Rising Price of Olympic Dreams Paints Dark Future for the Arts

In a week during which we learnt of the scornful opinion of football held by the celebrated thinker George Steiner, and in which the battle lines seemed to be drawn between the funding of the 2012 Olympic Games and the government's subsidies to the theatre, it was comforting to read a newly published volume in which Roland Barthes, the great French philosopher, set down some of his thoughts on sport, and an even slimmer pamphlet, titled La Mélancolie de Zidane, in which the novelist Jean...#8209;Philippe Toussaint records his reaction to the defining event of the 2006 World Cup final.

Try this, from Barthes: "Sport is the entire trajectory separating a combat from a riot." Or this, from Toussaint on Zidane's famous head butt (in my very rough translation): "An instant of perfect ambiguity under the Berlin sky, a few seconds of vertiginous ambivalence, where beauty and darkness, violence and passion came into contact and provoked the short-circuit of an unforeseen gesture."

Pretentious twaddle? Well, maybe. Sport and the arts make uneasy companions, with rare uncontested exceptions such as Tim Krabbé's novel The Rider, Martin Scorsese's film Raging Bull and the vivid paintings in which Nicolas de Stael set down his impressions of a post-war football match in the Parc des Princes between France and Sweden. But perhaps Barthes, in particular, has a few worthwhile things to tell us in the commentaries for a series of five short films on bullfighting, motor racing, the Tour de France, ice hockey and football, made for Canadian television more than 40 years ago under the title What is Sport? and now appearing in print for the first time.

Considering the particular popularity in Canada of ice hockey, a game he calls "faster than consciousness", he writes: "To play hockey is constantly to repeat that men have transformed motionless winter." The bullfight, he says, exists "to tell man why man is superior". In a motor race, with its emphasis on extreme technology, "the relationship between man and machine is extremely circumspect: what will function very fast must first be tested very slowly, for speed is never anything but the recompense of extreme deliberation".

He adds: "The death of a racer is infinitely sad, for it is not only the man who dies here, but a particle of perfection." The Tour finds the riders helping each other "because, in this sport, resistance proceeds from things" - he means the clock and nature - "and not from men".

Sometimes sport can gain from the perceptions of those who stand outside it. Jean-Luc Godard, for instance, had some interesting things to say about Nicolas Anelka a few years ago. But this is a week in which those involved in the promotion of sport to its current unprecedented level of popularity - yes, including newspaper columnists - should be bowing their heads in acknowledgment of its potentially dire implications for those involved in another field of human expression.

The true consequences of the ever-increasing budget for London 2012 were highlighted last week in a letter to this newspaper from the playwright David Edgar, who criticized the threatened cut in funding to the small but adventurous Bush Theater in west London. Ironically, the imperiled theatre can be found not much more than a hefty punt away from the stadium of Queens Park Rangers, where the combined fortunes of Lakshmi Mittal and Bernie Ecclestone are effecting an almost instant renaissance. The Bush, however, is just one of a number of victims, from one end of Britain to the other, that are finding themselves about to pay the price of London's Olympic status.

When gifted artists, operating in an environment that is at best economically marginal, are forced to curtail their activities and traveling theatre companies are no longer able to take their productions into parts of the country that have no theaters or companies of their own, the price is too high, and the world of sport - where money flows like water - would do well to acknowledge as much. Otherwise the rift between the two cultures will shortly be growing rather deeper, which would be a pity.

Nostalgic image displays tradition lost in squabbles

The unveiling of this year's Ferrari formula one car took place at the weekend in the workshops of the company's racing department, an inner sanctum into which outsiders are seldom invited. So it was interesting to see its pristine whiteness - random splotches of oil are a thing of the past - decorated with giant glossy color prints of great moments from the Schumacher era.

There was a single exception to this celebration of recent triumphs. On the wall facing the stall containing the sparkling new F2008 was the room's sole reminder of Ferrari's earlier history, a large black-and-white photograph of two mechanics working in the factory on the last of the team's front-engined grand prix cars, the beautiful Dino 256 of 1960.

One of the mechanics was recognizable as Ener Vecchi, a long-time member of the team. The other, according to my friend Pino Allievi, the correspondent of the Gazzetta dello Sport, was a man called Angellini. Perhaps the picture was put there by someone who wanted to remind the modern descendants of Vecchi and Angellini of the company's matchless achievements, and of a tradition that still commands respect even in the squalid and squabbling world of today's formula one.

Any Ferguson will do for shut-out Beeb

Among the attractions to be found in the Manchester United museum at Old Trafford, we are told, is a hologram of Sir Alex Ferguson programmed to answer questions and deliver reflections on his 21 years in the manager's chair.

It's an enticing thought, and the questions almost ask themselves. What was the true reason behind his sudden decision to offload Jaap Stam? Was it really the possibility of being succeeded by Sven-Goran Eriksson that persuaded him to rescind his decision to step down? What are his memories of the food fight in the tunnel at the end of the match against Arsenal a couple of years ago?

Then again, perhaps the BBC should be given the first go. In the light of Sir Alex's continuing refusal to talk to the corporation in recent years, it's probably the only way they'll ever get any answers.

Team Murray proves grand slam for blazing Scot

Andy Murray's victory at the weekend could be interpreted as the firmest possible riposte to those who questioned his decision to ditch Brad Gilbert in favor of a rotating posse of advisers. Murray does things in his own way, rather than the one recommended by the blazer-and-tie brigade, and it seems to be working.

Scene of the crime makes a world of difference

So the year started with yet another fatal stabbing of a teenager in London; there were almost 30 last year. Just imagine the fuss if, instead of taking place in the near-invisibility of grim housing estates, they occurred in or around football grounds. richard.williams@guardian.co.uk