Garth George: BlackHeart's right when hypocrisy rules the waves

I go along with Murray Deaker. Those who look down their noses and splutter "tut, tut" at the BlackHeart campaign have their heads up their backsides.

The Paul Holmes', Brendan Telfers and Larry Williams of the airwaves are typical of the politically correct, rose-tinted-glasses, refuse-to-face-facts wimps who still think the America's Cup is a sport.

The realists, like Deaker and Martin Devlin - and this columnist - know that the America's Cup is as much a sport as World Cup rugby (remember the "clean stadiums" debacle?) or international one-day cricket.

The America's Cup ceased being a sport - if it ever was - when Dennis Conner put to sea in a catamaran to put New Zealand in their place.

It is a business and, as the new saying goes, "All's fair in love and business." The old saying was "All's fair in love and war" but in the past decade or so we've all come to realise there's more chance of getting a fair deal in war than there is in business.

But there is a sense in which the America's Cup is a war, for its various participants are groups of international marine mercenaries who sell their skills to the highest bidder. And among the bidders are some of the world's most obscenely rich men and women, who will pay whatever it costs for the prestige of owning the America's Cup and to whom sportsmanship is passe and gamesmanship all the go. None of them got all that money by being a good sport.

If the competing syndicates had names like Team Italy or Team Switzerland or Team United States, there might be left some vestige of international sporting rivalry. But there's not even that: the syndicates are all named for dynasties or businesses or products.

Except Team New Zealand, the only one that still represents a nation, although it relies on at least two multinationals in its line-up of prime sponsors. Thus even Team New Zealand isn't racing for its country as much as it is to please Lotto, SAP, Steinlager, Telecom and Toyota.

So when Brendan Telfer talks about the BlackHeart campaign being "completely foreign to the ethos and traditions of New Zealand sport", he's simply letting us all know that he hasn't got a clue on what the America's Cup is all about these days or that hypocrisy rules nationwide.

What the Cup is about is stroking the egos of men and women who have so much money they've been everywhere and done all that and are desperate for some new avenue down which to parade their wealth to generate some new thrills and publicity.

So they pick on the America's Cup and flash their wallets at men like Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth (and some two dozen other Kiwi yachtsmen, incidentally) who promptly tug their forelocks and say "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" and do what they do best in a new uniform and under another flag.

And I don't blame them for a moment. They are no different from the tens of thousands of other New Zealanders who head overseas every year for better opportunities and more money and contribute heavily to the so-called brain drain.

Nor are they any different from the Fays, the Richwhites, the Myers and the Watsons of the nation who decide they have run out of things to achieve in little old New Zealand, have milked the local economy dry, and take their talents and money to some other part of the world.

But what Coutts and Butterworth and their ilk - and those who make excuses for them - need to understand is that when you become a mercenary, you get shot at by the other side, even if the other side is the side you once fought for.

So when men like Dave Walden and his BlackHearts - aided and abetted by wide-awake hardnoses like Deaker and Devlin - decide to take up arms and fire a few potshots at those they see as turncoats, they are simply entering into the spirit of the whole affair.

Walden sums it up when he says: "Maybe in this country we've got too forgiving ... These other guys have made some choices but they're now the competition and there's one team who's up against them all."

Too right. And what gives this campaign absolute legitimacy in my book is that these men (and women) are prepared to put their money where their mouths are. Mr Walden and four of his mates have put in $10,000 apiece and they have received $80,000 in donations.

The sole objective of the BlackHeart campaign is to give Team New Zealand a genuine hometown advantage. And if that means psychologically hamstringing or even kneecapping the opposition, more power to their media. Heaven knows our team needs an edge.

All this, of course, says nothing about that utter immorality of pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a yacht race when there is so much need in the world. No, we won't go there.

* garth_george@nzherald.co.nz

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