Beautification

Beautification - I don’t know if this is the right spelling of the word but it's when the Pope declares a person a Saint.  So why do I want to talk about that?

Football saints are called saints too.

Something puzzles me about saints.  I  remember when I was a kid, we were always told that a Saintly person is perfect.  In other words without sin and/or did not do anything that would be against Jesus' teachings.  The other thing I recall is that you could pray to that saint to obtain favours.  But this happens only once the person has passed away.

What I’m wondering is how do they know if that person is like what they say?  How does he or she qualify for sainthood? It's only because the Pope says they are a saint that they become one.  Do they follow that person around 24 hrs a day, even when that person is sleeping?  That person could be putting on a good front when with other people but inside be just as bad as the next person. The actions when they are alone, the thoughts that they have, could be all different then what everyone else sees from that person. This doesn’t make any sense to me. If any catholic priest reads this and can explain it to me I would really be interested. Mind you I’m not being sarcastic just curious because I can’t see any sense in that.