I would venture to guess that if I was a construction worker... who requested a transfer to another department for the betterment of his family I would be commended for it. But because it's sports there's just so much passion added to it.
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
