Ruud Gullit and the VPRO and seven other organizations or people promote quackery in the Netherlands. That is the opinion of the association against quackery, which every year draws up a list of candidates for the Master Kackadoris Prize, named after a quack from a 16th century play.
It is an award for those who promote quackery, without doing quackery themselves. You could call it a teasing, this poodle price, but then a teasing with a venomous edge. Nobody will be happy with an ‘distinction’ that concerns quackery, an activity that is associated with farmer’s fraud and scams in the dictionary.
I had to blink with my eyes when I saw this year’s list. Ruud Gullit, the VPRO? What turned out? Gullit is accused of being connected to Vitaepro, the Norwegian producer of nutritional supplements. On TV and on the Vitaepro website, Gullit makes “enthusiastic advertising” for these supplements, which, according to the association against quackery, are “superfluous for those who eat healthy and varied”.
“It just helps me,” says Gullit in that advertisement. I understand the resentment at the association against quackery, but the master Kackadoris prize is a lot of dishonor for this venerable, now 63-year-old (!) Former footballer. Gullit has failed as a trainer and now earns a living as a sort of photo model, I recently saw him praising crazy slippers. That advertisement just helps him, I suspect, and let’s give him that.
And the VPRO – what can it be blamed for? That this broadcaster went into the sea with Griet Op de Beeck as an interviewer for Summer guests, the association notes against quackery. She is “a firm believer in” recovered memories “and now also” repressed memories therapist “”. This challengable therapy would make her unsuitable as an interviewer. That seems rather to me a concern for the VPRO than for the association against quackery. Moreover, it turned out that it was not too bad in practice: at least three of the Zomergasten evenings (Simon Kuper, Femke Halsema, Herman Koch) were very successful in my opinion, and precisely where she interviewed more as a therapist than as a journalist.
No, the seven other candidates for the Master Kackadoris Prize 2025 are a lot more convincing for me. Take the Executive Board of the Free University that the Chiropractor Sidney Rubinstein appointed special professor. Scientific research shows that chiropractic is never more effective than traditional physiotherapy, the association says against quackery. “By appointing an alternative practitioner as special appointment professor, the VU probably has a scoop: quack becomes a professor!”
The Ministry of Defense even had to be nominated for the third time, this time before the appointment of Emrik Suichies, energetic therapist, who will train soldiers to become Yin Yoga teacher. “Our soldiers earn something better than nonsense about meridians and all kinds of advice from the alternative corner,” the anti-quacks are said.
My suspicion is that we will never beat Putin with Yin Yoga teachers, unless he himself becomes one.