I have been hesitant to again add to the growing deluge of opinions regarding the fan issue, but would like to give a fan’s perspective in reply to the several excellent outsider views posted by Roar expert John Duerden recently.
On the surface, it is hard to argue with any of the points Duerden makes. Yes, we should rise above the slander from various media outlets, and yes, in contrast to many other leagues in our region we are fortunate to have the administration that we do.
Judging by his responses to date, I’m fairly certain that these are similar to the opinions held by FFA chief executive David Gallop.
But to look at the individual components in this way misses the big picture.
As a long-suffering football fan of the sport locally, you can not look at the current crisis without understanding the history and context behind it.
During the 1980s and ’90s, a nationwide perception developed, for many reasons, that football in Australia was plagued by crowd violence. Forget that the violence was confined to a couple of ethnic-based clubs in Sydney and Melbourne at a handful of games, the entire code was tarred with the same brush.
This perception was fuelled by anti-football components in the media. Why there is such a hatred by some media towards our sport, I have never understood, but there can be no doubt it exists.
That perception continues to persist today.
Since the inception of the A-League, the sport has gone a long way towards overcoming this hurdle, but the issue has once again raised its ugly head thanks to the actions of a few handfuls of supporters and the lingering anti-football media.
I am not talking about one article by one journalist. The article that sparked the current furore is just one in a long line of misinformed drivel that has been regularly trotted out.
What infuriates me as a football fan is the pathetic response of the FFA. They seem to have failed to understand that this is not an attack on the banning process, but is an attack on the entire sport.
Football fans do not care that there is a list of banned spectators. We applaud the FFA for taking a strong stance on the issue, though that doesn’t mean we approve of their methods.
Their knee-jerk defence of the banning process is appalling. They have repeatedly stated for years that there is no appeal process. Quite frankly their suggestion that long-standing society rules such as ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and the ‘right to face your accuser’, do not apply to the FFA because they “are not a government body” is abhorrent and not an image I want my sport associated with.
That is what a couple of journalists who portray themselves as the champions of Australian values should have been attacking, not the list itself.
But more than just that, the repeated failure of the FFA to stand up and support the average fan over any number of similar media articles for 10 years has been thrown into sharp contrast thanks to their inept response to this recurring issue.
To date, the FFA has only reinforced the public perception that every game in the country is subject to crowd violence.
I am a Brisbane Roar fan. Apart from the very occasional flare, there has been no trouble at any Roar home game ever that I am aware of, other than what you would find at any event where passions and alcohol run free. I am sure the same can be said for the Mariners, Adelaide, Perth, Newcastle and Wellington as well. Yet the FFA has never mentioned that.
And even at the clubs that have had trouble, the vast majority of fans cause no problems and most games run without incident.
It is the repeated failure of the FFA to defend us, literally over 99 per cent of fans who never caused trouble, that has united us all, not some perceived miscarriage of justice.
What we really want is for the FFA to prove that they believe “We Are Football” is more than just a cheap marketing slogan.
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