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The last two weeks in Australian domestic football have been filled with controversy and vitriol.
Supporter groups around the country are calling for boycotts to games over the growing unrest and disenchantment between a majority of fans and football’s governing body in Australia – the FFA.
Over the last two weeks I have seen plenty of comments that don’t seem to grasp what the boycotts are for, so I thought I would try and remove the confusion for people so that they can understand why so many fans are angry.
Lack of an appeals process for banned fans
As is common knowledge, a journalist exposed confidential information of 198 fans who have been banned from football matches across the country. This banned list brought up the old debate by fans that there is no fair avenue to appeal a ban, should a supporter be wrongly identified and refused entry to stadiums.
Let me make one thing clear, this is not – as many have suggested – anger at the fact that all 198 people have been banned and cannot appeal their bans. Many have been rightfully banned for serious offences and to those people I say good riddance. This is anger at the fact that people have been wrongly identified and banned without access to the evidence used to ban them, as well as no proper appeals avenue to clear their name.
How would you feel if you were one of these people banned when you did nothing wrong?
The FFA have decided that they will allow fans to appeal their bans through their clubs. If they can provide evidence to show that they were wrongly banned, then the FFA will overturn this ban.
Yet the FFA will still not provide you the evidence that they used to ban you, thus minimising your chance of providing relevant information as you have no idea what it is you were supposedly banned for. The FFA have decided to take it upon themselves that banned fans are guilty until proven innocent.
This arrogance by the FFA that they can never be wrong has winded a lot of fans up the wrong way. Added to that is the fact that the FFA uses Hatamoto, a ‘security’ group that spies on the fans, collecting data on supporters and presenting it to the FFA so that they can ban fans is ethically incorrect.
The FFA is looking for a reason to ban passionate supporters. The bad eggs will slip up and be caught out – this is why we have police and security at all games.
There is no need to spy on fans using a private organisation with the purpose of growing a case against fans and looking for a reason to ban people from attending games. What other sport in this country does this to its supporters?
No public defence of fans and the game
Many people think that the protests that went on over the weekend and the boycotts that have been planned are against the article posted in the Sunday Telegraph. This is incorrect.
Football has been attacked by football-phobic journalists for decades, it’s what we expect. It will continue to be attacked – as highlighted by the ‘Suburban Terrorist’ articles written by Susie O’Brien this week.
The protests and boycotts are for the fact that the FFA – our governing body – did nothing to defend the game and the fans that were slated by a bunch of people who would rather focus on what they dislike instead of what they enjoy.
This does not mean that the fans wanted the FFA to wage war on the media. The fans would have liked some support by our leadership to defend their main stakeholder – the supporters – as well as the game they are meant to govern and administer. We would like a governing body that does not pander to people who have no interest in the game, and never will instead of doing what’s best for the sport and its supporters.
On top of that, the FFA have no issues with using the supporter groups in all of its advertising to try and create revenue for themselves. When these same supporter groups are publicly attacked you would expect those that use you as a commodity to defend your integrity. Not the case with the FFA.
Relaxing of over-zealous policing and over the top security at games
I have seen a recent trend at games that the police presence has quadrupled with riot squad forces in and around the stadium. Why? Because the NSW police commissioner and his right hand man are out of touch with what really goes on at football games. When the police commissioner states the following “the last thing we want to get to in Australia is putting rival fans in cages like the UK model,” when this exercise was last used in England in 1989 shows you that they really do not keep up to date with the real world.
But the worst of all was the comments made by the assistant commissioner Kyle Stewart. “Behave like a civilized human and not some grubby pack animal, and you’ll find yourself buying many, many more season passes”.
Cheers Mr. Stewart.
What hope do we have when those that are meant to be policing us think that we are all hooligans?
The FFA needs to defend the best interest of the fans and open talks with the NSW Police – as well as police around the country – so that fans don’t feel like they’re one cough away from a bunch of police jumping on them.
Now I will mention, not all police are football-hating people as witnessed in the Melbourne Victory versus Adelaide United game, where an officer was caught on camera kicking a ball with a little kid. It was great to see and it put a very big smile on my face. However, why can’t the police understand that not all football fans are there to cause trouble?
Less talk, more action
The FFA is very good at providing weightless statements that provide no information. They enjoy coining the term “we will take this on board” when criticism is directed towards them – and yet nothing ever happens.
On The 24 November, 2015, David Gallop posted an article on The Roar titled Football Needs to Talk Directly to the Fans.
Fans want the FFA to stop talking about how they should talk to the fans, and instead start doing so. Listening to the fans would not hurt either. We may not always be right – but we sure as hell aren’t always wrong.
The FFA needs to realise this. Some of us fans have supported football for a lot longer than Gallop and De Bohun have been involved with the sport. It would be wise to take the experiences and expertise of the fans on board and using it to their advantage.
As has been said countless times: no fans = no football.
Mr Gallop, Mr De Bohun and Mr Lowy, now it is your turn.
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