Winning Without Them, Losing Because of Them

Winning Without Them, Losing Because of Them

Vanshikaa Khandelwal

SY B.Sc.

Estimated Reading Time : 7 minutes

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A few months ago, the Paris Olympics took place, and from the countless news reports and reels I’ve obsessively watched since then, I think it’s safe to say that the City of Love had its effect. From proposals, to athletes running off the field to their significant others, to promises to renew vows – their love and devotion to their sport and their partners bloomed in these Olympics of Love. It’s not just the Olympics, athletes have always shown their love and appreciation for their special someone to the world. We have seen Virat Kohli’s video calls to Anushka Sharma when he scores a century, Roger Federer’s retirement speech expressing gratitude to his wife Mirka for inspiring him, the beautiful and persisting love story of MS Dhoni and Sakshi and so many more. 

These athletes have always shown a deep appreciation towards their partners, it makes a lot of sense why. Athletes require grounded support to motivate, encourage and reassure them because mental health is extremely vital for a sportsperson. A sound mind leads to sound decisions which are important for performance in sports. Athletes are well aware of this, and thus are always grateful towards their support systems, be it their family, or wives or girlfriends.

Despite the strong and public feelings of athletes towards their partners, the public eye has a completely different image of them in mind. The hate for these ‘Wives and Girlfriends’, WAGs, as they are called is known to all of us. Anyone who follows the world of Indian Cricket knows that no sooner does a cricketer have a girlfriend than the endless barrage of gossip articles, critics prophesying that his downfall is now imminent, fans trolling the poor girl’s socials and hate in all its forms begins in full swing. This is all speculation and fans being paranoid, of course, but god forbid his performance is slightly poor following this news, then suddenly it’s set in stone that she is distracting him and is the devil incarnate.

It is something that has been carried on in cricket for decades, with WAGs becoming easy targets for angry fans. Even beyond Indian cricket, all major sports have seen the villainization of female partners, with some recent incidents being fans booing Taylor Swift when she came on screen at an NFL game of her boyfriend Travis Kelce, or the Chicago Bills’ fans blaming Hailee Steinfeld for her boyfriend, quarterback Josh Allen’s mediocre performance. 

There’s a bunch of questions that need to be answered about this idea of ‘WAG’s. The first one being, why is this hate so wide-spread? The answer is obvious when you see that even the officials support the idea that WAGs are to blame. The BCCI had a strict rule stating that a cricketer’s family could not stay with the team for longer than 14 days on long tours and a cricketer may not leave his team during a tournament even as paternity leave; rules which led to Sunil Gavaskar missing the birth of his son. 

The BCCI’s stand on this later softened as they approved Kohli’s paternity leave and allowed Significant Others to accompany the Indian team during the pandemic in order to keep up the players’ mental health. Then came the Australia tour. India’s loss in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy was due to reasons such as key players missing matches, lousy lineup and other errors, but the BCCI’s remedy was to re-impose the 2 week rule on cricketers’ families, putting the Indian team back into isolation from loved ones to help them focus on their game. Even England has issued strict rules to the ‘WAG’s regarding clothing, drinking and even taking selfies. When the officials support a bias, the public tends to do the same, so when official rules make significant others seem like distracting problems, the fans believe them to be. 

The next logical question to ask is, can you really put all this blame on someone who just happens to be dating one of your favourite players? Anushka Sharma has been especially vocal about this. She has been accused of distracting her husband Virat, meddling in the selection committee, ruining his career and is widely held as the sole cause for Kohli’s poor performances. What seems wrong in this argument is that even though she is the wife of a cricketer, she is also a successful actor with a career of her own, so why would she put her time and effort into ruining his? The media has painted her as someone trying to bring her own husband down, simply because she comes to his matches to show her support as his wife – two contradictory statements when you think about it. It’s not just her, there are countless others like Victoria Beckham, Gisele Bündchen and even Shakira, all successful women reduced to the title of WAGs and blamed for any deviation in the performance of their athlete beaus. 

Following this, one may also ask if the idea applies both ways – if their significant other faces a failure in their career, is the athlete blamed for it? If Anushka’s film flops or Shakira’s album doesn’t do as well, it’s not because their husbands’ tournaments distracted them, it’s because they didn’t do their jobs well. The liability does not run both ways.

The most significant question to ask is, are the WAGs only involved if the team performs badly? When the team wins, fans chant praise for the players and the skills displayed. Instagram is filled with stories and reels about the life and struggles of fan favourite players and edits about the plays made in the matches. There is no mention here about the support and love received from significant others at all. So, if the WAGs are not the cause of a team’s victory, why is there a general consensus that they are the cause of a team’s losses? 

Sports have a special place in the hearts of fans. We see the dedication and determination displayed by players, the spirit to not back down in the face of unattainable targets and adversity, and are inspired to do the same ourselves. We hear the stories of our favourites – common men who rose up to the highest level of the sport with their passion and now represent their nation worldwide and we tend to relate to them and hope for a similar trajectory in our own lives. Fans have something to look forward to, something to believe in and follow and it gives us hope. Sports are truly magical in that sense. 

To then see your favourite fail or falter is heartbreaking. No one wants to believe that their role model, their undefeatable athlete did not do a good job, they do not want to put the blame on them because they love them too much. Fans look for any other reason to justify a loss, like saying the game was rigged, or the coaches failed, or the ground was bad, anything to shield their favourite from criticism. 

The thing is, since the biblical days, the three vices of man were ‘wine, money and women’. Women were seen as temptresses, who come into a man’s life just to destroy him and his career and then leave him ruined; thus, all men were told to stay away from this allure. It was something ingrained into the thinking of people back then and has somehow found its way back in today’s times in the form of WAGs. If there is no one else to blame, blame the woman. Even if the facts disprove it, even if the athletes refute it, fans refuse to believe anything could have caused their team a loss but a vice like this. 

The times have changed. The women that the fans hate on are actually the ones consoling the players after a hard loss. They are the ones providing a safe space filled with love and support, so the athletes can cope with the pressures of being responsible for the love and hopes of millions in the nation – they are the foundation of security for their significant others. The constant blame they bear may create a divide between the couple, leading to more pressure in the athlete’s personal life, and again a deteriorating performance and the cycle will go on endlessly.

We, as fans, love our respective sports and have our favourite players. We watch hours and hours of matches and tournaments to see them win. Of course it’s easier to just believe something, or someone else was at fault rather than believe that our favourite player was just not having a good day, yet to hate on the WAGs is not only unjustified, it’s not even balanced. If we insist on blaming WAGs for losses, we must praise them for wins. Ultimately, it’s a question of fairness – is it really worth it to shift the blame rather than hold the correct person accountable, no matter how much we may love them?