply puts a limit of five on how many foreign players can start a game – so clubs can employ as many foreigners as they want, they just can’t play more than five of them at the same time. Given the tactical use of reserves and the squad rotation common in modern football, clubs are likely to keep signing overseas players. But under FIFA’s plan domestic players will still be given more of a chance than they are now. As the head of the Institute of European Affairs states: "The key aim of the six-plus-five rule in the view of the experts is the creation and assurance of sporting competition. The six-plus-five rule does not impinge on the core area of the right to freedom of movement. The rule is merely a rule of the game declared in the general interest of sport in order to improve the sporting balance between clubs and associations" [1]

[1] Times Online. (2009, February 26). Fifa's six-plus-five rule is not illegal, claims report. Retrieved May 10, 2011, from Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article58...

Local loyalties went out of the game years ago – it isn’t just overseas players who change clubs often in search of higher wages. Everyone agrees that when teams were only full of local boys the standard of play was worse. And strong local loyalties aren’t always good – they used to spill over into hooliganism as the fans from rival clubs fought. More overseas players in football, many with different colour skins, have helped reduce nationalism and racism in society.

If a play is part of a longer sequence of events, then don’t use video review for that play. Only permit it for when the ball is dead or play stops immediately upon the conclusion of the play. Continuation plays can easily be placed outside the scope of instant replay.

Also, there’s no such thing as “normative” calls on a play. If an umpire deems a “phantom tag” sufficient for an out, he is making an incorrect call. The rules do not allow for phantom tags. If instant replay puts an end to this practice, so much the better.

It should not be dependent on one man or one woman to carry the weight of the nation upon their shoulders. Winning the world cup should not be about just whether an individual plays or not but about the team. Even in the Olympics one individual’s performance makes little difference in most cases to the whole of the team.

Good results may lift a nation but it is wrong to suggest that this should mean that everyone who is called on to represent their nation should have to answer that call. It is up to the coaches and managers to make the best use of the men and women they do have.

Moreover if a country is relying on one individual then they are almost certainly putting too much pressure on them. Instead the country needs to focus on broadening the base of the team by finding more talent so that no one individual is irreplaceable. It should be remembered that individuals are far more often unable to take part in international competition as a result of injury or other reasons rather than a refusal to represent their country.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Protecting young and vulnerable athletes

Even if performance-enhancing drugs were only legalized for adults, the definition of this varies from country to country, something which would be problematic for sports that are global. Teenage athletes train alongside adult ones and share the same coaches, so many would succumb to the temptation and pressures to use drugs, if these were widely available and effectively endorsed by legalization. Not only are such young athletes unable to make a fully rational, informed choice about drug-taking, the health impacts upon growing bodies would be even worse than for adult users. It would also send a positive message about drug culture in general, making the use of “recreational drugs” with all their accompanying evils more widespread.

The temptation of youth to try illegal substances is not just a problem in sports. In all environments you will have age restrictions.

To say that we should uphold the ban for the sake of children is as if we would advocate a ban of alcohol for everyone, because some teenagers like to socialize with adults who are legally able to drink alcohol. There is always going to be an age restriction and it is the duty of institutions, trainers and athletes to uphold it, so that later in life as adults, athletes can make an informed decision.

There is already a problem with talented teenagers from Africa and other poorer countries being recruited by rich European clubs to train at their academies. This takes them far away from family and friends and ties them into long contracts they don’t understand – some have called it a form of slavery. And if they get injured or turn out to be not quite good enough, then they can be thrown out without proper support. At the same time, poorer footballing countries are deprived of many of their most promising players, without even getting the transfer money paid when adult players move to a new club overseas. The FIFA plan is a step towards preventing such exploitation, the fact it doesn’t solve the problem completely does not prevent it from being a good first step.

If we were to look at the two possible outcomes we would see that allowing both males and females to compete against each other would actively decrease discrimination. This happens as, in this situation, we perceive the two sexes as being equal, able to compete against each other, both beginning the race from the same starting line, whereas the alternative would be to draw an imaginary barrier between the two sexes claiming that they are so far apart that competition between them would be futile. Those women who come on top on several occasions, such as Danica Patrick who has won NASCAR competitions (1) will show that all those stereotypes are wrong and that they should have been long forgotten. Of course there will be a lot of women who won’t be able to win anything, but the entire spotlight and all the media coverage will be on the ones who will, so they’ll be getting the lion’s share of media attention. As a result, successful stories of women defeating men in their leagues will come as a megaphone for promoting gender equality in society.

(1) Esteban “9 Female Athletes Who Competed Against Men”, Total Pros Sports, October 28, 2011 http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/10/28/9-female-athletes-who-competed-against-men/

The media can and often is used as a tool for public policy. Examples of this include the broadcasting of public information campaigns against drink-driving or smoking or else bans on certain advertising such as smoking advertisements or sponsorship appearing on TV.[1] What’s more the government has a huge influence in what it deems to be worthwhile news or television programs and documentaries. This is because of the existence of state controlled media organisations, like the BBC, and on a more subtle level, with the imposition on restrictions as to what can and cannot be published or broadcast.

The media coverage inequality between women and men’s sport is a different issue to that made out by the opposition. Floods in Queensland Australia are more relevant to Australians than Europeans because they are more likely to have been affected by them. Women’s sports, however, are potentially as relevant to people’s lives as men’s sports. The increased participation in women’s sport indicates that media coverage is likely to be relevant to more and more people. Even if this was not the case women’s sport should still get air time; with the internet and digital TV it is wrong to suggest that more coverage of women’s sport will come at the expense of men’s sports as there is enough airspace.

[1] ‘Law ends UK tobacco sponsorship’, BBC News, 31 July 2005.

The government can to a degree cover for any potential drop in funding from private sector sources. Focus can remain on developing grass-roots and sports at schools in order to incentivise new generations of athletes, so the harms mentioned by the opposition will by and large not occur. In time, popularity of women’s sport will increase such that it will once again attract large lucrative TV rights deals and large investments from sponsors.

It must also be mentioned that the opposition to an extent present a false dichotomy with their argument. Increased coverage of women’s sport need not take valuable air time away from more popular men’s sport in the way the opposition claims. Matches can be scheduled so that they do not clash with each other, and more TV channels can be created (such as the BBC’s red button service). Additionally, air-time is often packed trivial stories and programs other than popular men’s sporting events. Examples from American TV include reports ‘on supremely unhealthy hamburgers on sale at a minor league baseball parks or basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s contest with a 93-year-old woman’ [1]. Such programs could easily and painlessly be replaced with women’s sporting news or live broadcasting.

[1] Deggans, Eric: “Continued apathy by sports media toward women’s sport a bigger problem than first meets the eye”, National Sports Journalism Centre, June 8 2010.

Football has operated successfully for over 100 years without GLT. Two assistant referees were introduced in 1891, 28 years after the rules of association football were coined; a fourth official was introduced in 1991; and FIFA recently introduced two additional assistant referees in Europa League games. Football has demonstrated that it is willing and capable to adjust to the demands of wider exposure without having to resort to GLT.

Bullfighting is not about torturing for enjoyment; clean and quick kills are what is prized most by the bullfighting community. If a matador fails to deliver such a kill, and the bull suffers needlessly, then he will be jeered and shamed. This dynamic demonstrates a clear sense of decency within the bullfighting community.(8)

It is naïve to pretend that the alternative for bulls and cows is a long, happy life in the meadows and then a natural death. Rather, bulls and cows are kept and bred for their meat and eventual slaughter, a process which can be made to seem just as horrific as bullfighting if the same descriptive language is used. There is no significant moral difference between watching a bull die in a bullfight for enjoyment and having a cow killed to make meat so people can enjoy eating it. Must not it be so, according to Bentham's logic, that eating meat for enjoyment displays as much 'want of humanity' as bullfighting? Indeed, in many ways bullfighting is at least more honest: the violence is clear and there for all to see, whereas the death of the cow is hidden from the consumer of a hamburger. Bullfighting is in no way uniquely cruel or even more cruel than eating meat, and so to ban it would be unjustified.

The six-plus-five plan is not banned under EU law. Although it would be illegal to stop clubs in Europe from employing as many overseas players as they wish, this is not what the plan proposes. It simply puts a limit of five on how many foreign players can start a game – so clubs can employ as many foreigners as they want, they just can’t play more than five of them at the same time. Given the tactical use of reserves and the squad rotation common in modern football, clubs are likely to keep signing overseas players. But under FIFA’s plan domestic players will still be given more of a chance than they are now. As the head of the Institute of European Affairs states: "The key aim of the six-plus-five rule in the view of the experts is the creation and assurance of sporting competition. The six-plus-five rule does not impinge on the core area of the right to freedom of movement. The rule is merely a rule of the game declared in the general interest of sport in order to improve the sporting balance between clubs and associations" [1]

[1] Times Online. (2009, February 26). Fifa's six-plus-five rule is not illegal, claims report. Retrieved May 10, 2011, from Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article58...

Local loyalties went out of the game years ago – it isn’t just overseas players who change clubs often in search of higher wages. Everyone agrees that when teams were only full of local boys the standard of play was worse. And strong local loyalties aren’t always good – they used to spill over into hooliganism as the fans from rival clubs fought. More overseas players in football, many with different colour skins, have helped reduce nationalism and racism in society.

If a play is part of a longer sequence of events, then don’t use video review for that play. Only permit it for when the ball is dead or play stops immediately upon the conclusion of the play. Continuation plays can easily be placed outside the scope of instant replay.

Also, there’s no such thing as “normative” calls on a play. If an umpire deems a “phantom tag” sufficient for an out, he is making an incorrect call. The rules do not allow for phantom tags. If instant replay puts an end to this practice, so much the better.

It should not be dependent on one man or one woman to carry the weight of the nation upon their shoulders. Winning the world cup should not be about just whether an individual plays or not but about the team. Even in the Olympics one individual’s performance makes little difference in most cases to the whole of the team.

Good results may lift a nation but it is wrong to suggest that this should mean that everyone who is called on to represent their nation should have to answer that call. It is up to the coaches and managers to make the best use of the men and women they do have.

Moreover if a country is relying on one individual then they are almost certainly putting too much pressure on them. Instead the country needs to focus on broadening the base of the team by finding more talent so that no one individual is irreplaceable. It should be remembered that individuals are far more often unable to take part in international competition as a result of injury or other reasons rather than a refusal to represent their country.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim