- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Over the last few days the Australian media has been witness to one of the most incredible beat-ups in the history of sports coverage. News Corp reporter Rebecca Wilson printed a story on Sunday naming and shaming the 190 football fans who have been banned from various stadiums across Australia.
In a number of articles, Wilson describes the violence in Australian football as “endemic and acute” and that there are “rats in the ranks of club supporters who wreak havoc at games”.
DAVID GALLOP STATEMENT ON LEAKED LIST
This was only made worse on Monday when shock jock Alan Jones asked Wilson, “Is this like terrorism in Paris? The leaders have no guts?”. Now not only is this a terrible thing connecting the horrible events that took place around Paris so soon after they occurred, but it’s creating the imagery that all football supporters are part of some regime to create violence during games, which is simply absurd.
There are a couple of main problems I have with both Wilson’s and Jones’ sentiments.
Firstly, it ignores the larger problem of often drunken violence at sporting codes across the country. Yes, the A-League has seen its fair share of incidents, especially with items such as flares being thrown but it is not isolated to football.
We saw during the Good Friday NRL game this year Bulldogs and Rabbitohs supporters throwing bottles at officials and players in some of the worse scenes ever witnessed in Australian sport.
In AFL, a Fremantle Dockers fan began punching an off-duty policewoman during a finals game in Perth. These are just two examples from this year that show there is often a wider problem that was selectively ignored by Wilson and co.
I think a lot of this is due to Wilson, an AFL and NRL reporter, and a lot of other big media stakeholders in this country, being worried about the spread of football in this country.
The fact is, they should be.
Like I have written about before, football is quickly becoming one of the biggest sports in this country from the grassroots up, and it is confronting for many people who see it as a ‘European’ or ‘immigrants’ game, which is unfortunately the mindset for many people.
I’m not sure why all these sports can’t co-compete, but for some reason there has to be a premier sport that dominates all in this country and it is an attitude that has to change. The vitriol from reporters such as Wilson who have not only been attacking the sport, but also the Western Sydney Wanderers’ fans The Red and Black Bloc, is spiteful at best in an attempt to make something topical.
Wilson, who once called herself a “walking, talking example of diversity in sport”, is tearing down one of the most multiculturally diverse games in Australia that manages to combine different ethnicities and backgrounds to support the one team.
Yes, as a Sydney FC fan the RBB can be considered our biggest rivals but no one wants to see them torn down for what a minority of them are doing, let alone being publicly humiliated on the front page of a nationwide paper.
Part of the problem as well is that there is no appeal process set in place for people who have been convicted of these incidents in stadiums, with people who have done things as minor as holding up a banner in the wrong section of the crowd included in the list Wilson published on the weekend.
What Wilson has managed to do, unfortunately for her, is the one thing that will help her cause the least, bring football fans together. All across social media channels people are coming together to support the sport and remind her that football is growing into one of, if not the biggest sport in this country.
It is the second time within the month that all football fans have united among a common cause, with the #SaveTheNix campaign beginning to help the Wellington Phoenix push for a long-term contract in the A-League, in a show of cross-support not before seen in Australia.
Average attendances are up more than 33 per cent on average since the A-League’s inception, compared with a 10 per cent decline in NRL crowds. In the most recent census, football was the most participated sport at the grassroots level, additionally, a recent Roy Morgan poll showed 8.2 per cent of children aged six and up are involved with football as opposed to only 1.6 per cent who are involved in rugby league.
This groundswell of support is what is pushing the sport’s success. Now in it’s 11th season, the A-League is becoming a serious competitor for the other sporting codes with the FFA starting to consider expansion plans and even the possibility for promotion/relegation to replicate the European leagues that make the game so popular.
Football is growing, and comments and articles like the ones from Wilson and Jones will only continue to unite the sport in this country and make the fans stronger as one. The passion and support of A-League fans is like nothing I have ever seen in Australia.
Some of the big games, last month’s Sydney Derby for example, have the atmosphere of massive European cup ties with fans at either end standing and singing for a whole 90 minutes. (Have a look at some of the best bits in the Cope90 video below.)
The scariest thing for the other codes in this country… football is only just getting started.
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.