Tipping Point: What we believe but cannot prove about sport

It is almost a decade since the influential What We Believe But Cannot Prove first appeared, a collection of essays which featured some of the world's leading minds outlining what they reckon on even if unable to back it up with hard fact.

The content is mostly scientific, leaving a sporting gap to be filled by any trailing mind keen to fill the planetary science known as space.

So, I believe but can’t prove that most people would rather not know about doping than acknowledge its implications.

It’s hard to explain otherwise how sports which have long since waved ethical credibility goodbye continue to not only survive but thrive commercially. It’s much easier it seems to cheer and buy the gear than test credulity.

I believe that most rugby fans have no clue what they’re looking at really, that 20 per cent of attendances at League of Ireland matches are media banging the hometown drum, and that the more enthusiastic the national flag-waver the more likely their offshore tax status.

I believe it’s difficult although not impossible to simultaneously hero-worship and acknowledge how growing up involves parking delusions about paragons to the side.

Roger Federer probably picks his nose when no one’s looking but no one else has yet combined competitive achievement with aesthetic grace in such a way that manages to justify some of the more ejaculatory tributes paid to him over the years: that Federer can also deliver a convincing impression of a decent, functioning human isn’t heroic but it is pretty cool all the same.

Caste system

I believe but can’t prove that golf is regressive, taking otherwise capable adults back to a system where they are told what to wear, where to stand, who to talk to and when – in other words, school.

It’s a caste system that millions of men – and it is mostly men – voluntarily pay billions for in order to secure the reassurance of somebody deciding what’s good for them. Golf may be about hitting a little white ball for those who can actually play. For everyone else it’s a race to become prefect.

I believe but can’t prove that racing is a microcosm of society with financial elites so powerful they get to choose whether or not to play by the rules. And that embracing a position of role model involves hiding something especially sordid.

I believe but can’t prove that GAA types labelling themselves Gaels are repressed Provo apologists who believe themselves more Irish than anyone not sharing some cúpla focail, fourth-green-field, pick-off-a-Prod wet dream.

I can make a stab at attempting to prove why Sea The Stars would beat Frankel over ten furlongs in any theoretical clash between the two finest thoroughbreds of the modern era.

I believe the only truly important race is the next one and that the 'tiny minority' argument about drug cheats is a comfort-blanket. Those county councillors caught on camera by RTÉ are supposedly in a 'tiny minority' too; we're talking minority, but hardly a tiny one.

I believe Eamon Dunphy sincerely fails to spot the paradox in pointing out how Martin O’Neill has been found out by football moving on yet the opinions of pundits with credibility sourced from half a century ago remains supposedly valid.

I believe but can’t prove that Tony McCoy was both a great jump jockey, yet hardly the greatest, and how the idea of radical reform in any organisation being entrusted to those who’ve already manoeuvred themselves to the top of it is absurd. Even the most dense sleeveen knows better than to chop the greasy pole down after them.

Mixed martial arts might be on-trend right now but I know nothing dates faster than trendy and I believe even bloodlust won’t prevent MMA’s profile from fading once that strutting bantam-cock, Conor McGregor, chooses to jack it in or it gets chosen for him.

Moulding a persona so polarising as to make those who love or loathe you both pay up is nothing new. Professional boxing history is littered with McGregors, the very same boxing he and his ilk are supposedly threatening to put on the skids.

Finest moment

That won’t happen, mostly because of history, but also because McGregor’s finest moment – that Aldo flooring punch – was followed by two ugly strikes on a prone opponent which no official, referee or commentator appeared to bat an eyelid at. That’s just violence.

I believe but can't prove Lionel Messi is the finest player in soccer history, and a wonderful reassurance. The game may be more precisely scientific than ever before yet a Rosario scut ,far from ripped, who can't run very fast, and with zero personal charisma is still able to trump everyone through nothing but skill and intelligence.

I believe but can’t prove that Rory McIlroy will never secure a place in the Irish sporting public’s heart no matter if he wins Olympic gold and a Major Grand Slam. Any number of reasons will be put forward bar the real one – the whole feeling more British thing, which really requires a lot of people to get over themselves.

I believe you can’t browbeat an audience into appreciating what they should like, or what’s good for them, the idea of pinning a sport’s credibility onto a single individual is as infantile as believing alcohol advertising is some neutral exercise in corporate benevolence, and that rugby is just too damn dangerous.

Finally, even though it’s impossible to prove in hard scientific fact, it remains the case that sport’s supreme triviality is still supremely relevant since it represents an aspiration towards fair play that is all but impossible to replicate anywhere else.