It’s time for A-League supporter groups to stand up and take responsibility for the actions of their members.
Too often, crowd issues have been met by deflecting blame to anyone around them, including the media, the FFA, grounds, police and security.
It’s time they took responsibility for the image of football in Australia being tarnished.
The opening paragraph alone is enough to rile the die-hard members of the larger supporter groups such as the Red and Black Bloc, the Cove or the Blue and White Brigade and will be met with the argument these active groups keep the game alive.
And there are no arguments here. The energy and atmosphere that has been installed into the A-League from these fans has been fantastic, and exactly the kind of supporters we need to continue to grow the game in Australia.
However, it makes me cringe that I need to refer to the infamous Spiderman phrase of, ‘with great power, comes great responsibility’. And unfortunately, I do not believe the supporter groups are taking sufficient responsibility for their members’ actions.
Earlier in the season, the powerful fan movement headed by the catchphrase of ‘passion is not a crime’ came to fruition, with fans from numerous A-League clubs unifying over its message.
The movement came after some sensationalised media coverage of the first Sydney match. Who would have thought, mainstream media conducting themselves in poorly accurate and sensationalised journalism practises? Let’s face it, it’s nothing new.
From here, reported crowd issues across the A-League have seemingly become more frequent and intense, closely associated with the larger supporter groups in the A-League.
Yet still, the likes of the RBB have subjected themselves to silent protests, and even boycotting the purchase of stadium food and drinks.
This has seemingly come to a head in the last couple weeks, with A-League incidents not only heading the football or sports news, but in fact entire news broadcasts.
The first being the supposed Melbourne Heart fan king-hitting a Wanderers supporter, followed up by some appalling behaviour from RBB individuals at the Sydney derby.
Enough is enough. The bad press these incidents are now generating makes the likes of Channel Nine’s derby coverage last December, that riled so many A-League supporters last year, look like a million dollar promotion of the game.
The FFA is quickly slandered by supporter groups for involving themselves in such incidents, whereas I feel the FFA needs to be imposing themselves strongly as the supporter hierarchies are not standing up and taking responsibility.
First thing first. Get rid of the flares.
Yes, they add to atmosphere and create a great visual spectacle but no matter how much you try and justify them, they are not legal in Australian stadiums.
While they continue to be encouraged and used amongst the supporter groups, flares are the very symbol that the media use to portray what they consider ‘football hooligism’.
Tuesday’s Daily Telegraph page six article, titled as ‘Hooligan Horror’, is a perfect example, with a half page image of a flare being lit plastered across the page.
Yet one just needs to visit the likes of the ‘passion is not a crime’ Facebook page, which is branded with images of flares throughout the timeline, almost as badges of honour.
The page describes itself as being ‘dedicated to the community of passionate and active football fans across Australia’. However, I fail to understand how encouraging acts, which simply fuels the very medium they are trying to fight (the media), helps the game they profess to love?
It simply provides the media more resources to generalise football fans as ‘hooligans’.
Nothing will be achieved for the game with sheer ignorance of the media and its ways.
Some of the recent protests have been centred around the ‘heavy-handed’ actions of police towards supporter groups. These protests seem almost farcical now, given the weekend’s events prior to and during the Sydney derby.
Instead of protesting against the security and law enforcement, the supporter groups should be working more closely with them, the respective clubs and the FFA to ensure these minority individuals, who are causing the trouble, are stamped out.
Once again, I fail to understand why defending the very individuals who are tarnishing not only the individual supporter groups but football as a whole helps the game they profess to love in any way.
I’ve been a passionate football supporter my entire life. With a particular passion for the Serie A, it has been severely disappointing to see how the negative stories of crowd violence, racism and match fixing have tarnished the league internationally, with the quality of football often a distant oversight.
This type of extremist fanatical behaviour which exists across Europe, South America and other leagues is not welcome in Australia and will never be accepted by the media or the general public.
Passion is not a crime. But violence, verbal abuse, flares and anti-social behaviour are indeed crimes.
It’s time to stop deflecting blame and take internal action.
81paling
Roar Rookie
This is really bad for the A-League as they were doing so well. I am an Eels fan and have only been to 1 A-League game 2 years ago at the footy stadium but, now I have kids 2 & 8 months and I figure that when we are not supporting Parra we could always head to a wanderer's game (the stadium is familiar & it could be a good intro to the game for the boys) and then we start hearing about this beat up and like every clueless so & so. As I say I hope it is not true. What gives me great confidence though is the man at the top who is swift & subtle. I will bet that the same incident does not happen in the same place twice for the media to cover, despite doing the job with one hand tied behind his back he did a great job for League and soccer is lucky to have him. They have also done a good job with their media the preservation of a game going to free to air for nothing ensures that the A-League is not a game for the 32% of pay TV subscribers and not available for those who are curious like myself. I wish the A-League luck & hope in years to come my boys nag me to take them to a game without hesitation due to crowd behaviour. As for what seems to be going on, just introduce a law saying if a flare is set off in a sporting arena then the whole venue must be completely evacuated without exception before any non- fire authority personnel may re-enter the stadium only after local fire authorities have given the all clear to re-enter the ground, play may resume 20 mins after the all clear is given (min fine $250- $10,000 plus possible criminal charges for failure to comply) . If this were the case & you saw a mate with a flare you would pretty quickly tell then to dispose of it outside the ground.
Keith
Guest
The RBB ARE cooperating with the authorities to try and eliminate these troublemakers, These things will take time to sort out, and has been exacerbated by the sudden rise of wanderers leading more and more people to want to associate themselves with the RBB. The hard work needs to continue to eliminate those who are only out to cause trouble, because there will evidently only be one "winner" in the end.
Nick from Sydney
Guest
I saw the Police in Parammata park personally, videoing all the fans chanting and the Police enjoyed it themselves applauding and laughing through the process. What people must learn is that the scene at Restaurant was an isolated incident involving a handful of idiots within a large crowd having a great safe time. This is all a knee jerk reaction to the video.
Keith
Guest
Tahhed, You, by your very comments, are racist, you prove this time and again. Case in point - "most soccer violence tends to be perpetrated by very dumb white people (and very English people at that." "From what I could tell the majority of the WSW is pretty white " how could you tell this??? Get yourself along to a game and come back and report how "white" (racist again) WSW and their fans are. There is obviously a small element of the supporters who need dealing with, having caused such unncessary problems, especially at the derby. If anyone actually watched enough of the video clip, the WSW supporters acted quickly to move on the person who threw the glass- but reporting that isnt a good enough story. The leaders at the active support of WSW are actively working with the club and authorities to remove the unwanted trouble causers, which will take time,but it was self policing which has led to the removal of some of the trouble causers so far. Opinion is fine, everyone has one, but try research and use facts as well.
clipper
Guest
Exactly, Nathan - although the seasons don't overlap much, there is only so much money to go around in the fan's sporting budget, especially out west. Well done on using concomitant - first time I've seen it here!
Qantas supports Australian Football
Guest
"Passion is not a crime. But violence, verbal abuse, flares and anti-social behaviour are indeed crimes. It’s time to stop deflecting blame and take internal action." Well said Nic!!! There are some Football Purists who visit this site who have lost the plot defending the Active Supporter Groups no matter what... I consider myself to be a football purist. Your article is a timely one to give all Australian Football Supporters a wake up call... More power to you Nic and keep writing good pieces like this one.
midfielder
Guest
MFor what its worth .... Poor. Fan behaviour ... Football has it's share ...so too do other codes... At what point does or how can a home end control every action of every fan outside the stadium..
Australian Rules
Guest
That is the undeniable beauty of the Aussie Rules culture Fuss... It is ours and ours alone. :)
Australian Rules
Guest
So if the SFC fan just kept his head down, and ignored the WSW abuse and spitting and banging on the walls, there would have been no trouble? Goon.
MikeD
Guest
football fans have shown the misreporting/bias exists...Theres tons of sites, twitter discussions, lots of evidence!! We can't control every single fan....always going to be randoms or ppl acting crazy! FFA/Lowy need to look at a top down approach: 1..Education,symbolism of flares, and the game itself 2..increase in mainstream -7,9,10 football-specific tv programs!!! 3. Football personalities (Foz,Bozza, whoever) on mainstream news and tv. Football fans can't do this alone...'We are football' is uniting the grassroots/fans, time to have that same message delivered at mainstream!!
c
Guest
@ Tahhed said how eviscerated (definition: to remove the entrails from; disembowel: to eviscerate a chicken or to deprive of vital or essential parts)? from violence the game itself is -i guess that you mean our game is non violent? mate agree with you on this point also explains why your contact game boys have so much trouble and why people are finally realising there exists better sports for people to partake in the future and the growth in grass roots in aus is reflecting this situation
Kev
Guest
Fuss is everything that is wrong with the ugly soccer fan. Deliberately ignorant, arrogant and attempts to distract by filling his comments with silly and useless exaggerations. Considering you don't think lighting flares is bad behaviour, your opinion regarding the behaviour of the crowd doesn't carry much weight regardless of how many matches you've been to. Every sport has it's idiots, AFL, cricket, NRL and yes, even the A-League. You are doing nothing for the image of the sport by pretending every media report is a lie, a half truth or a beat up.
AZ_RBB
Guest
Also i would like to add. This is not a case of the media hating football and loving everyone else. Just ask David Gallop, current CEO of the FFA. Hardly a week went by in his decade long reign as NRL boss where the media didn't have some scandalous scoop on the game and its players. News Limited, 2GB and Ch9's financial interest in other sports has never stopped them from bombarding the public with negative stories.
AZ_RBB
Guest
so just in response to the comments. Tahhed in regards to the purpose of the Western Sydney team. Two big reasons. The first being the distance from Western Sydney to Moore Park. As a mad football lover i never once felt any affiliation to a club playing nearly 60km from my home. Second, Western Sydney is incredibly multicultural and ethnic people generally love their football. You walk around these parts and you'll often see more EPL jerseys than NRL jerseys especially on young adults. Having a club here was a no-brainer. Also pretty much all sporting hate is manufactured. Sport for many people is an escape from an often banal reality. It has been since time immemorial and will continue to be so for countless years. In response to Redb and others. I think the defending and justification of violent behaviour is a big problem. It is also ties in with what you say at the end. The RBB need to realise that unless they get serious about fighting this sort of behaviour their now famous(or infamous) marches will be history. A very strong "No Dickheads" policy needs to embraced. I'm not saying it will eliminate the problem but it will show that they care. Re police. I've been on a few marches and I seriously don't think the police mind us too much. Lets not forget the RBB Headquarters aka Woolpack is a few metres from Parra police station and in the middle of a massive Court precinct. Not exactly prime location for a group of alleged hooligans Perspective, rationalisation, contextualisation. Basically same thing right?
Peaches
Guest
I'm not sure how fans who unite to chant for their football team are suppose to police this antisocial behaviour. Unfortunately d***heads are using active support as an excuse to be d***heads. That incident on the weekend was very much taken out of context and its a shame it happens because the active support is actually uniting many people from different walks of life, religion and nationality. Unfortunately these incidents occur from time to time and they are very much being sensationalized. 3 people out of 20,000 were arrested at the Sydney derby match. Over 100 people were kicked out of the Melbourne Cup last year and over a dozen were kicked out of a Bruce Sprungsteen concert. These incidents occur everywhere. It's not a cultural problem for football. It's an issue for society and people making mistakes. Just relax please.
MikeD
Guest
well something needs to change. If thats what 7,9 report..how do you compete. We can't defend every possible angle that every single a-league fan makes. Oh but that person 'doesn't represent us'..oh its a 'minority'. Mainstream media still have no connection to football......And next season i can't see anything changing. SBS will still keep alive the whole 'SBS and bloody sokkah'. Theirs no investment in football, or vice versa, so that connection doesn't change! I do agree with ^comments, football groups present a different scenario in oz sport. The group mentality and pressures make things pretty nervy with police,ffa etc. Rightly so. But only so much the 'fan movement' can do, time for other dynamics to change and assist a-league supporters aswell!!!!
Matthew Skellett
Guest
I have to say that the incident in the Parramatta Bistro was pretty damning and several respected reporters have stated in the recent past that they felt nervous and unsafe at some a-league games but I prefer to look at the best and condemn the worst that is the world if football in this country Go da Wanderer's!!!!!
ZipGunBop
Guest
I think the majority of football fans would endorse segregation. It's not up to distant non-fans to decide how we watch our sport.
apaway
Roar Guru
AR I must have walked past this same restaurant on my way to the game on Saturday night. I saw nothing. I have not seen the video footage of the incident. That doesn't mean I don't believe it existed but on an amazing night for football, the big story carried by the usual media suspects is not of the game itself. ABC Radio 702 carried a balanced story of Saturday's game and the allegations of crowd violence.
Unrealistic
Guest
Now you think you are saying it right do you, by mentioning this: "The first being the supposed Melbourne Heart fan king-hitting a Wanderers supporter, followed up by some appalling behaviour from RBB individuals at the Sydney derby." Seriously you are just as bad as the brain washed media, just because some people join the RBB march does not mean they are RBB. RBB has launched a statement saying they do not know the people involved, they just joined in the march and acted like complete idiot's and now it's RBB's fault? Please! Get your fact's right mate!