This blog deals with sports marketing, sports sponsorships and how companies can use sports as an excellent communication tool to achieve commercial and positioning goals.

Instead, this blog does not deal with vaccines, health protocols, microbiology and medical issues. This is because we are neither doctors nor virologists, but women and men in marketing and sports.

Such a premise, which is as silly as it is necessary in a historical era when knowledge is mixed and professionalism often ends up in oblivion, serves to frame the following lines reflecting on the exemption received by tennis player Novak Djokovic at the dawn of the Australian Open.

The summary of previous episodes is simple. The Australian Open, the first and most important slam of the season, had indicated among the rules for 2022 participation that all tennis players be vaccinated for Sars-Cov-2. The rule in question seriously jeopardized the participation of Novak Djokovic, the world number one and defending champion of the event, in the tournament. Djokovic, whose views on the vaccine have always been negative, has often refused to state whether or not he was inoculated with the same, recalling that health issues are personal matters that cannot be vetoed or legislated over. It is of these very last days, however, the news that Tennis Australia and the state of Victoria have granted Djokovic a medical exemption from the vaccine requirement, allowing the 34-year-old Serbian to be on the court in the land of kangaroos.

These are the facts, exclusive of any Pindaric flights.

The facts are followed by many reactions and different considerations.

The reactions are in the news and newspapers in recent days and are, evidently, in a direction against the decision of the Tournament organizers, in a situation that threatens to embarrass the ATP. Virtually the entirety of public opinion, politics and the sporting world has expressed disagreement with Djokovic’s landing on the continent, culminating in the words of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who threatened to put the champion back on the “first plane to leave the country.”

The considerations, on the other hand, those do need some elaboration.

The writer of these lines-and we come back to point this out-does not know the medical criteria of the exemption that was granted to Nole to participate without a vaccine in the tournament. One reads somewhere that the reasons are to be found in heart problems, but it is an opinion that has raised more than a few eyebrows and seems hardly in line with the current condition of one of the most extraordinary athletes of the last fifty years. The first point to be made, then, is that within the extraordinary situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, the cards are laid on the table with great clarity. If there is a loophole or regulatory loophole to evade a vaccine against the greatest disease of the century this needs to be made clear and apply as much to tennis player Djokovic as to others, sports professionals or not. If, on the other hand, it is Djokovic’s health condition that raises concerns, it is necessary to make that clear and avoid a controversy that from sport has quickly spilled over into civil society, politics and global public opinion.

The reason for such clarity, which would not be due in times of normality (if I am unhealthy I certainly do not have to make others aware of my condition), lies in theabsolute exceptionality of the circumstance. If, as the Anglo-Saxons would have it, desperate times call for desperate measures, then unfortunately in the midst of a virus upsurge-as the numbers go up and the specter of lockdown comes back up-it is necessary for everything to be crystal clear.

The second consideration has to do with the concept of expediency, i.e., being and acting appropriately, i.e., suited to the situation. It is clear as day that Tennis Australia and the entire tournament could use the participation of the world number one. No one wants to see an F1 without Hamilton or Verstappen, a Lakers game without LeBron James, and only God knows how many headaches FIFA has right now while some are already beginning to speculate about a World Cup without the phenomenon Ronaldo or without the European champions Italy. But that is playing short ball and not seeing the potential mess in the long run. Verisimilarly, having Djokovic on the court in January 2022 risks bringing down the reputation of an organization, a tournament, and a sport for some time. Sure, the Serbian’s sponsors will be happy (perhaps, as no one likes to be in the middle of the storm), but what about other people’s sponsors? Will they be happy to fund athletes in a tournament on which the long shadow of medical fraud now hangs?

The third consideration, on the other hand, has to do with the gentleman’s pact that the sport has made with society and which is now in danger of breaking down. As the whole of Australia riots over the exemption granted to the Slav, it is imperative to remember that the whole toy only works as long as the rules that apply to the common citizen also apply to the first of the champions. While the battle rages even in our homeland about the compulsory vaccine to enter work and the use of Covid passes to access services, the biggest mistake a sports property can make is to sweep the dust under the rug and treat the coronavirus vaccine like stealing candy between kids. On this issue, it is necessary to keep in mind that we live in delicate times of short fuses, and that patience is an increasingly rare resource.

Finally, the fourth and final consideration falls within the narrative of precedent-setting. To offer Titius an exemption-by definition a privilege that dispenses with a common obligation-is to give Caius the right to do the same. Care must be taken here, because the legal principle of stare decisis then requires that we remain consistent in the future. What happens, in essence, if instead of Djokovic seeking exemption it is world number 145 or 514? And what happens, likewise, if in addition to Djokovic, it is 50 or 100 who seek exemption? Clearly these are questions of logic rather than substance, but as noted above we live in hard times.

In conclusion, Djokovic -as well as each individual- is free to own his own opinions about the vaccine and this has nothing to do with his sporting merit. Likewise, those who are not physicians are not entitled to judge a medical exemption, as long as that is precisely what it is and that this is made clear. For other matters, however, which have more to do with other spheres of communal living, it is imperative that the logic of the egg today does not override the logic of the chicken tomorrow, and that Marquis del Grillo talk, where I am me, and you are not shit, does not intervene. The risk is to anger the good guys and make the sport the object of popular anger.