As stated many times on The Roar, football (i.e. soccer) has moved on in Australia in leaps and bounds over the past seven to eight years, which is great. It seems a similar thing is happening in New Zealand at the moment.
One of the negatives though of ‘taking the game to the masses’ is the labels that other teams are getting. For example, over the past few days since New Zealand played Italy, there seems to be a stereotyping in the Australasian media (counting NZ here as well) that Italy are “divers” or “cheats”.
To be frank, most casual/occasional soccer supporters in this part of the world have only seen Italy play twice, once against Australia (in 2006) and now versus New Zealand.
I note also at this point that a German player was booked for diving versus Australia a week or so ago.
My main concern is that, as the game opens up to the masses, that stereotyping of other teams (or nationalities) is defacto racism. By that I mean, by labeling the Italian team as “cheats” or labeling the Germans as “boring” (which they weren’t), it’s stereotyping and a form of racism.
Whilst I am proud of the gains and process made by the game in Australia of late, I fear that an ‘ugly’ element is being exposed by this stereotyping during the World Cup.
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Even though St.Pauli ultimately lost a high-scoring affair, Jackson Irvine was a standout, as well as scoring a late goal.
What if we celebrated all of the achievements big and small, and weeded out those hell-bent on bringing down a game that is doing a hell of a lot right?
A good performance from Michael Ruhs, scoring twice to beat Macarthur and doubling his season goal tally in the process.
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