Sometimes sport can take you to unexpected places, and last week in the State Library of Victoria, AFL Chief Executive Andrew Demetriou delivered the annual Castan Centre for Human Rights Law Annual Lecture.
He opened by acknowledging how a parochial ball game and an academic think-tank make unlikely bedfellows before rattling off a series of succinct examples of how much they have in common.
In a wide-ranging speech, Demetriou discussed the impact of the AFL’s Multicultural Program, with specific reference to North Melbourne rookie Majak Daw. He trumpeted the power of Auskick to engage over 100,000 young people every week in team physical activity.
He took great pride in reporting the success of the racial and religious tolerance code and illustrated how far the game had moved on from Nicky Winmar’s arresting guernsey lift at Victoria Park. He also paid tribute to his organisation’s acknowledgment of the role of women, advertising the presence of female goal umpires, commentators and members of the AFL Executive.
If Demetriou was in an unfamiliar environment he was on familiar ground.
As the Chair of the Federal Government’s Australian Multicultural Advisory Council he is well credentialed to talk about the power of sport in social development.
Demetriou is also clearly no shrinking violet, so self-promotion was never going to be a challenge. What was noticeable though was how personally Demetriou sees his responsibilities as both leader of the AFL and leader within AFL communities.
Accountability, he said, is everything.
The paradox of this message was of course its context; delivered the afternoon following Ben Cousins announcing his retirement.
If ever an individual personified the culture of a sporting code it was he and more than once in his speech Demetirou name-checked the former West Coast and Richmond champion – as an example of footy’s redemptive capacity, not its ill-discipline.
The speech was instructive in its clear intent to position the AFL as a responsible corporate entity and its Chief Executive as a thoughtful, caring leader. To an audience predominately of lawyers and law students, used to analysing public oratory, this was warmly received although not without challenge.
One question in particular, on whether the elevation of Wayne Carey to Hall of Fame status undermined the sincerity of earlier proclamations of gender awareness, provoked a prickly, albeit composed response.
The AFL may not be all things to all men but it is the stand-out sporting administration in the country and the pugnacious Demetriou arguably Australian sport’s most vital boardroom presence. It was hard not to imagine what the speech would have sounded like delivered by David Gallop or James Sutherland, a comparison that flatters neither.
As Cousin’s announcement earlier in the day illustrated, the AFL still has some way to go but with Demetriou at the helm you would expect it to get there.
I don't get it though. Myself for example, I don't have an interest in soccer, in fact I rather find it boring. But I understand it is a matter of personal preference and if I were to start uttering falsities and attempt to 'convert' others to my way of thinking, it is only go to reflect poorly on myself & the sports I follow. Does Jimbo not realise that he is giving football a 'free kick' by distorting the version of events that occurred?
Mister Football
Guest
Beast you have to appreciate that jimbo is so embittered by the AFL holding on to one of its two stadiums (which it obviously needs to be able to run a season), that he has vowed to never watch another minute of Australian Football ever again.
Jimbo, What is so hard about understanding the difference between an absolute statement and a qualified statement? It has been explained so many times...
jimbo
Roar Guru
The MCG and the AFL were never going to be "wiped out" for an entire season and that's where the AD and AFL spin started . . .
Art Sapphire
Guest
Yes, but he is the head of the AFL and he delivered the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law Annual Lecture and when Rob Mitchell calls on the AFL he is calling on AD.
beaver fever
Guest
ac said AFL is ruthless in its determination to succeed. If there is one thing Australia is good at, its sports, this is good .. NO !!.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Art I can't see where AD is mentioned in that article. One could argue that never before have we had so much spin about AD's spin.
beaver fever
Guest
Jonathan Howcroft said …I’ll make sure my next article is titled “AFL Zealots, defensive much. Maybe thats what you wanted to call this one, and more ??.
Art Sapphire
Guest
Some more work Andrew D. From this morning's "Age" Rob Mitchell, instrumental in the AFLPA's anti-homophobia campaign earlier this year and a member of the state government's Sport Governance and Inclusion project, has called on the AFL to take a stronger lead but believes the league still ''buries its head in the sand'' on the issue. A Victorian University research report published this year, ''Come Out to Play'', found Australian rules to be the most hostile and unwelcoming football code for homosexuals. http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/gay-focus-puts-lives-at-risk-20100827-13w0f.html
beaver fever
Guest
Scamp said A lot of those guys would end up in jail if they were not footballers. I agree to a point, but i thought the overiding beauty of sport was to encourage kids to play sport so to keep them out of trouble and off the streeets. Sport can turn their potentially negative extra energy off the field into positive energy on the field.
Jonathan Howcroft
Roar Rookie
...I'll make sure my next article is titled "AFL Zealots, defensive much?"
Australian Football
Roar Guru
This is a timely and well written article. Demetriou is the master of spin and has risen above all sports administrators as the leading exponent of this craft. His spin on how AFL will have to abandon its season during the Football World cup, if held in Australia as a prime example when there was no credible request from the FFA asking them to do so. This led to a mountain of hysterical responses from the AFL supporters in the media. Demetriou's ridiculous demands for an exorbitant financial compensation package, (above the benefits to the refurbishment to the oval stadia that a Football World Cup will bring for the AFL)––if that was not enough––is outrageous. Now his announcement that the AFL will be broadcast into China on an English speaking TV station for English speaking ex pats in China is somehow going to transform 1% of the Chinese population, the equivalent of more than 10m people is sheer nonsense. It seems that the prospect of Australia holding the Football World Cup has truly spooked the Aussie Rules chief to even higher levels of spin that are beyond the imagination of normal sports administrators’ …. :lol: . ______ AF
Joel
Guest
You have me at a disadvantage. I don't agree at all with your assertions of the ostensible purpose of your article, or 'spin' in the common vernacular, but to say so risks having my comment disappear. Apparently despite making no offensive comment in my post, or attacking you personally, despite addressing your claims clearly and rationally the site moderators deem my reply inappropriate for publication while statements like "Greedy, Lying and evil = Demetriou" pass. Perhaps the definition of personal attack has been broadened to include any response that contradicts the author? Perhaps the moderators are confused about the difference of labeling an article disingenuous and a person disingenuous? I guess by the same standard they would consider it unreasonable to question the motives of health insurance lobbyists arguing medicare should be dismantled. Anyway, I'll give it one more shot. Despite the subtlety of faint praise, it is not a positive article. It is not positive to imply Demetriou is a hypocrite, or insincere, nor does your headline carry positive connotations. You haven't critically examined a particular AFL policy and given reasons why it has failed, instead you've broadly inferred that the successes of the AFL are fictional purely on the basis of some fragile claim of 'spin'. You haven't provided direct quotations of statements you believe to be hypocritical or contradictory which are at the basis of your article. You haven't given reasons why the 'list of successes' the AFL promotes is invalidated by any one policy failure, true or not.
Scamp
Guest
As a junior I switched to golf due to the terrible football club mentality that only now is coming to light. I did the switch in the early 1980s. If you had sons would you really want them exposed to a football club. A lot of those guys would end up in jail if they were not footballers.
jimbo
Roar Guru
Exactly Midfielder, the notion that the AFL is the only sport that provides any opportunities or social benefits from sport is very hard to swallow. All sports do what the AFL does for this country and some sports do it even better than the AFL. No surprise that Demetriou usually makes his AFL speeches in Melbourne, where he is rarely challenged by the pro-AFL press, who lack any journalistic courage or true integrity.
ac
Guest
Great businessman of ALF INC. I think he will steer the AFL to take over Woolies or Coles. AFL is ruthless in its determination to succeed. A D steers a very stern ship
mattamkII
Guest
Wayne Jackson and Ross Oakley did the hard word...AFL has been in a dominant/auto pilot position since then. Oakley navigated through the years when NRL was getting popular. Jackson brokered the first big TV deal. Dont get me wrong, Andrew is a good businessmen but he does have a lick of the other two.
beaver fever
Guest
IMO Demetriou has a passion for his chosen sport not shown by leading football codes CEO's, the man has some balls, and i would not want to cross him in bussiness, appears to me capable of holding a grudge and then serving revenge as a cold dish. Sounds like i have portrayed him as a serial killer, but he is a hard nosed bussiness IMO and obviously loves Australian football. Having said that he has done some things that i dont agree with. As a Australian football fan, i can't complain.
Joel
Guest
Maybe I've just learned to take a reasonably critical view of the innumerable AFL stories written by soccer supporters?
My apologies Zac, it was most undignified. I've just found in the past it can be really difficult eliciting a response from the author if you've successfully refuted their contention; assaults on one's honour usually do not go unanswered. In the future I will refrain from using the author's name and simply say 'the author', or 'the writer'.