By Spiro Zavos
November 28th 2009 @ 1:58am
Related coverage
John Coates is going for Olympic gold
Aussie supporters at the Olympics. Photo by Elizabeth Chapman
John Coates, the wily president of the Australian Olympic Committee has sent a letter asking the Sports Minister, Kate Ellis, a number of leading questions, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, designed to test the independence of the Independent Sport Panel looking into the funding of Australian sport.
The panel made recommendations that funds should be diverted from Olympic Sports to professional sports like Australian Rules football. This funding change has been furiously attacked by Coates.
His questions, on the face of it, make a strong case for the notion that Ellis was indulging in gold medal spin in naming the panel an Independent Sport Panel.
1. Coates wants to know if the author of the report, businessman David Crawford, informed Ellis or declared any association he may have had with the AFL.
2. He wants to know whether Crawford requested, recommended or suggested the appointment of the AFL commissioner Sam Mostyn or AFL foundation board member Colin Carter.
3. Did Mostyn and Carter declare or inform Ellis of their AFL connections?
4. Did the hockey administrator Pam Tye tell Ellis that in 2001 she was an unsuccessful candidate for all seven vacent positions on the AOC executive?
The details of this letter by Coates to Ellis were revealed by Jacqueline Magnay in the SMH. Magnay is an excellent sports journalist with an expertise in investigations (she was part of the team that broke open the Firepower affair). She covers all the sports and has been a brilliant reporter at the Olympic Games.
Interestingly, the columnist on the SMH who has been most supportive of the Crawford recommendations is Richard Hinds, a talented columnist who covers the AFL for his paper.
Ellis’ initial response to Magnay’s story was hardly convincing: ‘We are committed to increasing government support for Olympic and Paralympic sport and also community sport.’
This is not good enough. On the face of it, Ellis set up a supposedly ‘independent’ panel which had obvious conflicts of interest regarding the their funding recommendations. In the case of Tye, there is a history with the AOC.
Why wasn’t a more representative panel co-opted?
If Ellis did know about the sports interests of the panel why didn’t she balance it out with people from other sports?
If she did not know the sports interests of the panel, why didn’t she?
It is hardly a secret that the South Australian Ellis is an AFL tragic. Her knowledge of other major sports in Australia was not up to speed, even after she became the Sports Minister. She rather famously remarked once that Australia needed world class women’s sports teams, not long after the Australian Women’s Rugby Sevens side had won the inaugural World Cup.
Ellis’ over-loading of an ‘independent’ panel with AFL devotees coincides with an era of triumphalism on the part of the Australian Rules community.
In New Zealand, for instance, Hawthorn are putting in a program in some primary schools and demanding a government subsidy.
There has been the swaggering attempt to force the NSW State Government to subsidise the development of another ground in the western suburbs of Sydney for a new team intended to turn the area from a heartland of rugby league to an AFL growth area. The embattled Premier, Nathan Rees, has finally squashed the idea.
There is a great deal of hubris involved in all of this. The cost to the AFL of the push into the western suburbs of Sydney is estimated at about $200 million. If the AFL want to spend their own money on such engrandisements, then so be it. It is their money and however they spend it is their concern.
But Coates’ point is, and many Australians will feel that it is a valid point, that this empire-building should not be subsidised at the cost of a number of Olympic sports.
If there is to be increased subsidies, why not to a genuine grassroots sports like touch football – which just happens not to have an AFL component to it?
If Ellis want the Australian sports community to accept the Crawford recommendations, she needs to deal fully and convincingly with the questions that Coates has raised. So far, Coates looks like winning Olympic gold in this argument and Ellis is looking like an also-ran.
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Freud of Football said | November 28th 2009 @ 2:20am | Report comment
“It is hardly a secret that the South Australian Ellis is an AFL tragic. Her knowledge of other major sports in Australia was not up to speed, even after she became the Sports Minister. She rather famously remarked once that Australia needed world class women’s sports teams, not long after the Australian Women’s Rugby Sevens side had won the inaugural World Cup.”
The inaugural event would indicate that it hasn’t been very important for very long (which would dilute it’s appeal as to being a “world class” event) and I can’t imagine that Women’s Rugby Sevens is exactly high on the participation list, if that is the only team that Australian females had to idolise (which it isn’t but was the only one you pointed out) then Ellis is correct.
Kurt said | November 28th 2009 @ 2:36am | Report comment
Oh FFS Spiro this is a load of nonsense even by your standards. Let me ask one simple question: If Crawford is really is an AFL stooge and this report is merely his attempt to divert funds from Olympic sports to Aussie rules then how in hell did he manage to author a similar report into Australian soccer that led it from the sporting wilderness? Would someone ‘afraid’ of international sports and determined to protect the AFL really put forward the idea that grass roots funding to sports such as soccer, union, league and basketball be increased at the expense of sports such as archery? That really makes sense to you? Have you even read the summary report and given a moment’s thought to its recommendations?
Muppet.
Rabbitz said | November 28th 2009 @ 5:42am | Report comment
The more Coates opens his mouth, the more he looks like a spoilt so and so who is only worried about propping up his ride on the gravy train.
I believe his reaction is typical of those in the olympic movement in this country – elitist and only interested in the elite.
To put it in perspective, the olympics are a two week sports carnival every four years which panders to a very narrow number of sports, and the media completely ignores the majority of this restricted list of sports.
So how is this two week sports carnival important to grass-roots when the AOC isn’t interested in funding non-elite sport?
Oh and one more thing, which seems to be missed in all this is why should the taxpayers subsidise these elite sports and the lifestyles of the elite sports participants AND administrators? If the AOC and it’s elites are worthy of the adulation why aren’t they self funding? Given the money involved, where is the business case? Where is the viability?
Jameswm said | November 28th 2009 @ 6:02am | Report comment
What are these “elite” Olympic sports? Swimming, cycling and athletics? How many people cycle, swim or run to keep fit, how many kids do swimming squad and how many tens of thousands do Little Athletics?
I am not a fan of diverting money to low-participation sports (wrestling,archery and shooting, for example) for the sole purpose of winning medals. But you do need some elite funding programs.
As much as Coates might be trying to support his gravy train, how stacked was the :independent” panel? This panel stacked with AFL fans determines more money should go to AFL – what a surprise.
Why wasn’t there a top athletics or swimming administrator on the panel? These are sports which are high participation at jnr level and Olympic sports as well.
Kurt said | November 28th 2009 @ 7:11am | Report comment
“This panel stacked with AFL fans determines more money should go to AFL – what a surprise” Except that it doesn’t. The closest the AFL gets to a mention is in the following statement: “Swimming, tennis, cricket, cycling, the football codes, netball, golf, hockey, basketball, surfing and surf lifesaving are among the most popular sports in Australia…” If that counts as a recommendation to hand over bucketloads of cash to the AFL then I guess you could interpret the report pretty much anyway you like.
Suggest you take a look for yourself:
http://www.sportpanel.org.au/internet/sportpanel/publishing.nsf/Content/crawford-report
Chris said | November 30th 2009 @ 7:42am | Report comment
When I run, swin or cycle it is to keep fit. It is not because I have been inspired by an Olympian.
Rabbitz said | November 28th 2009 @ 6:47am | Report comment
James,
So how many people would swim, run, ride etc if we put the 100’s of dollars ear-marked for the AOC into needed government services? I would say just about all of them.
When you indicate that the AFL, NRL, ARU etc should not get more money, well I agree – they have viable(ish) business cases.
The problem with diverting to 100’s of millions of dollars to the elite end of any sport and not to the grass roots is that the top-end and their entourage get the spoils but those at the bottom struggle to get enough to run the sport for the majority. I live near a little athletics field and can see (as I write) the work, unpaid work, done by the true sports people just to keep it running.
As for low participation sports, I can’t speak for other sports but the shooting association I belong to has over 120,000 members and we have legislated participation minimums, so I am not sure about being a low-participation sport – although I do get your point. Again we come back to viability at elite levels. Why should my taxes be used to prop up the elite end when the majority get SFA?
Finally, why should our governments be pressed to fund the AOC and its likes, when those very governments are failing to fund essential services such as hospital?, our local hospital has had surgical theatres and wards close due to poor maintenance. They can’t supply water reliably, our most populated city has had regions where water pressure has had to be reduced as the infrastructure has been so poorly maintained that it will fail if the pressure wasn’t reduced. So why should we fund the AOC? If it isn’t financially viable on its own then let it fade away, or at least if we have to fund it, make it change its model to one where it returns profits to the government to repay the grants.
Firestarter Bob said | November 28th 2009 @ 7:22am | Report comment
FInally Spiro someone saying what it is really going on. The upshot of the Crawford report is that they say more money should be put twoards building community sports facilities for our youth and get exercise programs going in schools.
Who best wins from that outcome?
They will argue that the sports fields should be oval to cater for all sports. Thus NSW and Qld get more oval fields all of sudden. Even though the rectangle grounds suit NSW and Queensland’s three most popular football codes, they will have foisted upon them AFL friendly fields.
In the schools, the government will look for an off the shelf, low injury risk, female school teacher friendly sports program, preferably one that brings its own staff so that the teachers can slack off for a few hours. Suddenly the AFL puts his hand up as a socially responsible body ready and able to fill the call.
It’s no secret that the AFL is modelling itself on the NFL’s “Play60″ schools program. Why should the AFL given a free ride into schools?
Schools should not be used for propoganda spreading and recruitment drives. The positives that they bring to kids fitness doesn’t diminish the ultimate aim of the AFL is to use the visits to build their code.
The AFL and every other major professional sport should be kept out of schools. The schools rejected last week the Commonwealth Bank from offering financial advice programs in schools, and this week plenty are complaining about Catholic chaplains being allowed into to schools to offer counselling. AFL is no different.
Kurt said | November 28th 2009 @ 7:24am | Report comment
That’s it, I give up.
Working Class Rugger said | November 28th 2009 @ 11:23am | Report comment
Firestarter
Maybe you’re right. Maybe the AFL could use this opportunity to expand its programs. But I doubt they’ll be the only one. I’m sure the NRL,ARU and FFA would have similar ambitions.
Pippinu said | November 28th 2009 @ 11:55am | Report comment
To add to that, it’s about getting more regular sport into the school curriculum – all primary schools should have an exposure to cricket, soccer, touch footy, Auskick, netball, athletics and perhaps a selection of other games such as softball, basketball and hockey, etc.
It’s about encouraging kids to play more sport, more often.
People get all emotional about the mix – fine – leave it to individual schools to determine their five or six preferred sports – give them all equal time – it honestly doesn’t matter – just play!!
BigAl said | November 28th 2009 @ 8:22am | Report comment
Spiro . . . you are the Doctor Watson to Jon Coates’ Sherlock Holmes…
and you both need to get a clue !
JiMMM said | November 28th 2009 @ 8:51am | Report comment
Do I think the review was independent of the committee’s bias’, No. Do I think that funding should go from smaller sports to larger, No. Do I think this is just some giant AFL conspiracy, NO.
Lets face it, these are all people who have been involved sport in some manner or other, they are obviously going to bring their own preferences to the review, and that is going to influence the review whether it be consciously or subconsciously. If you want evidence of this don’t look at the references to the football codes, look at the references to Hockey in the report.
Now before I go too much further let it be known that I play, umpire, administrate and support Hockey it is the sport that I love, and I would rather watch the local A Grade comp than any of the “national competitions”. And in case you haven’t noticed I the person who seems to plaster The Roar with reference to Hockey.
However to call Hockey a sport that is part of the nations sporting psyche is beyond the pale, Athletics has more awareness in Australia than Hockey does (much as it galls me to say it). If you need more evidence look at the media coverage, how often do you see Athletics mentioned compared to Hockey. Surely if Hockey was part of the nations psyche it would be at saturation coverage this week with it’s showpiece event on in Melbourne from Today, and yet there is only one independent article on The Roar (mine aren’t independent). Yet Athletics isn’t mentioned as part of the Australian psyche, why is this? The only reason that I can see is that one of the panel members is involved with Hockey.
This in itself doesn’t mean that the panel was biased, merely that they were willing to overlook obvious fallacies in their statements to suit panel members.
To finish off I am going to insert a statement that I read from “Tim of Brisbane” on Barry Dick’s blog on the Courier Mail website that perfectly captures my thoughts on the whole Crawford review subject.
“Hi Barry,
Agree that a review is necessary and happy to see that funding for ALL sports is not a ‘given’ and needs to be measured against results from major championships.
I can see the inherent value in contributing additional funds to sports that are capturing the interest and participation of larger numbers at this time. Who doesn;t want to see cricket receive more funding to generate the next crop of world beaters?
However, I need to point out that the funding received by ‘Olympic’ sports does a lot more that service a trip once every four years to the Olympics. I work in the high performance system for what has traditionally been one of Australia’s most popular Olympic sports, and the job of working with our state institutes and academies of sport to support our athletes involves a daily pursuit of goals.
Athletes in high performance systems in this country are expected to attain qualifying standards and performance benchmarks in order to be supported. Funding to athletes, as with their sports, is reviewed regularly, and the perennial challenge is striking the right balance between supporting those sports/athletes that are high performers, and providing sufficient suppor to the ‘next generation’ to ensure our ongoing success as a nation.
What the coverage of the Crawford Report has failed to do thus far is point out that the money allocated to Olympic preparation is spent over four years on daily basis, assisting athletes with training and recovery for major international competitions held sometimes every 4-6 months.
The cost of producing Olympic achievements is high, and I agree that ongoing review is necessary. And I would like to see all sports held accountable in the same fashion – if the cricketers lose the Ashes, or the Socceroos fail to qualify for the Asian Cup, their funding needs to be reviewed in exactly the same way as the Olympic swimming and athletics program.
The issue here is parity. The real question is: Can you argue that one athlete’s dreams of international representation and success are less valuable than another’s? Funding sports should be about funding athletes – current champions, and tomorrow’s champions, at all levels – from grass roots to elite performance.”
Sammy22 said | November 28th 2009 @ 8:51am | Report comment
This is just the summary, following on from Kurt’s link
http://www.sportpanel.org.au/internet/sportpanel/publishing.nsf/Content/540DAC9B7F50B132CA25766B0014E8A6/$File/summ_findings.pdf
The report to me has a very good handle on whats been happening to many sports over the last 20 years. Its simple what was community paid for and driven sports (Running to Rugby) have all a commercial profitable focus today. Each of the governing bodies have had to become business centres and kept focus on the elite end of their sport. This has happened over the same period of time that political correctness has restricted sport in schools and other community arenas, any sport not just football codes.
With everyones focus on the elites winning, governments and sporting bodies have forgotten the area of straight forward participation again any sports not just football codes
All the report intends to do is correct the imbalance by increasing funding and participation options at ground level for the masses to take part. Rather than spending extra in the elite zones. The crazy thing is this will probably create new athletes (all sports) that will require further funding in 5-10 years time.
For the the record i dont watch or even like AFL myself, respect it as a sport, cant see what the paranoia is in relation to the report
Now I’m of to play tennis this morning……… and have to go and pay Resort fees as no public courts exist, and I will never make wimbledon!!!!
Jaredsbro said | November 28th 2009 @ 9:03am | Report comment
Tennis is one such example of a sport that is undefunded. AFL is overfunded, but the same logic works the other way in Victoria anyway as they’re about to have a truly world-class Rectangular stadium for the first time since the Melbourne Olympics which is good for me and others like me. The State Govt is truly engaged with the elite level and from what I can surmise also at lower levels and it is the govt which pays for our theatre(s) of dreams
But tennis will never have participation rates anywhere near as high as it is for AFL (even within one solitary footy club) for example. So quantity is not enough, you need to have checks/balances to make sure grassroots attains quality (not necessarily in terms of performance but in terms of fulfilling its charitable mission)
Pippinu said | November 28th 2009 @ 10:42am | Report comment
Jaredsbro
the report itself documents a stack of obscure sports that get far, far, far more money than anything the AFL receives from Government.
That’s a pretty straightforward thing to demonstrate – the AFL receives nothing from Government.
Pippinu said | November 28th 2009 @ 10:56am | Report comment
To quote the Crawford report: …sports such as water polo and archery are better funded than cricket, AFL or netball…
Pippinu said | November 28th 2009 @ 10:41am | Report comment
This identical report with the identical recommendations was written 12 years ago, at the start of Howard’s term as Prime MInister.
The report foresaw, twelve years ago, that if we continued funding elite sport at the expense of grassroots sport, that the then trend to increased childhood obesity would continue unabated.
That prediction has come true.
Funding obscure sports so as to win a handful of gold medals (at the cost of hundreds of millions per annum) does nothing for the health and well being of our population – nothing.
The report’s recommendations are about redressing the current imbalance between funding of obscure elite sports (the kind that absolutely no Australians give a damn about) for funding increased participation at grass roots.
How on Earth could anyone argue that there is somethign wrong with the thrust of that recommendation.
As for the AFL bias – Crawford did an independent review of the AFL back in 1993, just as he did one for soccer (paid by Government) in 2004 – and now he has been commissioned to do an independent review of sports funding, at both elite and grassroots level.
How on Earth can anyone conclude that Crawford is an AFL stooge? He has as much to do with the AFL as he does to do with the FFA – and that’s nothing.
AndyRoo said | November 28th 2009 @ 3:08pm | Report comment
If he was an AFL stooge his report in football wouldn’t have had the results it has. After Uncle Frank (Lowy) he is second on the christmas card list.
BigAl said | November 28th 2009 @ 10:54am | Report comment
John Coates ( & his cohorts ) are exhibiting the classic response of dictators –
when information arrives that you don’t like – just shoot the messenger !
Pippinu said | November 28th 2009 @ 11:00am | Report comment
Very true.
Basically, the AOC get hundreds of millions of dollars to spend with minimal accountability. As Crawford points out in his very first finding and recommendation: there are no strategic objectives, no mission statements, nothing.
The Government just hands over the money.
What should really be happening when Government hands over hundreds of millions of dollars per annum is to ask a very basic question: what public good will be achieved by spending this hundreds of millions of dollars?
Say, something like this: we expect childhood obesity rates to decline by 2% in 3 years – or something similar.
Kurt said | November 28th 2009 @ 12:14pm | Report comment
Exactly. The ironic thing is that the report doesn’t actually put forward any explicit funding recommendations – it just says that we should use a clear, formal set of strategic objectives for determining sports funding. If the elected government of the day wants to publish a white paper that says: “Our objective for federal sports funding is first and foremost to finish in the top five in the (non-existent completely mythical) medal table”. Then funding allocations should reflect that – bugger the grass roots and let’s spend $100m a year on an elite diving team that will clean up a dozen golds – job done. But at least have the balls to come out and say that in a clear policy document as per all other portfolios.
Pippinu said | November 28th 2009 @ 12:20pm | Report comment
This is Hinds’ closing para in his recent op piece in the Fairfax papers:
“So too the characterisation of the reports chairman David Crawford as being some sort of AFL stooge hell-bent on poisoning noble and prosperous Olympic sports with his small-town thinking. Not only because Crawford is one of Australia’s most well-regarded business minds, but because, in his role as Melbourne Cricket Club vice-president, he recently sat on the opposite side to the AFL in some heated ground use negotiations. Yet these are Dad’s Army’s tactics. If the term was not so ugly and divisive term, you might call them un-Australian. ”
To add further weight to the idea that Gallop is hardly an AFL stooge, in the report itself, he writes that large sporting events, like the AFL grand final, do nothing to foster greater participation.
Gallop was frustrated in his reviews because there was so little in the way of facts and figures available as to how much the Government actually spends on sport, and on what basis it does so.
When Gallop asked Coates directly, what public benefit is gained by Australia being a top 5 Olympic nation, his response was along the lines of: a swelling of pride of your average Australian!!
Yet your average Australian would struggle to name one gold medal winner from last year!!
tjc said | November 28th 2009 @ 1:44pm | Report comment
Every time John Coates and the AOC feels threatened, they attack, attack, attack.
Since the report has come out we ahve had John Coates:
- personally vilifiy the panel members and the motivations behind the people involved and thier associations
- personally attack the Minister for attending a charity event with a 17 yo cancer kid rather than “talk to John” who then flew overseas.
- call the report un-Australian, disresctful, insulting and can it mercilessly.
- set the green and gold army loose on the radio and TV airwaves and newspaper columns to attack Crawford
The one thing we haven’t heard him do once is talk about the substance of the report which had little to do with the Olympic movement and much to do with getting kids playing sports. The self-interest in trying to turn the report from a debate on whether and how we fund kids playing sport and local community sport into an attack on the Green and Gold is breathtaking.
Maybe some of those members of John Coates’ army would be better placed actually reading the report rather than just dribbling out the stock standard AOC lines.
The simple truth is that JOhn, it’s not all about you. In fact the report is largely not about you. There are other sports and other community sports (not just the evil ones like AFL and NRL and cricket) that don’t support the idea that all the money goes where you say it does.
BigAl said | November 28th 2009 @ 2:06pm | Report comment
Yes, maybe John Coates should refer all AOC critics to – The House of Un-Australian Activities !
bozo said | November 28th 2009 @ 1:55pm | Report comment
Pip
Get it right. It is not the AOC that gets the funding, It is sports, some of which happen to participate in the Olympics. They participate in the Olympics because they are international sports. Great to be world beaters at rugby league or Aussie rules but it is a pretty limited horizon.
Pippinu said | November 28th 2009 @ 3:00pm | Report comment
bozo
1. Crawford was not able to demonstrate who was getting what with any great degree of accuracy – so one thing that needs to happen is for the exact facts and figures to be put out on the table for all to see.
2. If people want to play in international sports – great – let them raise their own money doing it!!! (walkathons, cake raffles, etc) I reckon I could have been a sjoelbak champ’een of the world, but alas, I got no money to support my training and travel. Bad luck. Do what you can do, or you can get a real job like the rest of us.
One thing is for sure – absolutely no one has a right to government funding in perpetuity.
Crawford has rightly pointed out that hundreds of millions of dollars are going to obscure sports that no Australians play, and what’s more, none of us give a damn about them, while our childhood obesity problem gets worse and worse.
bever fever said | November 28th 2009 @ 6:02pm | Report comment
This article is crap, used to be the league boys on here that resented aussie rules with a passion, a few soccer followers as well but now we have to put up with the rugby boys thinking their is some sort of conspiracy against them from aussie rules.
Did you read the report Spiro.
Perhaps you rugby boys had best be getting back to the threads and articles bagging rugby and talking up its demise in this country and not picking fights.
Jameswm said | November 28th 2009 @ 8:52pm | Report comment
Pip – I’m sorry but that’s very short sighted.
What if you’re very good at a sport that doesn’t pay very well? What if you’re the 2nd best 800m runner in the country and among the best 15 track and field athletes in the country overall?
You’re saying use walkathons and chook raffles to raise money to go to world champs and overseas competitions. The Olympics too? Who pays the coaches with the expertise to train you to be competitive at a world level?
This is a sport with huge junior participation levels (40,000 kids in NSW), but virtually no money at senior level – not in this country, anyway. Should they finish up and when they get to elite level, so and play another sport with more money?
On the other hand, be the 60th best soccer player in the country and you might earn $350K per annum. What you’re saying is if you want to eat, just play soccer, that’s where the money is. Or League, or AFL, or rugby.
I don’t think you thought out your post very well.
Rabbitz I didn’t say elite athletics should get funding at the expense of grass roots. I have 3 kids doing Little Athletics, spread over 2 clubs, and I know how much they need a few bucks. But if they continue on, and get to say world jnr level at age 18, should they have to raise their own money to go to those world jnrs? What if they come from a family without much money and without connections? Bad luck?
There has to be funding at the elite level too, as there currently is.
Sammy22 said | November 28th 2009 @ 10:18pm | Report comment
As a touch of reality, there is currently an Australian Schoolboy Rugby Union (under 18’s) team touring the UK. Which is as world junior as it gets and some of those players will be in the Wallaby team within a few short years.
Oh and yes they were selling raffle tickets (less than 4 weeks ago) and anything else they could to get there (each were made responsible to do so)….. it wasn’t all paid for (some funding yes)
May there be $ at the top level of football codes, but here and now in all sports we have amazing volunteers that bring these athletes along, put the money at ground level so these people can do their best and the top flight will financially look after themselves
Rabbitz said | November 29th 2009 @ 4:28pm | Report comment
James
The bottom line for me is why should I, as a taxpayer, fund the dreams and aspirations of your children, when as Australians our governments are failing to provide basic essential services?
I am a sports tragic but I still believe that it rates waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy below the the genuine needs of society.
The hundreds of millions poured into relatively few sports people and administrators could be better spent to provide better essential government services.
Pippinu said | November 28th 2009 @ 9:17pm | Report comment
James
to answer your opening questions – bad luck!!
The World is full of sports, full of activities, full of games, full of things that bugger all people follow – especially bugger all Australians.
The Olympics has become one farcical non-sporting event after another – who cares?? Most Australians don’t – so why pay for it?
If a sport is popular enough at the elite level – it will generate money on its own – if it’s not popular enough to generate money – it’s bad luck.
If the government supported every hair brain sporting activity that man has ever thought up – we’d go broke overnight.
As I said – no one supported me in becoming a world sjoelbak champion (and believe me, I could have done so) – why should anyone have the expectation that they ought to be supported by the taxpayer?
dasilva said | November 28th 2009 @ 10:22pm | Report comment
Pip
Although I do agree with not funding sports that no one cares about
Athletics is something that Australian care about.
Athletics is a prestigious field and is even more of a world game then football.
IF we produce another Cathy freeman or we produce an Australian version of a Usain Bolt. Believe me that will be big news to the Australian public and to the Australian reputation to the outside world
I believe that Olympics funding should only be done to select sports that are considered national importance such as Track and fields and swimming.
Our target should be to maintain our success in swimming and to improve our status in the Track and fields rather then just increasing our medal tally in the olympics with some obscure sport.
Jaredsbro said | November 28th 2009 @ 10:34pm | Report comment
Damn it and I thought my idea was highly original…must be the early hour-late hour differential between Oz and NZ
Jaredsbro said | November 28th 2009 @ 10:31pm | Report comment
No in trying to defend the honour of Crawford and his commonsense approach you’ve missed the point entirely Pip. The point is that sport is ACTUALLY NOT ABOUT JUST ENTERTAINMENT
It’s about things of mutually-agreed upon value, more often than not qualities which are intrinsic as opposed to those which have extrinsic value. By all means you need to spend taxpayer dollars responsibly but it shouldn’t all be about making money. Work out, as far as the public is concerned with those sports which are perceived as having intrinsic value, now this may be a little to susceptible to populism but it’s better than simply having a free market approach and that’s what this is.
By the way just curious which sports do you think most Australians consider to be fields of worthwhile excellence? Not just spectator sports surely
Pippinu said | November 29th 2009 @ 6:33am | Report comment
Jaredbro
Crawford made two points that you are repeating:
1. Save the taxpayer funds for sports that matter to Australians;
2. Put the focus back on participation and combatting childhood obesity.
One other thing – about value – Crawford has made this point as well – at the moment Government funds are being handed out to elite sports with zero accountability – zero reporting – and on the basis of zero outcome statements.
For anyone to argue that this is reasonable is barking up the wrong tree.
Jaredsbro said | November 29th 2009 @ 4:38pm | Report comment
Yes but the report also states a lot of other things which are not necessarily a good idea, as do most research projects
As I said make sure it’s financially sustainable, but what you seem to keep talking about or is it talking up is to make sure sport pays for itself. Well in Australia no sport that pays for itself can call itself truly International can it, therefore how does an Australian compete Internationally in sports that cannot pay for themselves but are of agreed-upon value?
Pippinu said | November 29th 2009 @ 4:45pm | Report comment
Jaredsbro
1. There are stacks of professional sports people who are on healthy paypackets but received no, or very little, government support – and the most lucrative of these ply their trade overseas.
2. Re financial sustainability – part of Crawford’s recommendations is to have greater accountability and greater outcomes-based methodologies for the money provided (rather than some whimsical notion that we will do well at the Olympics, thereby filling the hearts of all Australians with pride).
Jaredsbro said | November 29th 2009 @ 4:58pm | Report comment
But by plying their trade overseas a la a snowboarder for example they’re not contributing in anyway to helping other like minded people into getting into the same discipline as them. It might work if their main aim is personal glory as they’d truly get to perform on the highest stage but how does this help a youngster or even a person my age who may or may not want/be willing to give half pipe snowboarding for eg a go. Part of funding is gaining exposure. But that’s an issue of rolemodels, which means I’m kinda disgressing
Pippinu said | November 29th 2009 @ 5:00pm | Report comment
I actually view most of the Olympic events as attempts at personal glory.
Jaredsbro said | November 29th 2009 @ 5:06pm | Report comment
Fair enough. These days that’s probably true, but it has other functions too of course. Sometimes it takes real selflessness to really spread the message, but sometimes unfortunately athletes can get away with doing it half-heartedly and the results start falling out of the sky
bozo said | November 28th 2009 @ 10:56pm | Report comment
Pip
In your mind I am sure you could have become the world champion in any number of sports.
You may be surprised that quite a lot of young people participate in sports that are not only played in Australia and the former Empire, even if they don’t make it to the back pages of your newspaper, and they don’t have the problems of obesity on which you base your response.
It may well be that they are commited and very capable athletes.
You are wrong in suggesting they and their parents don’t have to run bbq’s and other fund raisers. Anyone involved in junior sport has to work hard. Perhaps your experience is different, in which case you don’t need any funding.
Pippinu said | November 29th 2009 @ 6:34am | Report comment
“You may be surprised that quite a lot of young people participate in sports that are not only played in Australia and the former Empire…”
yes – but so what – the world is full of bizarre human activities – they don’t all need to be funded by the taxpayer!!
Jaredsbro said | November 29th 2009 @ 4:42pm | Report comment
Bizarre is obviously not going to hold too much intrinsic value for everyday Australians is it Pip? Don’t get all subjectivist on us Pip, there are plenty of sports of National Importance which are not Grandstand type of sports…pretty simple. All we got to do (or rather the AOC has to do) is be nudged into investing in those sports, say twenty max (out of 28 is it Olympic disciplines?) and even if it means the Wallaby sevens are running on the smell of an oily rag there will be a much higher concentration on the sports as there’s already interest for them.
Also the AOC needs to get rid of the Elitist attitude, but I think most people have already said that
Jameswm said | November 29th 2009 @ 5:22am | Report comment
Pip – if you call athletics and my example of 800m running a hair-brained activity then there isn’t much point discussing it with you. Maybe athletics is an obscure sport to you but as dasilva said, it’s the only sport that’s more global than football.
You’re basically saying if you want to play sport internationally, either be rich or choose a sport where you get paid a lot. Even in rugby, where the top playrs do get paid a lot, the juniors have to raise supplementary funds.
Pippinu said | November 29th 2009 @ 6:36am | Report comment
The Crawford report is about directing more funds to the community level so that kids can participate in Athletics, as opposed to feather bedding a few elite athletes who are never going to amount to too much on the world stage.
Olympic funding chews up hundreds of millions of dollars per annum for no perceivable gain to Australia in any way, shape or form.
Jaredsbro said | November 29th 2009 @ 4:47pm | Report comment
Third consecutive reply to a reply…
Yes the report is aimed at this but I was analysing your defence of it Pip. You’re dead right as is the report about the waste of money going into the very tip of the Pohutakawa Tree ( 
) which is almost entirely avoidable, but the real mission is to convince people like you that athletics or in fact the entire Olympic movement is relevant not just to those who are any good but also something worthy of the entire nation buying into it (even at the risk of corny advertising space) providing for example an auskick equivalent, but one not just for kids because we don’t want this to end up just like a sporting Christmas parade (if you get my drift)…because if you’re representative of the everyman there’s a way to go yet isn’t there 
Pippinu said | November 29th 2009 @ 4:54pm | Report comment
Jaredsbro
I’m not sure why people are assuming I’m somehow against Athletics. If ou read my Roar blurb, you will note that at one stage I held the triple jump record at my primary school.
The point is, we used to do athletics at primary school, and my guess is that that is now a rarety.
Some money needs to be directed back to primary school PE where kids can learn and practice stuff like track and field; soccer; cricket; touch footy; netball; etc.
Jaredsbro said | November 29th 2009 @ 5:03pm | Report comment
Yeah I apologise for attacking the man not the ball and I know you’re in love with plenty of sports of which many are on the fringe like Korfball
…but why I got so passive-agressive was because you seemed to be suggesting a free market kind of logic about sport, and for heaven’s sake can we leave our sporting culture apart from all cruel and alienating aspects of business…
KP said | November 29th 2009 @ 10:43am | Report comment
We have 2 problems 1) obesity and 2) sports funding
re: 1) need an increase in participation of activities/sports by kids and technically as this affects health in the long term (and as the government funds hospitals) its important this gets funded and reduces poor health in the longer term
2) per capita we are spending a lot more than other nations on developing elite sport, we neither have the population or resources to continue this
we need to develop a system where we have our kids running around and keeping fit whilst continuing to fund our top end of sports??? we cant have both guys.
While I totally agree that converting northern state grounds into ovals is disgusting – the rectangle sports are much more popular there, we do need to enhance our health rather than our “elite” athletes.
The report “advises” and remember the government doesn’t have to listen to this, that we promote more grassroots participation. This does not necessarily mean AFL or NRL or RU or Soccer (sorry – what is the shorthand for football/soccer??) rather a simple cheap way of keeping our kids fit.
I personally think ideally this works to the track athletes – we should develop more running grounds/tracks for young kids to parcitipate on, we have reasonable amounts of sports grounds and a running track around a already set up park costs less.
Just remember that the government doesn’t need to take the WHOLE report and implement it, rather it’ll do whatever will get the most voters, and my guess is that the loss of track voters would be more than the loss of any AFL voters (who are unlikely to change their vote as this issue doesn’t affect their sport significantly), so dont expect too big cuts to the elite end, rather a cut from other gov funding (or maybe increase in beer tax – god forbid) put into the grassroots.
And to whoever knows their running, the more miles these kids run, the more likely we’re going to develop another Gebrselassie
Jaredsbro said | November 29th 2009 @ 4:52pm | Report comment
It needs more than kids to get into the idea of athletics as people like Pip are only interested in athletics as far as it’s spectator appeal
KP said | November 29th 2009 @ 10:47am | Report comment
Ha Pip,
damn lag, technically was saying something similar (and longer), but i dont think that the funding provides nil gain to Australia – a kid that doesn’t like running but enjoys the sport of Archery deserves the opportunity to participate in it at the same price as his best mate that plays footy/rugby/afl – the skills and health gains are still there. The fundingt just needs to be directed south/grassroots rather than north/elite level
Fly on the Wall said | November 30th 2009 @ 7:20am | Report comment
Grow up Spiro, you have it all wrong.
The Crawford report does not recommend any cuts to Olympic funding.
Full stop.
End of story.
The whingeing bully Coates wants an EXTRA $100m for the AOC.
Crawford rightly says any increase should go to grassroots development and he has my full support, although I disagree that fully professional sports should get public handouts (tennis, AFL, NRL, ARU, FFA, cricket etc) .
That money should go to hockey, cycling, netball, softball, swimming and so on. Amateur Olympic sports cannot capitalise on gold medals that much because they are forbidden by the IOC from selling any Olympic-related merchandise.
Remember the men’s hockey finally winning gold in Athens?
I’d love a video / T-shirt / poster of that game / moment and Australia’s efforts in the tournament. Sorry, IOC doesn’t allow it.
How many Geelong / Storm fans have bought a video, T-shirt or other 2009 premiership merchandise in the past two months? I’ll bet tens of thousands – it makes a huge difference to Olympic sports that are not fully professional.
And please stop with the anti-AFL rubbish – they are the gold standard in Australian sports administration and miles ahead of the AOC and ASC. Sure they are not perfect but they do it better than anyone.
Richard Hinds got it dead right in his article.
Did any Fox Sports viewers catch the Kookaburras destroying Holland yesterday in the Champions Trophy hockey in Melbourne? A magical performance. How many development officers does Hockey NSW have? Two at most. That’s where any extra money needs to go.
Redb said | November 30th 2009 @ 8:06am | Report comment
Excellent post.
Fly on the Wall said | November 30th 2009 @ 7:24am | Report comment
One last thing, Coates is not going for gold – he’s going for the gutter in a pathetic display of jingoistic flag-waving tosh that makes me want to vomit.
Sydney 2000 gave the AOC a mountain cash with which to fund all Australia’s future Olympic campaigns.
If Coates is not equipped to manage that investment he should let someone do it and stick to the pen-pushing, glad-handing that he excels at.
Pippinu said | November 30th 2009 @ 8:11am | Report comment
Amen to that.
Fly – it’s also about getting more money into sport at primary school level – and hockey should definitely be one of the choices available for primary school kids to play.
I’ve said above – looking at years 5 and 6 – split up the school year into six segments of around six weeks each – and kids would play one specific sport for those six weeks, incl basics, training and games.
You’d have some standard ones that most schools would do: cricket, athletics, soccer and netball, and then you’d have others from which all schools could choose: touch footy, hockey, basketball, softball, auskick, etc.
This is where the focus of Crawford’s findings should lead us – getting kids playing sport at school again.
Fly on the Wall said | November 30th 2009 @ 9:43am | Report comment
Agreed – primary school is crucial to developing good exercise habits. The sports that need the funding don’t have the development officers to go around schools conducting basic skills clinics. Vicious cycle repeats.
Jameswm said | November 30th 2009 @ 8:50am | Report comment
Why does everyone think spending a few dollars on pools or athletics equipment at local clubs, or even improved PE programs at public schools, will have any significant impact on the obesity problems?
I was at a Little Aths meet on Saturday – the obese people (and ironically there were many) were drinking coke and eating chips and ice creams.
Fly on the Wall said | November 30th 2009 @ 9:33am | Report comment
There are many factors behind rising obesity levels.
But the most important one is adults buying crap food – for themselves and their kids.
Stop doing that and the problem is 3/4 solved.
Yes, food standard labelling and regulations should be much tougher – but just don’t buy the stuff to start with.
Get in contact with Susie Burrell, a nutritionist, and she will send you a weekly email outlining healthy food choices – it’s a great weekly read and invaluable for anyone with kids who love eating crap.
Now, back onto the Crawford report – how about the athletes sign a contract that says they will pay back their taxpayer-provided funding once they earn / win a certain amount of money?
The reason GB is now doing great at sport is because they have national lottery funding and have bought excellent Australian coaches to set up their own institutes.
This was all a reaction to Thatcher selling off thousands of school ovals – their ‘Montreal moment’ if you like.
Jameswm – do you think it is right for Little Athletics to have McDonalds as a sponsor?
Sort of legitimises the bad eating habits of the obese people you mentioned.
Beast-A-Tron said | November 30th 2009 @ 5:13pm | Report comment
Gotta love the tinfoil hat. What a sublime piece of impartial journalism, check out these gems: “force the NSW State Government”, “demanding a government subsidy”, oh and my personal favourite “empire-building should not be subsidised”. Got anymore loaded words up the sleeve? Quality journalism.
bever fever said | November 30th 2009 @ 5:28pm | Report comment
Nailed it Beast.
Jameswm said | December 1st 2009 @ 2:31pm | Report comment
Yes another great irony FOTW. Ronald was even there to officially open the carnival on Saturday. Shows how much Maccas my kids have when my 9yo thought his name was Ryan McDonald. IGA also sponsor it, as do coke.
These days obesity levels have a correlation with IQ, so says a study I saw not too long ago.
I can’t see how it’s the right thing to force an athlete, on a dole level handout whilst training, eventually getting a decent earn, to pay it back to the Govt. Where do you draw the line? You went to a 4-day training camp 7 years ago, we’ve CPI’ed the cost to $1,200, so pay that back too thanks. Talk about a disincentive to earn.
Reducing or stopping the payouts when they are self-sufficient – different story. But paying them back?
Think about it this way. You put monmey into a kid’s Little Athletics club so they can improve, and then when they are good, they have to fund $30,000 per annum to go overseas for competition.
Pip wrongly assumes that if a sport is followed by kids, it will generate top $ at the snr level. He also wrongly assumes that if it does, it will put the money back into elite jnr coaching. Not true – look at swimming as well. Athletics is the poor cousin, because it’s so much tougher to excel in it than in swimming.
Fly on the Wall said | December 1st 2009 @ 8:10pm | Report comment
The sports that generate big money for the top athletes are the ones that command big TV deals, simple as that.
That’s why women athletes earn so much less, except in tennis.
And that’s why Australia’s top athletes in many Olympic sports do it tough – hockey, shooting, equestrian, rowing, cycling (except the TdF guys).
My payback suggestion would go something like this – Stephanie Rice received public funding of, say, $100,000 over 5 years. She’s now earning say $500,000 a year through endorsements, so she can pay back the $100,000 over a few years – money that either gets put into grassroots swimming (has to be proved) or gets returned to the government.
How much taxpayer money did Lleyton Hewitt get? Don’t know – but whatever it was he can now afford to pay it back.
What’s wrong with that? We don’t begrudge the handout and they don’t begrudge handing it back once they can afford to.