The war that's not a war

Just off the top of my head UK steve has posted over the past three days that ,Man Cty didnt deserve to win the premier league because the owners rich and doesnt care about the club, Aguerro should've dived in the penalty box to win a penalty,there should never be a world cup in this country . Yep for the love of the game .

This article is naive on one level but has the right motive. The arrogance of posters like Fussball, Its Aussie Rules knows no bounds and is one of the key reasons you have code wars - they can't let go. They keep dredging up the past to justify their hatred of a sport. This in turn drives others to polar reactions. Like this: Soccer fans blast the more transparent 'Vlad', AFL fans realise Frank Lowy had far more sinister notions with his Melbourne stadium intentions around the WC bid. He got called on it by AD and AD won. :) Long live Australian football (the real one) and long may it frustrate the likes of Fussball and others with its existence in Australia.

This article suggests that code wars are dreamed up in peoples minds or as some others believe the sydney press ,the author suggests he plays and watches different football codes and enjoys and appreciates all forms ,and the code war is all silly talk,and the first preson to comment on this thread starts to make trouble with his first post ,there you go .

Forget spin - which sport made the biggest contribution to the bid? in fact, only one sport made a material contribution! This is the bizarre logic we're dealing with here. 1. FFA wants to hold the WC 2. It has no material contribution to make. 3. AFL is the only sport making a material contribution 4. but somehow, the AFL is deemed to not have supported the bid huh??

mds is 100% correct, and that 10 week commitment from the AFL was the biggest sacrifice of any sport, including soccer - that being the case, how do people here conclude that the AFL didn't support the world cup when it was making the biggest contribution?

"Let’s disrupt the biggest & most watched football leagues in the world so that, perhaps, 10 million ignorant Aussies can continue to watch their insignificant Australian sporting leagues." Is that a serious comment? 10million is half the population of this country and you call them "ignorant Aussies". Whenever anyone says anything mildly critical of soccer on this site you react with hypersensitive outrage...and yet you pompously dismiss half the population as "ignorant Aussies", because soccer is not their first choice of sport in Australia. What utter hypocrisy.

@It'sCalledAussieRules: "Demetriou and the AFL never made any commitment to give up the MCG or Etihad, not even for one game." In the case of Etihad, that is 100% correct. But for the MCG, that is factually incorrect. Both the original handshake agreement, and the subsequent MOU, contained a commitment for the AFL to give up its contractual rights to the MCG for a maximum of 10 weeks.

Afl asked the australian public and the government to back them in the spin stakes and they didnt .

Which seven continents are we talking about?

No Bondy - this is the crucial point that soccer fans have never come to grips with - the AFL controls the MCG 100% during the footy season - it has a long term lease on the MCG that runs till 2037 - that lease exists for that period because the MCG Trust needs the AFL's commitment to play so many games there per annum to pay off the private debt - soccer fans have never understood that the Government doesn't pay for the stadium - the AFL pays for it - if the Government had forced a break to the lease, the AFL could bring the MCG Trust and the MCG to its knees - this is the crucial point that non-AFL fans have never understood - the AFL controlled the MCG 100%. - and obviously it controlled Etihad 100% as well, which is why it never made it onto the bid book. The bid needed the AFL's commitment to release the MCG for 10 weeks, and the AFL had given its commitement very early in the piece - all the other problems emerged when the FFA made a belated play for Etihad, even though the original deal was that the AFL would keep Etihad.

I've always been against seven continents and thirty one other nations coming to this nation emerging in Melbourne and playing football ,we'll derive no benefit as a nation what so ever,kids in Australia will never take this game up,and parents will never trust this sport,because its a migrant sport . Australia's game ,almost sounds xenophobic . Have a think about it.

The afl kept its promise ,it was never involved it never controlled the situation and was told what to do by the government,you cant negotiate something you have no control over and thats what you dont understand,the permission came from the governmment not aussie rules . If you believe otherwise Cattery its up to you .

Titus - there are levels of support and levels of opposition. The AFL displayed levels of support as did the NRL. The AFL displayed what can be construed as opposition (even if just self interest), as did the NRL. The AFL NEVER got to publicly reject an FFA workaround plan. The NRL did. That seems to be forgotten. Once the NRL rejected the FFA's proposals, the FFA never got to the AFL and by Christmas 2009 the Federal Govt had had to step in. The AFL had a key battle over Docklands stadium. This single issue seems to be the SOLE focus of the anti-AFL agenda. And, as MDS stated above - there had been public announcements from 2008 that the AFL would 'support' the bid but that Docklands was off the table. The FFA never openly accepted that in press releases. The powder was kept dry. And, eventually it blew up. The AFL folk look at the FFA and still ponder why the FFA was so quick to disregard AAMI Park. The builders were quoted (but not widely reported) as stating that expansion of the venue (re the roof in particular) wasn't actually that hard or expensive. Soccer fans & journos were demanding soccer specific legacy - and at AAMI Park was the opportunity. It was rejected and battlefield Docklands was opted for. It was so desperately opted for that by March 2010 the FFA was still pushing hard (by that time surely it was obvious that they would never win) and ignoring the Vic Govt push for Skilled Stadium (Kardinia Park - Geelong) which had been on the table for over a year. The FFA was determined. Much of the expressions of dismay since (from about June 2010 on) included Lowy and 'unnamed sources' within the FFA as being dismayed at the lack of Govt support pretty well in taking on the AFL. Lowy wanted the AFL bulldozed out of Docklands it would appear. Again - AFL folk say that with Ben Buckley on board - there could not have been an excuse of ignorance over the water tight arrangements. No - the FFA was seeking legislation if need be to bulldoze another codes rightful claims. That - dear Mr Titus was 'code wars'. Outside of the singular issue of Docklands and the AFL was giving up a heap of ovals - and was mainly seeking clarification on the no major sports in a host city FIFA stipulation. And fair enough wouldn't you think. Each oval would be out of bounds for 4 weeks leading in. For 2-4 weeks within host cities during competition and who knows whether FIFA would release venues immediately or only after the final. These things the AFL needed to know. The NRL too. And for people who glibly suggested the AFL could just start earlier, run later etc. See how much of a hullabaloo there is with the VRC when the AFL GF is held ONE week later. How hard it is for the AFL to access the cricket ovals ONE week early. It's not just the AFL here. If the AFL held the venues ALL year - perhaps no real worry. The AFL doesn't. Support comes in different forms. There was NEVER going to be total unqualified support from the AFL or NRL. And there wasn't. To expect otherwise is the height of naivety. To still be complaining about it now shows a total disregard for the multilateral agreement reached via the MOU that was the outcome of what was a too dirty and too public process.

Titus, it all depends on how you define "support". Does "support" mean to make some public comment in favour of the bid (which the AFL did), or does it go further than that to making a commitment not to play their games at a certain place at a certain time, in order to enable World Cup games to be played there then? Was the AFL wrong to seek clarification of what was required of them in order to "support" the event?

i mreally over the whole code war stuff but comments like "your local regional games like NRL and AFL are igsignificant" really get people peeved. just like soccer fans get really peeved when "journos" write articles that soccer supporters are all thugs and players are all "divers" its all tit for tat

here, here. i think of the reasons afl and league supporters give it to soccer fans is in retaliation to the whole "world , beautiful game argument" brought upon by soccer fans. its all a bit of back and forth and no one really knows who started it

The bid ended up having enough ovals because Geelong was added to the list last minute. It was a gross failure in planning that the FFA allowed the investment of $300 million of public money into a rectangular stadium that could NOT be used for the World Cup. Rather than worrying about what the AFL did, they should be paying more attention to what the FFA did and didn't do to ensure a failed bid.

they are not insignificant to the people that watch them

GWS' home game average so far this season is actually 15,600. 33,343 across 9 games per round is excellent.

There's no winning the code war, but I can tell you who is winning the most hated sporting code in Sydney award at the moment.