No love for the northern states has me disillusioned with the AFL

Throughout the last few seasons, I’ve found myself falling out of love with the AFL. It’s something I never ever thought would happen.

Along with cricket, it was always the game the got my spark going, and regardless of who was playing, I caught every game.

In 1986 as an 8-year-old kid, I marvelled at the skills of the players and the passion the game drew out from its fans.

Growing up in Goulburn, a pro-rugby league town, much like anyone born and bred in New South Wales, there was the luxury of being able to enjoy both codes – Australian Football and Rugby League – equally.

Generally if you were a “bi-code” fan, naturally there was always a stronger leaning towards one over the other in order preference.

My preference has always been for Australian Football over rugby league, having found it a much more compelling and exciting game to watch, aesthetically speaking.

Nothing beat going to the fish and chip shop, and coming back with a feast big enough for an army – only to single-handedly devour it while the match of the day played.

That doesn’t mean rugby league hasn’t had its moments, it has and does.The last two NRL grand finals have been dead-set classics and will go down as some of the greatest moments in Australian sport. However, much of what made rugby league magical during the 1980s and early 1990s, with the Winfield Cup, has gone.

It doesn’t mean I don’t have an NRL team, the Cronulla Sharks have been with me, just as long as the Sydney Swans have. It has been the latter team which has always got my passion stirred a little bit more – even in the horror years of the early 1990s, when the club couldn’t win a chook raffle.

Rugby league has a history in New South Wales and Queensland equally as rich as the AFL in the rest of the country. Much like where Australian Football is inescapable in its traditional states, it’s the same with rugby league in its heartlands.

Even Western Australia has a reasonable rugby league history, however it’s always ruled the nations north eastern states. It was a game that appealed to the working class in cities where Australian Football did not really catch on, even though the Sydney Football League premiership started before the NSWRL. Perhaps “Aussie Rules” appeared too “aloof” or “too long” and rugby league seemed more leveled. Who knows?

As an Australian Football follower in a non-traditional AFL state, it’s been hard following the game in recent times.

The treatment of the games’ original northern state clubs – the Sydney Swans and the Brisbane Lions – and their successes, has been baffling to see.

Rather than celebrate the inroads the game has made, it has virtually self-destructed in indirectly punishing these clubs for gains they made.

To be frank, both games presently suffer from glaring problems at the administrative level. That said, there is now a valid argument where it could be said the NRL administration is marginally in front of the AFL, even if twelve of the sixteen NRL clubs are not happy with the way the game is being run, with big questions being asked over where the money is going.

AFL club bosses, such as Collingwood supremo Eddie McGuire, have rightly been asking similar questions. Where does all the money the AFL gets from its sponsorship and TV rights go, if it’s not going to the clubs?

After watching the Swans hit the skids in 1993 and nearly die, the club has received nothing but contempt, particularly since 2012, when Sydney won an “against the odds” premiership.

The AFL has given the impression, particularly by clubs in traditional states, the expansion clubs from New South Wales and Queensland can be in the race for the premiership, just don’t be too successful.

It’s almost as if the Swans and the Lions were meant to be nothing more than novelty acts in their respective markets; they would help grow the game in non-traditional states, get the game massive TV rights deals, and appear in finals regularly enough to keep the critics and administrators happy – just don’t get in the way of Collingwood, Hawthorn, the Western Bulldogs or West Coast Eagles.

The AFL must think Swans and Lions fans are idiots, as if we don’t know what’s going on – bloody oath we do! We also know the sporting culture and history of our respective states; both could spit the AFL out in a blink of an eye with one false move – especially in Sydney, which is the toughest sporting market in the country – dominated by the two rugby codes and cricket. In Queensland, the game has largely become snubbed.

The problem has been, there has been more than one false move, starting with the Brisbane Lions, who came from virtually no-where to achieve a three-peat, after finishing last in 1998.

That was followed by a couple of decent seasons in 1999 and 2000 under super coach Leigh Matthews, who oversaw the club’s most glorious period.

From 2001 onwards, Victorian club bosses began crowing that the AFL was propping Brisbane up with salary cap and draft concessions.

From Kevin Sheedy saying the AFL had created a monster, to Eddie McGuire bemoaning a possibility of clubs like Geelong or the Western Bulldogs never winning a premiership ever again (never mind that Geelong had played in three of the first six AFL-era grand finals prior, and would be victorious in the most one sided VFL/AFL grand final in history in 2007.)

The Lions subsequently lost their concessions and have struggled to retain players, either because of homesickness experienced by drafted interstate players, or because they cannot stand the Brisbane weather. Apparently the five-seasons-in-one-day weather of Melbourne is more appealing than sunny Queensland. Or maybe retired NSW Origin skipper Paul Gallen is right – those scary Queenslanders might have two heads after all!

Sure the Lions have had massive problems at boardroom level; however they have also had to endure harsh changes that only add to the challenge of running a club where the Brisbane Broncos are number one and the Queensland State of Origin team is worshipped. In the meantime, the Lions membership numbers have declined to alarming levels.

Meanwhile the Gold Coast Suns are showing signs of going down the great big gurgler that swallowed NRL and A-League teams past – the Gold Coast Titans are barely standing, with the looming possibility of being bought out by the North Sydney Bears.

The AFL is in trouble in Queensland and it has failed to come up with any new innovations to keep the game moving forward there.

The Sydney Swans have been through the ringer. From the terrible treatment of Adam Goodes, which the AFL proved too slow and inept to deal with, to the dramas over the Cost of Living Allowance, brought on by the recruitments of Kurt Tippett and Lance Franklin; the club had to suffer an inexplicable trade ban, while the three-peat winning Hawthorn could recruit whoever they liked, and the Western Bulldogs could go on a spending spree with the millions they’ve accrued at the expense of the AFL’s richest clubs.

Is that how true equalisation works?

Why didn’t the AFL just raise the salary cap of all clubs to the same level as the Swans, and simply say, “We’re raising the cap for all clubs for this reason,” when the COLA was implemented, rather than having it all?

Yes, it would have made it difficult for the poorer clubs to be able to pay it, however such mercy was never afforded to Fitzroy or South Melbourne. It was merge, move, or die.

The AFL introduced a points system in the draft to appease Victorian club bosses who were not happy about the Northern clubs having academies. The big fear was they were making ready-made superstars like Isaac Heeney and Callum Mills, but really they’re there to help grow the game in traditional rugby league and rugby union states. Heeney incidentally would have been lost to rugby league, and possibly to the Newcastle Knights, had it not been for the academies.

The AFL has been clueless in handling expansion in the Northern states; how long will it be before the Greater Western Sydney Giants end up suffering a similar fate to that of the Swans and Lions?

Presently, the AFL cannot do enough for the fledging club, having spent millions. The Giants, who were rushed in, have been propped up to be an instant success, considering they have four NRL Western Sydney heavyweight clubs to deal with. GWS have been given the world at the expense of traditional established clubs, never mind the disregard for the Swans or Lions.

Fortunately for the AFL, Wests Tigers are in a mess with a revolving door of coaches and boardroom dramas, and the Parramatta Eels have been in dire straits for several years. The Eels, however, have one of the healthiest membership bases, as do the Canterbury Bulldogs, while the Penrith Panthers are not performing as well as anticipated.

These clubs know the game the AFL is playing with the Giants and will do whatever it takes to ensure they’re always in front. The Panthers have just established a multi-million dollar academy of their own, even so NRL club bosses are heaping pressure on those running the game, knowing there is real competition for hearts and minds going on.

After the disastrous Super League War, the NRL baulked at expansion. Like the AFL, which has ten Victorian based clubs, the NRL has ten New South Wales based clubs, nine of which are based in Sydney. The NRL learned the hard way in 1995 that if you’re going to expand, there needs to be a plan for the current established clubs.

While the NRL is being tempted to consider Perth again, it has rightly held off, making sure the ground work is being done before it can happen.

The AFL has been brave in expanding into regions that could prove to be a money drain, at the same time it seems to have been done at cost of the integrity of the game, and in the process, it has hurt the brands that helped made expansion into New South Wales and Queensland possible in the first place.

It is a disgrace the AFL has allowed the Lions and the Swans to endure the harsh treatment they have, and if supporters of either club feel cheated and insulted, the game may end up doing irreparable damage to its future in the northern states.

That will have meant expansion was done in vain, nothing more, nothing less. Hence the disillusionment – for me, the AFL is not the same game it once was.