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Australia's Tim Cahill wins the ball against Abe Yuki of Japan, during their final match of the Asia Qualifiers round for the 2010 World Cup, in Melbourne, Wednesday, June 17, 2009. Australia beat Japan 2-1, with both countries having already qualified for next year's World Cup in South Africa. AAP Image/Joe Castro
That many of football and Aussie Rules’ staunchest supporters have never seen eye-to-eye goes without saying. But the schism that has now formed between two former team-mates, Ben Buckley and Andrew Demetriou, is a sad indictment of the polarised sporting landscape in Australia.
Buckley was best man at Demetriou’s wedding, but naturally that shouldn’t affect their work in a professional capacity. Instead, it’s the vitriol that has come from both sides of the recent “AFL versus the World” debate that is depressing.
Scouring through the 500 plus comments on a piece covering the issue here by Adrian Musolino on The Roar yesterday, I was shocked by the misconceptions that many had based their opinions on.
The truth is that few, if anyone, had all the facts in front of them to draw accurate conclusions on what was and had transpired.
Many of the opinions expressed right across the internet and mainstream media on the issue stemmed from the great sadness of our proud sporting landscape. Even though some of us do, we just generally don’t seem to be able to get along.
As well as being a football journalist, I’m a Melbournian, a member of an AFL team, and a member of an A-League team.
I’m also proud of every one of those facts.
However, I am constantly left feeling disappointed by the bickering between both sets of fans. I am sick of listening to Aussie Rules fans revelling in the same stereotypes that led Johnny Warren to title his autobiography “Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters.”
At the same time, I am fed up with members of Australia’s football community hypocritically pointing the finger and laughing at AFL’s anachronistic traditions and ‘macho’ culture.
I often feel like I have to hide my love of ‘the other code’ depending on whether I am around Aussie Rules or football fans. In reality, each group is just alienating the other and doing so for no gain other then a few trite giggles.
Psychologists have a general rule that any argument between two people that goes longer then ten minutes is no longer talking about the original issue.
By that point, previous disagreements and issues tend to get dredged up and a resolution on the original point of contention is rarely found.
Football and Aussie Rules has certainly been played for more then ten minutes in this country, and the same old arguments have been coming up for nearly as long.
I’m not appropriating blame, or saying who is right or wrong, but this week Andrew Demetriou and the Australian media have played off this very status quo.
It’s disappointing but unsurprising.
Both have their own stakeholders and are the AFL is within its right to protect its huge chunk of the sporting landscape, while the media are justified in trying to boost its sales.
That doesn’t remove the dark pit from the bottom of my stomach, though.
So all of this has left me wondering whether Australia really does deserve a World Cup. If we in Australia can’t even get our backyard in order, how can we claim to be the best candidate to host the world’s biggest sporting event?
In truth, we do deserve to be involved in bidding for the hosting rights, but I’m starting to wonder whether my hometown of Melbourne does.
It saddens me to say it, but if Melbourne is not ready to wholly embrace the tournament, then maybe we don’t deserve a key role.
The endless bickering between Australia’s different, though not rival, codes leaves no winners.
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