Discrimination is always a battle about power

London Loves Business

Vladimir Lenin’s great dictum “who, whom” was never better illustrated than in the last month in two different sports, tennis and racing. The founder of the Soviet Union’s phrase, “the whole question is who will overtake whom”, has always been understood to mean who will have power. Back in 1921 Lenin was talking about the class struggle, with sport now it is the struggle for women to have the right to be treated as the equal of men.

Raymond Moore, the now disgraced former chief executive of the Indian Wells tennis tournament, clearly feels that women in tennis should not. As he put it, “In my next life when I come back I want to be someone in the WTA, because they ride on the coat-tails of the men. They are very, very lucky. If I was a lady player, I’d go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they have carried this sport. They really have.”