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It might seem strange, but the moments after Harry Kewell’s dramatic winner against Iraq in the quarterfinals of the Asian Cup on Sunday morning highlighted one of my biggest concerns with Australia’s football culture.
It’s hard to forget the stoush between Fox Sports pundit Robbie Slater and Kewell from earlier this year when Slater suggested his former team-mate “must go” from the national team.
So that incident was at the front of my mind when, after the 1-0 victory over Iraq, without irony Slater said, “We certainly need Harry at this point. He’s proving some people wrong.”
While host Mel McLaughlin’s quick witted reply of, “Some people?”, was one of the biggest burns I’ve seen perpetuated on TV this year, there’s an underlying issue here.
My concern is not that Slater voiced an opinion that was later found out to be off the mark. Everyone gets things wrong and that’s ok.
But the fallout from it.
There’s no doubt the 46-year-old could have expressed himself much better, but at the same time, watching Harry Kewell and his agent respond to Slater so vehemently was rather unfortunate.
An opinion, albeit one based on a fallacy, became a criticism and in the end a leading pundit didn’t put his hand up and say “I got it wrong”.
A pity.
Lets take another example, from a different former team-mate of Kewell’s, Craig Foster, who admitted this week on national radio, TV and online that he’d had major reservations over Sasa Ognenovski’s ability to make the step up to international football.
“I was worried after I saw his positioning against Egypt and the UAE, but he proved my concerns unfounded and all power to him,” writes Foster on The World Game website.
The thing is, ‘Foz’ had kept this worry to himself, yet was later happy to admit he was wrong without even being called to, and that’s exactly how it should work.
Open discussion without fear of recrimination.
Yet, Australian football is still surrounded by an atmosphere of meek appeasement where opinion and critique is often misconstrued as a personal attack.
It’s something I can’t understand and will never support. If pundits are open and honest in their work, then all they have to fear are themselves.
Opinion and debate is crucial to the development of any football nation and stifling discourse will only serve to harm the game.
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