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Tom Elliot at the Herald Sun recently suggested the A-League has a “cultural problem” among its fans. In all honesty, what is a “cultural problem”?
Is it having a tiny proportion of idiots highjacking football games to get on TV? Is it having vocal and passionate support for clubs?
Or is it something else?
Perhaps it’s having an incredibly multicultural fanbase that includes people of marginalised ethnic minorities in Australia?
In many ways it seems the latter plays a big role in the portrayal of football’s cultural problem. As Simon Hill said on the Fox Football podcast last week, when a male Fremantle Dockers fan assaulted a woman at the preliminary final no one suggested that the AFL had a cultural problem, and it would be unfair to assume the AFL had such an issue. One offender does not represent the thousands. The same courtesy should be extended to A-League fans.
We don’t need flares or anti-social behaviour in football. Flares are illegal and they don’t add anything more to the spectacle of the game – they detract from it.
If we are really looking at what makes up the culture of football fans in Australia, should we not look at a wider scope of the actions of these fans?
Last Saturday, at the Sydney Derby, Wanderers fans held up signs reading “Let them stay” – an appeal to stop the inhumane detention of refugees and asylum seekers. In late November, fans boycotted games in solidarity with people who had not been granted the right of appeal following bans from stadiums.
This a game with a cultural problem?
One might describe the conduct of thousands of AFL fans booing former Australian of the Year, AFL legend and champion of Indigenous rights Adam Goodes as a cultural problem. Despite Collingwood CEO Eddie McGuire likening Goodes to King Kong, or pundits who blamed Goodes for speaking out when he had racist taunts thrown at him, it would be churlish to suggest the AFL had a cultural problem.
What of rugby league fans throwing plastic bottles at referees? Or occurrences of players acting inappropriately and violently towards people, especially women. But don’t worry there isn’t a culture of sexism in the NRL, it’s just a few bad eggs spoiling it for the rest of the league.
Cricket, the so-called gentlemen’s game, saw over 90 people ejected from the first day of the 2015 Boxing Day Test, almost as many ejections as the A-League has had all season.
There is a bias against football in the media. The game is being held to a much more stringent set of standards than the other mainstream sports in Australia.
The easy mistake to make here is that football fans intend to bring about a siege mentality, or espouse a ‘football versus Australia’ mentality. What football fans (like myself) want is a level playing field, and the chance to coexist with other sports. To not be put on trial and tarnished with one brush.
This may come as a surprise, but many football fans actually like other sports. Along with the Sydney Derby, I was at the NRL grand final last year, and cheered on my team in one of the greatest, most heartbreaking matches of NRL ever played. I went out to a pub to cheer on our Wallabies in the final of the Rugby World Cup. I was at the SCG and Spotless stadium for some of the explosive and entertaining Big Bash games, along with the first day of the sodden Sydney Test.
There isn’t a cultural problem among the fans who attend any of those sports. Sure there is a small minority (and it really is minute) who are there to get drunk, harass people, and do anything but watch that sport. But this behaviour exists in all sports, so why is the A-League the only one with a cultural problem?
Football’s culture promotes social justice, fosters a strong sense of solidarity across the league, and creates an incredible match-day atmosphere. That sounds like a pretty good culture to me.
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