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The A-League has been in the spotlight this week for all the wrong reasons.
The leaking of the names of 198 A-League fans who have been banned from attending Australian football matches due to misbehaviour found its way into the pages of The Daily Telegraph, much to the disgust of almost all concerned.
In recent days, Telegraph journalist Rebecca Wilson and perennial sporting villain Alan Jones compared the thuggery of A-League fans to the perpetrators of last week’s Paris terror attacks.
More recently, Football Federation Australia CEO David Gallop released a statement which drew further anguish from already seething fans as he seemingly denied that this list is an issue to the FFA.
Fans wanted the FFA to create an avenue for banned fans to appeal their exclusions from football fixtures, something Gallop skirted around with nonchalance.
Throughout this media sh*tstorm, one club has faced the brunt of the attention, the Western Sydney Wanderers – whose fans make up more than a third of those banned. However, an open letter from the club’s CEO, John Tsatsimas, suggested that they are one of the few institutions who actually have the best interests of the fans at heart.
He asserted that the Wanderers would help their fans fight bans and take their fight for justice to the FFA.
Among everything, it would seem that nobody has really taken a step back to realise where this violence comes from. Wanderers fans are the most culturally diverse of any fan group across our fair land, and they form some of the most vocal and passionate support found in any sport.
These fans are being called out for violence, albeit thanks to a small percentage of “football louts”, as Wilson put it, who sour the match-day experience through flair throwing and general anti-social behaviour.
The Wanderers fan-base is one of the most loyal in the A-League, boasting the third biggest membership numbers of any franchise. The atmosphere at Pirtek Stadium when the Wanderers host a home game is one of the best in the league, with consistent crowd numbers and a European flair which was absent in the A-League in the past.
As a fairly new franchise, the Wanderers are still finding their identity, and finger-pointing about culture and fans certainly doesn’t help the club’s image. However the acknowledgement of a behavioural issue among fans certainly does no harm to the club’s hierarchy as they look to find their place in Australia’s new footballing landscape.
The point then becomes, Wanderers’ fans – and football fans in general – why focus on the negatives?
Sure, in this short period of media negativity around your club, your culture has been questioned and disrespected. But in the long term, people will be forced to acknowledge the European-style atmosphere created at Wanderland, and how it is actually a huge positive for the A-League and the match-day experience.
Be thankful that the A-League and its clubs work closely with the police, and the fact that individuals are in fact banned from attending football matches as it helps to create a more family-orientated, safe atmosphere in the league.
The fact that this list has surfaced will lead to substantial change in the avenues that fans can opt for following a run-in with security or the police. It should form the catalyst for the treatment of A-League fans around the nation, and it should see the league as well as clubs themselves realise the need for fan interaction when it comes to expectations and obligations.
There needs to be a continuous dialogue between FFA, its clubs and their fans in order to ensure situations such as the current ruckus are not repeated. The media handling of the current situation has been an absolute mess, with a war of words underway between fans, columnists and the governing body playing out through the pages of various newspapers and other media outlets.
The formation of a forum for fans to voice concerns should be a primary objective of the A-League, and with fan co-operation the game should flourish in a fashion that officials and supporters can be proud of.
I’m not suggesting that there is no reason for anger at the current situation and those to blame for it. However, there is definitely an underlying set of positives to come out of this situation, which will soon materialise.
Our game will eventually be the beneficiary, and this is something for which we should be grateful.
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