Foz’s sniping at other codes is pointless

 
Slippery Jim Roar Rookie

By Slippery Jim, 7 May 2010 Slippery Jim is a Roar Rookie

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With the FIFA World Cup just around the corner, excitement is building among Australian football fans looking forward with anticipation to football’s showpiece event.

For many long time fans of football who are keenly interested in the growth of the game here in Australia, the World Cup is also one of the key factors in growing the game here.

This is especially the case with Australia featuring for the second consecutive time in the competition, while simultaneously we are promoting our bid to host it.

There is no doubt that having the privilege of holding the world’s biggest and possibly most passionate sporting event on home soil would be a dream come true for many Australians.

The future of Australian football, then, should look brighter than at any time in our history.

However, rather than embracing the joy and passion of this exquisite sporting spectacle, and using the opportunity to encourage interest and welcome others as fans of the game, several fans and media personalities are becoming overly negative and are turning this into an opportunity to lash out at fans of other codes, or the rival code itself.

I am not talking merely about harmless banter – the lifeblood of sport and one of the most enjoyable parts of being a fan – but genuinely felt hatred and vindictiveness that is creeping into the discussion of football.

These so-called ‘code wars’ strike me as bizarre.

After all, you wouldn’t see basketball fans death riding netball, or claiming they will soon leap above them in some imaginary popularity ranking. Nor would you see fans of tennis claiming with glee that their popularity will soon make golf all but extinct.

It is particularly disappointing when administrative heads such as Aussie Rules’ Andrew Demetriou let themselves down by provoking paranoia and fear of association football, or senior football analysts such as Craig Foster making sweeping statements to incite anger among Aussie rules and rugby fans.

Craig Foster does not merely polarise fans of all football codes (including his own) but actually insults and drives away casual football fans rather than attracting them to the game.

As an example, Craig Foster was interviewed yesterday morning on Triple J Radio.

In his interview, Foster dogmatically stated something he has mentioned before – that there are not, in fact, four codes of football in Australia.

In fact, he reasoned, “there is only one code of football” because the other three codes primarily use their hands. As such he referred to them as “handball codes!”

This claim is not only breathtakingly arrogant and intentionally provocative, but is not even historically factual.

A senior football analyst and a student of football of the calibre of Craig Foster should surely know that the word ‘football’ is not historically referring to the contact with the ball.

For him to state that it indicates that he is either being disingenuous, or that his level of ignorance of the history of football is such that all facts mentioned in his book bear re-examination for factual errors.

The name ‘football’ actually made its first appearance in a document in 1486 and was not referring to the foot making contact with the ball. In fact, it was referring to the game being played ‘on foot’, as opposed to on horseback as in royally-approved jousting.

Even if we discount any historical context, all four codes use contact by the hand within their rules to a greater or lesser extent, including association football.

Now, it is worth mentioning that Foster is spruiking his new book, cleverly leveraging off of the World Cup, and must be assuming all publicity is good publicity.

That said, deliberately provoking fans of the other three codes on national radio, in print in his columns as well as on SBS is self-defeating for football.

Craig Foster also claimed that football is unique in that it is outward looking, and inclusive of everyone.

Noble words.

However, Foster, by his words and abrasive, humourless manner, seeks to exclude, insult and belittle, and by doing so drive away those Australians who follow the other codes – and there are millions of them.

His inflammatory approach to promoting football at the expense of other codes is counterproductive.

His all or nothing approach is sadly not unique.

However, I urge football fans not to follow his lead.

We can use our participation at the FIFA World Cup and our bid to host it here in Australia as positives to promote the game and attract others, without insulting, patronising or going out of our way to disadvantage fans of the other sports or footballing codes.

Aussie Rules, League and Union make up the wonderful tapestry of sporting experience here in Australia. Whether we prefer one above the other is a personal choice that we should not force upon others.

In fact, there is no need to.

After all, the strength and appeal of association football easily stands on its own merits. Celebrating those merits alone are all that is required grow the game further in Australia.

Whether this football becomes the dominant code in Australia or not is irrelevant.

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