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An interesting story ran on FourFourTwo last week about a reported breakdown between Melbourne Victory and the club’s active fans.
According to writer Aidan Ormand, a number of Victory’s supporters are upset at, “having to seek permission from the club for all pre-game displays, denial by the club of large-scale tifos and Victory officials not bringing out the fans’ flags, banners, drums and megaphones”.
“They also claim supporter items have been confiscated before games while fans have been evicted for handing out flyers that they say officials claim will incite violence.”
Regardless of what’s happened in this instance, the disappointing thing is this is a story we’ve heard countless times before both with the Victory and the league at large. We ran a similar piece on The Roar last week from a fan’s perspective.
It’s a situation that grates, particularly in light of Football Federation Australia’s “Fan Made” advertising campaign from earlier this season.
To use images of fan groups that are consistently stifled by restrictions on how they can support their club is cruelly ironic.
In the meantime don’t let those ads fool you, fans and improving the A-League’s matchday experience are not priorities for FFA, though they should be.
As my colleague Mike Tuckerman wrote on this site yesterday, “football fans revel in being part of a big-match atmosphere” because this is what turns a football game into a must attend event. Unfortunately we haven’t seen enough of these types of crowds throughout A-League version six.
I attended Melbourne Heart’s home game with Central Coast Mariners last Friday and sitting amongst a crowd of 3,000 plus people is not an all consuming experience (though considering the weather on the night no one is to blame for this poor turn out).
Despite small crowds this season we have still seen a number of high profile games garner large attendance figures which proves the Australian public has a thirst for going to A-League games as long as it’s a spectacle.
Quite simply fans, and in particular those who engage in active support, are key to turning around the fortunes of Australia’s fledgling football competition.
Until we start acknowledging this, the A-League will stutter it’s way through consistently poor crowds.
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.