AFL international expansion won’t happen soon
Roar Pro
By Joe O\\\'Sullivan, 18 Mar 2008 The Crowd is a Roar Pro
416 Have your say
Some Aussie Rules fans seem to want their cake and eat it. Let me explain. AFL is the most popular football code in the country. There can be no argument about that. AFL has zero international participation. About that view there is argument – at least from some AFL fans.
On more than one occasion over the years while discussing this issue with aussie rules fans I was told that one of the virtues of their game was its uniquely Aust origin and culture and that they were untroubled by its strictly domestic following. I had no reason to doubt the sincerity of their beliefs. However a more cynical person than I might suggest that they had no choice but to make such a statement.
According to the AFL website, aussie rules is played in over 20 countries. Yet the only national representation Australian footballers can aspire to is the on again off again International Rules series against Irish Gaelic footballers. I am still waiting to be advised the name and place of a single domestic international rules league or indeed one of its constituent clubs. International Rules was the brainchild of one Harry Beitzel who was desperate for (then) VFL footballers to have overseas competition. And this I think is the mainly unspoken and silent pain carried in the souls of large numbers of AFL fans.
We can watch our cricketers, socceroos, wallabies, basketballers, netballers, hockey and lawn bowls teams – even kangaroos – but not a national representative Australian rules team. Publicly AFL supporters do not seem particularly concerned by this matter – privately, for some at least I’m not so sure.
SWOT analysis might suggest that the complete absence of credible overseas competition is a weakness, possibly a threat and barely an opportunity. Lately we have seen AFL games played in Sth Africa and the UAE. There has been much written on this site by aussie rules aficionados about the seemingly unending internationalization of their game. ‘Watch this space’, we were recently urged, as if a dramatic football revolution was about to unfold.
I don’t think anything is about to unfold – or ever will. I fear that my AFL loving fellow Australians are experiencing a false dawn. Because after 150 years (or so we’re told) aussie rules football has failed to conquer NSW and Qld let alone planet Earth.
The efforts of expats to take their piece of Australiana with them is nothing if not admirable. But willing amateurs do not equate to a meaningful & significant presence.
The relevant and respective indigenous football codes/winter sports will not even notice. During the 2003 Rugby World Cup the SMH’s chief AFL correspondent (Vic born & bred) Richard Hinds wrote questioning rugby’s and the cup’s credentials to global sport status. Fair enough. However I wonder what Richard’s assessment would be if he was to cast his critical eye over AFL’s international stable. The AFL sojourn to foreign lands reminds me of the American flags planted on the moon. Nice for the family photo album but of absolutely no substance.
AFL fans should celebrate a uniquely Australian game providing healthy choices for our youth & its pre-eminent position amongst the football codes of this country. But don’t demean yourselves by indulging in the delusion of a nonexistent impending international Australian rules epiphany. Its fiction.
As my father used to tell me – you can’t have your cake & eat it.
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Joe FC said | March 18th 2008 @ 7:19pm | Report comment
What?
No point by point rebutal.
No statistically laden refute.
No counter argument bristling with empirical evidence.
Merely a child’s nursery rhyme as code for YOU’RE NOT WRONG
Midfielder said | March 18th 2008 @ 7:42pm | Report comment
Joe
Hard to argue with
LK said | March 18th 2008 @ 8:08pm | Report comment
Say it ain’t so, Joe. Every day I log on to The Roar eagerly anticipating the next hotbed of AFL. Canada and Sth Africa last week, who will it be this week? Lapland? Burkina Faso? Sometimes I think the international AFL stories are spun direct from head office. This is to convince gullible Aussies that the AFL has an international presence and would-be sponsors and fans should jump on board.
I actually enjoy AFL but the international stories are fanciful and increasingly tiresome.
Redb said | March 18th 2008 @ 8:23pm | Report comment
LK,
I can’t speak for every AFL fan, but i see this ‘article’ as nothing more than a troll. look its probably payback for the :Rugby League: who really gets it” article. Dunno and don’t care.
But your are wrong the origin of the international stories being spun out of head office. There is a private site titled World Footy News that started linking international leagues of footy. This guy deserves all the credit for providing an international platform for the game, the AFL website now takes content from that site and as of 2007 started to give it a drop down menu.
Last time I looked its a free world, don;t read comments about AFL being played overseas if it upsets you so. You have the right to choose, click away now or forever hold your peace.
cheers
Redb
p.s. i really like the fact there are 50 teams in the USA, oops sorry about that , remember left hand click…..
sheek said | March 18th 2008 @ 9:18pm | Report comment
Realistically, Australian Football can expect the same fate as American Football & Canadian Football & Gaelic Football – hugely popular within their own borders, but a novelty elsewhere.
At present I would say most countries are happy with the football codes they have, making it exceptionally hard for any new footy codes to break-in.
There is also the name. Deep down, Yanks don’t feel comfortable playing a sport called “Australian football”, just as Aussies don’t feel comfortable playing a sport called “American football”. There’s no sense of ownership, unless of course, you are from the same country as that particularly named football code.
Perhaps we can clarify this by calling soccer World football; & the other footy codes can fight over Earth, Universe, Galaxy, Cosmos, etc, football.
Midfielder said | March 18th 2008 @ 9:25pm | Report comment
Redb
Without doubt AFL is the biggest sport in Australia, in terms of, players no, TV rating no, crowds yes, media space yes, TV deals yes, land area covered yes, population wise no,
If I put AFL at the top of the tree in Australia sport ………….which I do……………… and let me be fair here and say AFL to football in Australia say a watermelon to a grape, in world terms AFL and football, as to Earth to gain of sand.
380 million registered players including 80 million women, played in 204 countries.
Even the NRL have NZ and PNG.
Midfielder said | March 18th 2008 @ 9:30pm | Report comment
Sheek
Some marketing guy got in there long before you “The World Game” …………….following on your lead thr its makes sense.
AFL ‘The Universe Game” played everywhere……………..sheek you should have been in marketing
Redb said | March 18th 2008 @ 9:36pm | Report comment
Sheek,
This is why I made the troll remark. I dont think any AFL fan thinks we are going to break open the world sports market. It is however fun to know that people from other parts of the world are playing our game. These International leagues are expat driven originally, but in time a few locals have also taken it up. There is a South African program testing the water with junior programs, but that’s more about widening the talent base if it works.
Re your point on the name of the code. I dont get too caught up in that. Whilst Aussies are uncomfortable with becoming too American,etc The Yanks are fairly fond of us Aussies, you only have to visit the US to guage that. However, perhaps in recognition of what you are saying, the game is marketed as USFooty in the states.
You may or may not be aware that there are a few Irish Gaelic football players running around in the AFL. Gaelic football still has not shaken off its amateur status, thus the AFL has been able to offer some opportunties. There is some discontent in the Irish press that their best young players could be lured to the Australian game.
So I think the best the AFL could wish for in the foreseeable future is that like with Western Sydney and the Gold Coast, but on a much smaler scale the talent base is widened for clubs in the AFL.
cheers
Redb
cheers
Redb
Redb said | March 18th 2008 @ 9:47pm | Report comment
Midfielder,
Congratulations you’ve won my award for stating the bleeding obvious.
re my troll remark, no-one has said we are on the verge of world domination. But if people dont like reading about footy being played in other countries then its just a sublime click away…..getting all bitter and twisted over it is frankly pretty funny.
cheers
Redb
Midfielder said | March 18th 2008 @ 9:55pm | Report comment
I not the one upset