News Ltd has an agenda in attack on Western Sydney AFL
Roar Pro
By Michael C, 9 May 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- AFL, News Ltd, Western Sydney AFL
In war, the truth is the first casualty. The debate about a new AFL side in West Sydney has raised some interesting discussion, debate and media coverage. Interesting is being ‘polite’.
Outright lies by a NRL co-owning News Ltd appears more the truth.
It’s easy to illustrate.
I will do so, because, sadly, these un-truths continue to be trotted out.
On Monday, 21 March, 2005, then premier Bob Carr announced a $20 million dollar grant for major new sporting facilities.
It was announced that the State Govt would provide $15 million of this towards the Blacktown Olympic Park, along with the AFL indicating it would commit $2.5 million.
The other $5 million is to be directed to development of soccer fields between Rooty Hill Road South and the Western Sydney Orbital, to be home to the Blacktown and District Soccer Football Association.
A key comment: the $20 million for sports facilities is in addition to the $45 million already earmarked for the development of the Western Sydney Parklands over the next ten years.
How then has this been reported by News Ltd? Fast forward three years, and we get on July 17, 2008 this headline by Political Reporter Joe Hildebrand:“Blacktown Council uses almost all sports funds for AFL oval.”
It is just poor reporting. The first few lines make this obvious:
“Blacktown Council has siphoned almost all of a $20 million taxpayer fund for sports facilities across the area into its new AFL stadium, sparking a war with the State Government. Mayor Leo Kelly confirmed that $15 million of the fund would go towards the Rooty Hill oval, which has a 10,000 person capacity and will pave the way for a second Sydney AFL team. The remaining $5 million is to go towards new soccer facilities.”
Between May 2005 and July 2008, at what point did the Daily Telegraph not comprehend that the $20 million grant was specifically allocated for the projects? Why the shock and horror three years on for a project that was publicly announced and detailed?
The money was never siphoned. Three years they’ve had to get it right. And they couldn’t.
It should be noted that Blacktown Council committed $6.75 million to the project, and the AFL and Cricket NSW both contributed $2.875 million.
Remember, the AFL was initially reported to be looking at $2.5 million.
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sheek said | May 9th 2009 @ 11:50am | Report comment
Of course they do, which is precisely why we should ignore News Ltd.
Sometimes amusing, sometimes entertaining, rarely informative…..but it’s a free country (still)!
Spiro Zavos said | May 9th 2009 @ 12:45pm | Report comment
It’s too simplistic to blame ‘News Ltd’ for its support of rugby league in the Western Suburbs. News Ltd, through the Herald-Sun, the best tabloid in the world in my view, totally supports AFL in Melbourne. The newspapers go where their readers want them to go. In the western suburbs, the readers are rugby league supporters. In Melbourne, they are AFL supporters.
This is why rugby league and rugby union complain about the lack of coverage of their sports by the Melbourne papers.
Another factor is the allegiance of the sports editors to a particular sport.
In Sydney, the predominating allegiance of the sports editors in newspapers, radio and television is to rugby league. They then ensure that the sport they love is covered probably more intensely than it warrants.
The same applies for Melbourne.
And to television channels like SBS where football is the main winter game, even though, say, rugby has a big international focus. Why wouldn’t SBS, for instance, run the IRB Sevens tournament? Answer: because no one making decisions in the sports department of SBS with any clout is interested in rugby union. They are passionate football supporters, so football dominates.
Albert Ross said | May 9th 2009 @ 12:47pm | Report comment
The most appalling part of this is that Blacktown Council have breached their own environmental regulations by knocking down a stand of remnant endangered Cumberland Plain vegetation to accommodate the expansion of this white elephant.
Not content with frittering away the hard earned money of the NSW taxpayers and BCC ratepayers building and maintaining an Olympic sports that nobody cares about stadium we are now forced to have to put up with this expensive monstrosity plonked in the middle of nowhere bereft of proper public transport links.
Somebody remind me: what is planned capacity of this new edifice? How will those numbers support any kind of professional sporting team?.
Disclosure: I am a NSW taxpayer and a BCC ratepayer.
PS: The New Corp giveaway The Blacktown Advocate gives AFL a good run as per http://blacktown-advocate.whereilive.com.au/sport/list/category/australian-rules-footy/ but Mick is never likely to let the facts get in the way of a good tale.
tifosi said | May 9th 2009 @ 12:57pm | Report comment
Mr Zavos is 100% right.
The daily telegraph does a better job on covering AFL, then the Herald sun does on rugby and rugby league thats for sure.
John Ryan said | May 9th 2009 @ 2:37pm | Report comment
Just another load of old cobblers by the head of AFL cheer squad in here,who like the AFL has problems with people who don’t like AFL.
Just ask his opinion of Roy Masters,then settle back for a sleep inducing encyclical from the master of wordy BS Michael C the author of this rubbish, followed by the AFL mafia soon after.
BigAl said | May 9th 2009 @ 2:41pm | Report comment
Spiro . . . I f I read you correctly you say in the one article that media sports coverage is controlled by what they know their audience wants and then you say its controlled by the prejudice sports editors ?? – please explain !!
I’m sure ALL private enterprise media would go where they can make the money, which I assume you are well aware is becoming increasingly hard to do!
SBS is a species unto itself. To my observation they always lead off their Sports bulletin with in-depth English ( not multi-cultural, English) Soccer, then maybe Australian soccer, then some international gymnastics or Norwegian Cross country skiing etc… tailing off with a bit about the popular domestic codes competition.
Brian said | May 9th 2009 @ 2:43pm | Report comment
Well said Spiro
Its not a conspiracy just a lack of AFL interest in Western Sydney.
zach said | May 9th 2009 @ 3:16pm | Report comment
Spiro and tifosi you must be kidding. The Herald Sun OWNS Melbourne Storm and has promoted them way above any actual public interest for 10 years. They have never printed a negative article about the Storm despite the fact that they are still haemorraging money and drawing crowds as low as 7000. Compare this with the rabid treatment of the AFL in the Telegraph in the last couple of weeks. As for the Age, they are sponsors of and spruikers for Melbourne Victory and they have a dedicated rugby league section. Try finding AFL in the SMH. The Age is run by its Sydney masters ( yes, – Roy Masters)
Dave said | May 9th 2009 @ 4:08pm | Report comment
Spiro, you are right about SBS. It is meant to provide multicultural radio and television services. however its sports converge has a multicultural model from the 1960’ss when there was high immigration from Southern Europe.
Looking at immigration statistics from July 2007 to June 2008 http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/02key.htm
New Zealand 27 600 18.5%
United Kingdom 23 200 15.6%
India 15 300 10.3%
China (excludes SARs and Taiwan) 13 000 8.7%
Philippines 6 100 4.1%
South Africa 5 200 3.5%
Sri Lanka 3 600 2.4%
Malaysia 3 500 2.4%
Vietnam 2 700 1.8%
Korea (North and South) 2 600 1.7%
Other than the United Kingdom, most immigrants are not coming from countries where Soccer is the number 1 sport. Maybe SBS can change with the times and their sports coverage can start to reflect that.
Carl U said | May 9th 2009 @ 4:08pm | Report comment
Come on Michael,
Conspiracies now?
If there really was a conspiracy there wouldn’t be the amount AFL coverage that there is. AFL gets more then enough. The thing is that Rugby League journos don’t like AFL because NRL fans dont like AFL. Big suprise!