The Israel self-sabotage act Folau will cause a disaster for rugby

OPINION: I can not speak for homobaduals. But as a drunken fornicator, liar and thief, speculative atheist and idol worshiper (hey, nobody is perfect), I wonder what hell Israel Folau is expecting from all of us.

With our overloaded schedules of alcohol consumption, fornication, idolatry, etc., we are rather busy. But is the hell that he has in mind for us is a hell of flames more ardent than losing whole slabs of our life by watching a referee repeatedly ask the Waratah to repack his scrum ? Can the Jesus of Folau avoid us having to look at the guts that he and his companions have served against the Sunwolves? Is there a worse hell even? It's enough to drive you to (more) drinking, fornicating, etc.

Rugby Australia announced that it was terminating Folau's contract because it violated his desire to include, and not exclude, people in their game. The problem for the game is that he is already doing his job of exclusion well and that he does not need the additional help of Folau, his floods and his plagues.

Drunkards, thieves, idolaters, etc. have never had much trouble being excluded from sports codes. On the contrary. But what Folau never seemed to understand, in the rarefied realm where he lived, was that rugby could not afford to exclude anyone.

READ MORE:
* Baptisms in the garden of Folau
* Vunipola defends Folau messages
* Folau chopping would hurt the Australians
* Folau resigned by Waratahs
* Rugby Australia will sack Folau

The game in Australia is a game of varying degrees of crisis at all levels, from the mediocrity of professional outfits, the closing of the Western Force, the difficulty of maintaining sponsors and broadcasters and the challenges of junior participation.

The pockets, but only the pockets, of the game prosper. Folau, richly compensated, seems to have lived in one of these pockets. His actions and dismissal must be read in the context of this crisis. His tweets about evil are no longer simply framed by the debate over freedom of expression in relation to tolerance.

They are not the isolated proselytism of an athlete who has taken too many blows to the head. Freedom of speech against tolerance, religion and the role of the so-called "outrage brigade" were the meaning of Folau's earlier statements. It was then. This is now the survival of rugby, crisis that Folau has aggravated in a culpable way.

When you look at what Folau did, you can only conclude that he became a man who must hate the sport that he practices. If not, why would he have committed such shameless sabotage? Why would he want to destroy this poor game?

The former Wallaby captain, Stirling Mortlock, summed up the problem by saying, "You would like to understand why, why did he do it?" Everyone knows his point of view, "he said. is not it? He has done it many times already is more [about] What were the motivations for going back knowing very well that he was probably going to be punished? "

We do not need to ask why Folau believes what he believes, or even why he thinks he has to diffuse these beliefs. Or if he has the right to do it. There are well-used arguments from both sides. His actions this week brought the question of why Israel Folau wanted to hurt rugby.

Folau, so adept at catching the bombs, threw a big one. He pushed Rugby Australia to dismiss him or ridicule him. Raelene Castle immediately described Folau's actions as "unacceptable". Nothing less than tearing up his contract and she accepted the unacceptable. He left her with RA without choice.

Could not he know that? Perhaps the transfer of wealth from the rugby accounts to those of Folau led him to think that he was still at the NRL or at the AFL, and that his religious statements were not the same. would not affect the sport that fed him. It's unlikely, but then there is a galaxy of nicknames that revolve around this head.

Whether RA has returned it or not, the repercussions will be catastrophic. His religious views have many supporters among his Waratah and Wallabies teammates – not just to defend his supposed right to express them, but for them.

Representative teams are not cults of like-minded individuals, but coalitions of diversity. They must merge people from different backgrounds with different values ​​under a common flag. They must make room for sinners of all kinds, not just the righteous. Nor is it the job of the stakes to convert their teammates. The factionalism of these teams is well known and, in his absence, Folau will now continue to divide them even more ruinously than the rivalries between states and the sectarian divisions of the last century.

The number of discontented professional rugby players will multiply. He left the cloakrooms of Waratahs and Wallabies divided irreconcilably between pro and anti, between those who think they are destined for heaven and those who are heading for a hell they do not believe in.

Why, unless you are possessed by some cosmic egocentrism, would you aggravate these divisions? Judging by his actions, Folau cared little about the unity of the teams he represented, little about the survival of the code, few of the forces allegedly unifying the jersey and the nation.

Most likely, he acted in full awareness of the loophole that he was opening. Why? Is the man so deceived or so devout that the earthly consequences do not matter? Does he see an apocalypse that will reduce the mere act of playing sports? If this is the case, Rugby Australia told him that he could go alone, but the truth is that they are both heading for a meeting with their manufacturer.

The salient point of this latest tumult is that Folau is his only engineer and did what he did consciously. Rugby Australia should not have moral scruples about his response. Folau forced the problem. It is a voluntary act of self-destruction. He has effectively terminated.

This is a big shame: for him, for him. But then you realize that this man's contempt for a world that rewarded him with wealth and fame is a symptom of a condition that calls for purity.

You fear that while he is ready to destroy his career and his sport, the motivation for self destruction could ensue. It's a hideous thought, and another responsibility that he has mishandled against Rugby Australia. Hopefully his exit plan will be safe and that he will instead follow Valentine Holmes and Jarryd Hayne, becoming simply an inexpensive tool for the upcoming National Football League marketing campaign, more mercenary than missionary.

So many questions remain. Does Folau have a response to the public? The signs are that it only responds to one power. His legacy in rugby has been a part of the athletic brilliance and four parts chaos that is just beginning and that still has a long way to go. If this is the game they play in paradise, there will be two football departments: one for Israel Folau and the pure, the other for the imperfect majority.