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This post is intended more as an expansive theoretical question to other Roarers than simply my own opinion, but something has been nagging away in my head since I read that Australian Football League CEO Andrew Demetriou got $2.2 million last year as the head of the sport.
That’s 7.5 cents a second. Every second. All year. Whether he’s singing paperwork, attending games or eating breakfast. I’m not saying don’t pay the man, but there’d be a few other people who’d like to earn that amount.
The Advertiser‘s Mike Rucci pointed out on February 26 that Demetriou earns more than any other AFL-listed player. Not even Bud Selig, Major League Baseball commissioner in the US, can do that. Neither can NBA chairman David Stern.
Demetriou’s salary now equals Rick Scudamore, CEO of the English Premier League – and he gets no more than the average wage of an EPL player.
Anyway, it made me ponder why it is that Mr. Demetriou can earn so much, and be in charge of such a seemingly huge domestic sporting body, yet the general fan chatter is, much of the time, negative about the controlling body itself.
Fans made their feelings known on the Herald Sun website, polling a 70.08 per cent “no” vote on Demetriou deserving his pay rate.
In light of those money numbers, and I must say I’m not usually a Rebecca Wilson fan, but her February 28 piece in Melbourne’s Herald Sun had a point. The AFL does like to think of itself as the best-run sports organisation in Australia, although some might suggest that it’s become in recent years closer to “Sports Entertainment”, complete with the odd bit of wrestling, but lacking the worldwide scope.
However, I also agree that the whole media/publicity storm/controversy thing surrounding “that girl” and her alleged involvement with both St Kilda players and agent Ricky Nixon has not been well handled. Perhaps it could have been hand-balled on to the police by now instead of dragged through the newspapers every week?
“She may be physically mature and attractive, but she was only 16 when she alleges she had sex with at least one of the St Kilda stars,” wrote Wilson.
“It was then that the AFL should have intervened. They didn’t. They allowed the club to handle it.”
Whether, as Wilson puts it, Demetriou’s National Rugby League counterpart David Gallop “would have stepped in weeks ago” on such a matter is a moot point, but the whole scandal itself raises a wider question I’d like to call “brand-aid”.
Have sporting, and particularly footballing, controlling bodies in Australia become so insular and taken the fans for granted so much that their solution to such on-field or off-field behaviours is nothing more than a “brand-aid”?
If so, why? Why don’t the AFL and/or NRL take such matters more seriously, or at least be seen to do so? Are they not the custodians of their respective sports within Australia? Don’t they care about the image these sports present to young and old alike in the public sphere?
Or, as Wilson said, “perhaps he [Demetriou] believes his sport is above other professional football codes and that those who are part of it deserve to be treated as though they are in possession of certain sensibilities.”
Take a simple example from the EPL – the moment in January 1995 when a certain French-born future Manchester United captain decided to demonstrate his skills in the ancient Lancastrian martial art “Can To Na” (no, not Ecky Thump, as some Goodies-watchers would no doubt have expected).
Cantona launched a kick on Crystal Palace defender Rick Shaw at Selhurst Park. Ref red cards Cantona. Cantona launches second kick on the way to the tunnel against Palace fan Matt Simmons. Simmons received a week in jail for abusive language toward Cantona – and a one-year ban from all football venues in England and Wales.
Cantona, for his part, did 120 hours of community service in lieu of an initial two-week prison sentence on a charge of assault. United as a club suspended Cantona for four months and docked him 20,000 pounds worth of pay. The Football Association banned him for an extra fourth months, and topped up the fine by another 10,000.
Over a decade later, Cantona apparently told the press it was his favourite moment in his EPL career – kicking a spectator.
Graham Kelly, the then-EPL CEO, called the incident a stain on the game. When did you last hear Demetriou or Gallop say that?
Perhaps, in the case of EPL bosses, they feel they are custodians, generally, of a wider sporting family and value it more at times. Or take their supposedly special domestic status for granted, in the case of the AFL.
Put it this way, Aussie Rules fans generally complain about either ticket prices or food prices or the fixture list or the rule changes. Not much of a to-do about an on-field moment of madness (it’s all part of the game, apparently) or an off-field indiscretion (one almost wonders if some footy fans actually celebrate, delight in or encourage certain behaviours at times).
Despite the appalling behaviour, a la the case in the northern states, people still flock, year after year, through the turnstiles to pay these guys’ wages.
It used to be that, way back when, possibly in the 80s, that the average AFL player wasn’t mentioned on a daily basis in the national press for alleged sexual assault or a drink-driving booking. That was the domain, supposedly, of rugby league lads.
While there was a bit of biff on the field in the AFL, it was the off-field boof-ness that people noticed in the NRL – urinations, fights, etc. Have the tables, if not turned, then at least been given a slight back-and-forth jerk or two in recent times?
This isn’t about one sport being inherently better than another. I am merely asking, as a fan, whether anyone else out there reckons the brand-aid applied by the likes of the AFL/NRL is comparatively less important to them as they know they hold a domestic audience captive, regardless of what players do in their off-hours, after dark or on holiday?
Do the European football league chairmen really have a belief in a greater sporting cause that compels them to act with swifter or stricter reproach against troublemakers?
Arguably, in aid of all that, too, EPL coaches can criticise the refs, AFL counterparts can only refer to them in code – a la Sheedy’s “Martians” mantra. Why is that?
Fans complain for half an AFL season about how mild and watered-down most of the trial-by-video decisions are at the tribunal, yet the bulk of the EPL’s decisions seem to stay on-field, judged by the ref alone, and there’s few repercussions (aside from a grumpy coach at a press conference).
There just seems to be this acceptance that the sport itself should be bigger than any particular controversy that might arise, whereas at times – going by Australia’s print media – the public Down Under might infer that the AFL/NRL almost thrive on sensationalist incident.
In cricketing terms, whether the sport is still holding on bravely against on or off-field controversy is about a 50-50 split at present. Let’s hope the game itself survives intact.
Of course, the English have their tabloids as well. Of course, there are the player affairs, etc. But on an average, week by week basis, do the AFL or NRL publicly present themselves as organisations that uphold high standards as true custodians of a sport? They’ve got a lot more to lose, in a way.
If Aussie Rules and/or rugby league (but the former in particular) dies in Australia, it dies. If the EPL has a tough financial/television rights period, fans can easily switch over to La Liga, Serie A and so on.
What can we expect from the EPL season; a few nasty tackles and some sky-high transfer fees. When the AFL/NRL seasons begin (or even before then), we have a steady diet of disaster already waiting, most of which isn’t even connected to people kicking a bladder between some sticks.
“As you’ve heard me say on many occasions, I feel very privileged to be in this position and I don’t take it for granted,” Demetriou told Rucci, although the journalist had the final say.
“Demetriou, however, despite his riches, does not have a kingdom stretching beyond Australia’s shores,” Rucci wrote.
Given that is the case, are mere brand-aid solutions fair or reasonable?
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