Media sources continue to bash football

For those who think "sockah fans are paranoid" and "need to get over their siege mentality", how about this report in today's Herald Sun. The report is about a disgusting attack & brawl at the AFL match last night Carlton v Richmond. Again, I repeat the violence - where a mother was punched in the face by some male thugs - was at an AFL match. Yet, the Herald Sun article managed to throw in several references to "soccer hooliganism" even though AFL was being played and sockah was nowhere involved. Absolutely ridiculous reporting. Source: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/true-crime-scene/mother-allegedly-punched-by-carlton-supporters-after-asking-them-to-stop-swearing-at-last-nights-game/story-fnat7jnn-1226314537697

Finally a blogger with something intelligent to offer!!!!! And Midfielder, Bill Clinton Didn’t Say – “it’s The Money Stupid” He Said “It’s The Economy Stupid.” (Please don't use capital letters - thanks. Roar mods.)

spot on

the Australian media is the next frontier for football in Australia. If the a-league is to truely expand and enroot itself into the psyche of all Australians, the media must be utilized. I'm tired of this talk of if we pack the stadiums, then the media can report it. Past seasons of the a-league has shown how far the media is willing to go, 30k at Melbourne derbies, cracking games with unique atmospheres...its barely reported!! To a lot of mainstream aussies, if its not reported on the news and such, it doesn't exist.

I agree SBS pundits do seem to have an anti-FFA agenda. Talk about certain topics while leaving certain facts out. Very poor IMO

Media will always bash football. The problem is we do far more damage to ourselves, by constantly shooting ourselves in the foot, then does any media outlet with an anti-football agenda.

For a spanner in the works reply ... many main stream media folk look to where the knowledge is and take their cue from there...So the EPL reporting is broadly based on how Australian media editors look at the English press... In Australia the flag ship for football news is SBS .... this is quite a complex issue... SBS have every right to say things as they see them... further in Hals 6 and 7 in particular the coverage of the A-League and the broader support for the style the Roar and Mariners were playing was excellent... the new format again excellent... The trouble with SBS is they have no real competition and they get away with stuff because they are the only ones reporting it ... Meaning when SBS get an agenda they flog it to death and back and then some more... often the balance provided by having more than one media outlet tends to get the bad news stories out but then heaps of goods news as well... SBS struggle in the extreme to publish heaps of good news... almost always falling back to their pet agenda items they see as important... The main stream media pick up what SBS are saying ... Then we get to the issue of media interest .... Ch 7 & 9 are past masters of ignoring sporting events other than what they show... and neither want to promote football ... Then the FFA under BB ... OMG the worst media CEO in sport I have ever seen... and he has a hostile media please bring back a JON type ... However the underlying issue hardly ever spoken about is FFA operate on a 17 Million per year media deal... AFL currently 250 million per year, RL 80 million per year moving to an estimated 200 million, Super league 600 million five year deal... That we are where we are with such limited funds is amazing and FFA needs huge credit for this... Meaning Football has a fraction of the income and supports in addition 9 national teams... as Bill Cliton said its the money stupid its the money.. Here is a funny ... errr not funny ... nay sad / tragic ... issue the next media deal will be to a large extent is affected directly by SBS coverage ... yet the single REAL YES REAL issue is the media deal... yet our major football media outlet continue to operate not without having issues ... more they can find some little positives ... and to get their message across will do almost anything... want proof I offer two... Les Murry books on what the Socceroos tho of Pim Fozzie using CP to attack FFA on and agenda he has while ignoring 95% of what CP said is the very opposite of what Fozzie claims he stands for... Again SBS have every right to report as they see and no one can argue with many things they say... its just they say and say and say and repeat problems... the balance is simply not their... Bozza said live on air the enemy within and we all knew who he was talking about.. SBS do provide the lead for other media out lets... they have a responsibility to have balance in the broader debate...

Could not agree more JB

Absolutely agree with j binnie regarding football on the Brisbane TV channels 7 & 9. They just believe that NRL is the ant’s pants. Well, I have news for them. As soon as the 'sports section' begins I switch to Foxtel or SBS. The few times I have watched it is when important football events have happened in Australia and then only to find that neither 7 nor 9 have no mention of it. Instead they tell you how many times Lockyer has farted that day. Shame on the local TV stations, they are a disgrace!

100% agree with everything you've said Joe Novella. Football has diversity far beyond the 7 year old A-League and this Australia-wide strong, vibrant & passionate football culture outside the HAL is something that does not exist in any other team sport. The HAL is simply the professional football league in Australia. But, even without our professional league .. We are Football!

Joe and good luck to GCU---of course you are 100% correct and I for one support Craig Foster and anyone who has the same purpose to stick it up those who try to publicly crucify the game. I don't necessary agree with all of what Clive Palmer had said about Football or has recently done, but he had been badly short changed by Frank Lowy and a lot of what Clive had said about the FFA was born out of frustrations, with Lowy's actions being over the top revoking his licence. The punishment did not fit the crime---there were other options that could have been explored, which would have avoided this mess. I support Clive Palmer to get our club back into the HAL. At the end of the day, with or without Clive Palmer being with us or not---what is important is that, the Gold Coast region is not abandoned.

I appreciate the passion but lets not ignore the facts. The Murdoch empire controls a fair share of the media, so much so that they bought a stake in channel 10 to pull sports shows from One HD, as subscribers in Fox Sports declined. We all know that the corporate dollar rules sport, but the domination and saturation of the 'major' codes throughout the media (even out of season) is overwhelming. The class demographic to attract people to the A-League for pay per view is generally middle class, EPL following stalwarts with disposal income. Free to air codes are aimed at the mass market working class, which creates its own 'us against them' sub culture as people are brainwashed via commercials and selected 'pre programmed' sporting media. Competing with the Murdoch empire is a losing battle, unless the FFA and government are more involved in providing balanced coverage, then the A-League will continue to only attract back page 'news' for the wrong reason. Football for the people.

It will be in crisis if the Roar lose Broich to Japan, dont go mate, Brisbane needs you.

Football is not just the A-League. The A-League is not "Soccer" in Australia. 90% of p[eople who play or follow football have never been to an A-League game. They can follow any number of local teams, national teams or one of the over 250 top flight overseas football competitions. The FFA are doing a good job right across the board and there are record registrations for football players once again this year - my local club can't cope with the numbers and actually had to turn some people away. There is no chance of the Socceroos not competing for a place in the Brazil WC. They continue to receive widespread support and guess what, they are part of Australian football too! The A-League has problems and I think its fantastic that these issues have come to the surface again and I'm confident they will be dealt with. The one with egg all over his face now is Palmer, not the FFA. Even if the A-League did one day fold, its not the end of football in this country, which will continue to dominate peoples lives for many years to come.

True apart from the gold Coast saga the A-League this season has been fantastic and wont die like some people wish too many people love the game here.

Crashy, in my article I explain why football (soccer) is not in crisis, far from it in fact. The A-league has it's challenges granted but the A-league is only one aspect of football in this country. "Just don't read the article" you say - unfortunately that's exactly what a lot of people, especially non-football people, do and they take the headline as gospel. I'm assuming you're a football fan, is this what you want? Do you want journos and papers writing headlines that aren't true, headlines that set our game back? You may be prepared to just sit back and let it happen but that's not helping our sport. We need to stand up not look the other way. Good luck to the sky blues this weekend.

Crashy Unfortunately people do read these articles and ,without any other points of reference are drawn into believing what they contain. Last Tuesday night the Brisbane Roar played FC Tokyo at Suncorp stadium ,the game starting at 7.30pm. As an exercies my wife and I watched 2 different news reports on 7 and 9 at 6.00pm, and not one word about this match was mentioned by their sports "presenters". Cynical?, perhaps, but unfortunately true, so instead of welcoming visitors to our shores, which one would regard as common decency, we were treated once again to the endless tripe about "what happened at Red Hill training today" When will these people waken up and do what they are supposed to do ,report news. 12000 people were interested enough to turn out to greet these visitors despite the weather not being kind,is it any wonder they complain about sports coverage?. Not to me it isn't.

Seriously you need to get over this siege mentality. One could mount a fairly strong argument that soccer is indeed in crisis would you agree? Just dont read the article. I stopped reading Craig foster and his code bashing long ago and I am far better for it. Now to Sydney FCC beating Melbourne this weekend.