- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
I confess; where the code wars are concerned, I’m a full-on hypocrite. As unseemly, unnecessary and infuriating as they are, I also find them kind of fascinating. Did they really say that? Seriously? Unbelievable — madder ’n’ UFC.
I couldn’t have done it a couple of years back, spend an hour reading online comments dripping with so much passion that it’s scary.
Back then I would have found it too depressing, or I might even have felt like buying into it. Divers! Well that does it; I’ll go nuclear this time. Eggballers!
You see, I’ve had mental health issues in the past over football’s place in this society and, well, a bit of a persecution complex from living in the AFL’s hometown. The wake-up call was the AVO keeping me 500 metres away from Mr Demetriou. I mean, the guy lived across the road. We got a good price so up his.
The cure for me came too late, but what fixed it was the numbers.
The question that had been driving me nuts was this. Why aren’t we getting 300,000 people a week along to the football like the AFL? Weak, I know, but that’s all it took to get the waterworks going.
But that wasn’t sad enough for me. Jeez, I’d ask myself, how good would football be in Australia if the cursed AFL, NRL and cricket and whatever else weren’t standing in its way? That always got me punching walls.
The magistrate sent me to a sports psychologist. She was good. I described to her the cartoon I had running in my head about an AFL-free sporting landscape with the beautiful game filling the vacuum. It was a glorious place.
“Perhaps you’re over-romanticising it? Maybe it wouldn’t be the paradise you’re envisaging? And maybe this place here isn’t as bad as you think.”
I didn’t think so, not with Demetriou stalking me and then making false reports that I was stalking him. The guy’s a creep.
“Let’s test it,” she said. “We’ll run a simulation.”
She knew here stuff. Straight off the top of her head: “The A-League already spends about $25 million a year on players’ salaries. Throw in the AFL’s $135 million, the NRL’s $75 million, cricket’s $40 million, and basketball? How’s 10 million sound, just so we can’t be accused of underestimation later? Throw in another $10 million from swimming and canoeing. So what’s that — maybe $280 million or so a year to spend on good footballers. Off you go.”
“Where?”
“To Europe with 280 million dollars. Say, $200 million pounds. It’s the entire Australian sports budget so spend it wisely. Bring us back a good product because there ain’t nothing else left to watch.”
I spent the lot and returned with the best 30 footballers in the world, all the way down to David Villa, who was as nearly reluctant to come as Totti.
The psychologist spotted it. “Your still eleven teams short of a league.
“You’ll need 350 players, not 30. You’ve got under a million bucks to spend per player per year. Back you go.”
I didn’t go back. I got her point. People would say: “Mate, there’re way better leagues in Europe mate, why do you even bother mate?”
“No Dugald,” she said from behind her notebook, “Your problem isn’t with the lovely Mr Demetrium, your problem is with Coles-Myer, Woolworths and the immigration department. Twenty million Australians haven’t the disposable income to live in your cartoon. You’ll need a couple of hundred million more Australians to keep afloat the league you’ve got in mind.
“Plus, you won’t get seat on the tram to the football so you probably won’t want to go anyway. I mean, even if Kaka’s your marquee man, it’s still only a feeder league. It’s a lot of trouble to go to for a feeder league, standing up on a tram.”
No, she was right. The A-League will do me. As will the other budget sports we’ve got here like footy, cricket and rugby league – they all deliver great bangs for the bucks involved.
What a truly fantastic, wonderful place this Australian sporting landscape is. Where else can you see so many athletes given the opportunity to develop their talents while fat buggers and fools bayonet one another over nothing in particular in the name of their sport? Talk about add value to what is already a pretty entertaining scene.
Good luck to the other codes, all the other sports, and us too.
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.