Motivation Quote by Tony Greig

Disappointment is doing a lot of diplomatic work here. Tony Greig, a sportsman used to clear results and visible accountability, is calling out the U.N. in a way that sounds almost polite but lands as a blunt indictment: the institution can dispatch “competent” people and still be structurally irrelevant when it matters.

The key move is the contrast between expertise and power. Greig grants the emissaries their credentials, then strips them of agency: “in the end, the decision is going to be made by other people.” That’s not a complaint about individuals; it’s an accusation about a system designed to look busy while real authority sits elsewhere. The phrase “sent through” makes the whole effort feel procedural, like paperwork passing a desk, not a crisis response. Competence becomes a kind of tragic decoration.

Context sharpens the edge. The Rwanda issue, in the 1990s, wasn’t a muddled policy debate; it was a moral emergency in which delay and dithering translated into bodies. Greig’s framing echoes a widespread public frustration from that era: peacekeeping without permission, mandate without muscle, presence without protection. The subtext is that the U.N. is being used as a fig leaf by states that don’t want to act but also don’t want to look indifferent.

Coming from an athlete, it’s especially pointed. Sport trains you to believe that if you show up prepared, you can affect the outcome. Greig is saying: in this arena, showing up is not the same as being allowed to play.