Underwhelming Socceroos a major health risk for Australian football

Nah. You were wrong

Bout time they got some if this is the benchmark

Northerner, I think Chris has got it pretty spot on. I don't think I would be very welcomed on the AFL tap if I went on relentlessly about football being played in over 220 countries & in all bar 1, it's bigger then AFL & even then only in 1/2 a country.

If Cahill had scored against Thailand Australia wouldn;t be here. I don't put the blame entirealy on Cahill for that, what was he doing playing in the midfield where he got robbed of the ball so easily. The problem in this country is people are paying top dollar to watch exhibition matches, if they banned them then Socceroos crowds would increase by at least 50%, Instead they are pocketing peanuts everytime an EPL team comes here and robs 20 milllion from the local market.

Oh yes Northerner...the argument is always something that suits your narrative. I changed the point of of the discussion to expose the ludicrous statement being made about "3rd highest average attendance in the world blah blah blah". When you only have one league and one league only, why would you want to talk about the other professional leagues that people spend money in and have the team that they follow playing in that league. Take your "3rd highest average in the world" furphy onto the AFL tab instead of on the football tab and you wont have the code war which you so cant stomach.

I'm tired too, Chris. So, I'll say this. The two AFL teams in Sydney pull more punters than the two A League teams. So, since the discussion was about leagues, not codes, the rest of your argument is entirely irrelevant to that point. People attending NPL games are not counted in A league figures any more than people attending Serie B are counted in Serie A numbers. That more people in Sydney follow football, I don't doubt - but that's not what the argument was about. And to describe a team that is drawing as many spectators to its games as SFC and Wanderers combined as being "all tip, no iceberg" is, quite frankly ludicrous. It's code war stuff, not reality. And that's what drives me crazy about this tab. It's like an alternative reality, where things are what you want them to be, not what they actually are.

Nemesis - I'm not sure how to explain this more clearly. You seem to be geographically challenged. Gosford is not in Sydney. CCM doesn't play in Sydney except as an away game. So why would CCM figures be included in Sydney numbers? Its numbers for its game in Canberra count as a home game,as do GWS's three games. Canberra figures don't do either team any favours. But if you insist, and we all pretend that Gosford is in Sydney, then yes, that increases the total number of attendances, but it also substantially reduces the average attendance. Instead of being somewhere around 16,900 (the average attendance for the two actual Sydney teams) it becomes 13,720. Instead of being well ahead of NRL figures, it drops behind. Sheer genius reasoning on your part. You're big on quotes, mostly inappropriate ones in the circumstances: well, here's an oldie but a goodie - " better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." You should consider a little more silence.

Northerner Im going to keep this really simple as I'm just about done explaining my point to you. I dont care what the average is, if in totality its a minute figure. In Sydney people pay to go and watch Sydney FC, WSW and NPL1 matches. If you total them up they would be higher than Swans and the Midgets. Have I lost you yet? So on the global stage, to say "AFL is top 3 in average attendance" its even more meaningless. (Use my Sydney example and apply it to just about every country in Europe, Asia, Africa, Nth and Sth America). And apply that logic across a multitude of sports. I'm too tired to explain it all again to you so that will have to do.

Agree, Loyalty should lye with the team which was the case when we had the play off final against Uruguay. Only time i ever felt the game was united was the 06 world cup campaign, we would never have achieved qualification if the football media had been traitors to their own . This article is the same stuff we used to get in the Herald pre 2005. It wasn't long ago that the media was saying Ange was doing a wonderful job, if he qualifies he deserves full credit after what the media has put him through. I was never a big fan of his but when the knives are out and there's traitors in the ranks that's when you stick by the coach, It's too late to be critical with only two matches to go. 100% loyalty is required from all football supporters at this time otherwise they are part of the problem. Ange won us the Asian cup for that he deserves loyalty and respect forever.

Why write bulldust about what happened in 06.that is done and dusted.The socceroos are now 2 games away from making the 2018? Now if we qualify okay,if we dont so be it.But if we dont qualify heads will roll.They will start from the top and then from the bottom.that is all.The so called expert media writing so much rubbish about the socceroos makes me just want thro up.

There are very little roots of AFL in Sydney, now I agree times are going to change. Just like football, where the kids are growing up with the A-League & the AFL in their lives & won't have this opinion that these are foreign sports. It is rare to see the multiple posts required for AFL, unlike Melbourne. But despite Swans being the most attended sporting team in Sydney, I know more people who follow other AFL teams (as they have moved from elsewhere) then I know Swan fans. There is very little discussion in workplaces, cafes, pubs,sporting fields about the Swans. Now while I do see a lot more Swans merchandise these days, around the same as SFC, they are dwarfed by WSW merchandise, unfortunately, bloody lowlife. I just don't see any GWS merchandise & I reckon half of the GWS 13K average crowd are there following the other team.

@northerner It's pretty obvious you excluded CCM's crowds in Gosford but included GWS crowds in Canberra for your snide little dig that "Total AFL crowds in Sydney are bigger than ALeague" If you want to include the GWS crowds in Canberra, then you must include Gosford Crowds and, when you do, ALeague pulled higher total crowds in this Sydney. You are heavily biased against everything to do with football. I don't care that you pretend you are not. Anyone can see you only ever post comments to try to diminish the ALeague. You never ever write any comments on the AFL discussion when there are huge exaggerations made. I don't care that you don't like football, but your smarmy pretense every day that you are the voice of reason is such utter nonsense. Have the courage to admit you like to dismiss any positive football story.

Punter - I think the point here is that the A League vs the NRL is doing very well in attendance numbers, not so great in TV numbers, but that will come. But don't disregard the inroads being made by the AFL either. Sure, the NRL is well ahead in viewer numbers, and getting big bucks for it too, but they've sacrificed bums on seats for that. I'm not sure that's the way to go, long term, especially when a lot of networks globally are beginning to realize they've paid over the odds for broadcast rights. Like the song says, " the times they are a' changing" and viewer audiences seem to be fragmenting. I wouldn't count on any code or league in this country flourishing without strong roots, good business management, and some vision for the future. Obviously, football has the strongest roots of all, but I'm not convinced about the rest of the package. But it's nowhere near the disaster area that are the ARU and the NRL, and, I'd have to say, Sheffield Shield cricket either.

@Nemesis: I'm not at all sure what your point is. Are you arguing I should have included Mariners numbers in the Sydney total? Why? Gosford isn't in Sydney. Or are you saying that Giants numbers for their three games played in Canberra shouldn't be counted? Ever seen Manuka oval? I've been to games (various codes) there in the past, and it's a lovely venue, but hardly likely to increase attendance averages for the Giants, or for the Mariners, who also play the odd game there, for that matter.. No doubt you can elucidate.

Northerner, I agree it's pretty impressive that the AFL is one of the biggest leagues in the world. My issue was then that you highlighted matching both EPL & Bunesliga, but with a smaller Population & other codes to content with. Well England does have other codes, but their greatest competition, as per the table is another league within football 20K, this was what I was highlighting. Now in regards to AFL, NRL & A-League. Very happy with the progress with A-League in Sydney, however, living in Sydney, you can clearly see why NRL is on the main channel & both A-League & AFL are not. They are a long way behind.

Very few people hate soccer. It's people such as you that go on about how its taking over the sporting landscape, when the facts are it's not. 35,000 vs 12,000 for the top level.

Punter - The original comparison was league to league. It is hardly dishonest of me to point out that the AFL figures are quite good in a competitive market. Of course the EPL has to compete with lower levels of football, but then the AFL has to compete with lower levels of its own sport as well as with top levels of the other codes. It's hard to make a direct comparison, but I don't think its unreasonable to think the AFL's numbers are quite good, relatively speaking. And Americans do love their sports. I'm not sure how that is relevant to average attendance comparisons. Either fans attend or they don't, and that's the only measure of what league has the best average attendance. It's not weighted on some sort of scale depending on how sports-mad a country is. I grant you the point about football fans who are not A League fans, but again, that's simply not relevant to a comparison of two Australian leagues (or three, actually, if we add in the NRL). Don't you see? You are arguing about the strength of football, the code, whereas this argument started over a point about the strength of the A League vs the AFL. Neither your comments nor Chris's are relevant to that. And his point about the iceberg is simply wrong: there's an iceberg there all right. What you should be cogitating about is not in fact the AFL, but the progress the A League is making relative to the NRL.

Freddie - I don't really want to discuss this much further, but it is evident to most sports fans that the rules of basketball over the years have been tweaked to ensure a high scoring game is provided for the spectators,and the resultant "stars " have been created for the fans of the game.. Contrary to that situation we have the rule makers in football who appear to resist change for changes sake with the result it has taken almost 30 years of marketing and education to convince American fans that football is a sport worth watching. but if the coaches in football had their way we would be lumbered with "defensive strategies" that are in fact "star killers" Get it? Cheers jb.

I notice northerner included crowd figures for "Sydney" for games played in Canberra. Yet, he refuses to include figures for matches played in Gosford. He pretends to be objective & unbiased, but he's just another who enjoys putting football down whenever he can. Pathetic.

@Chris - for crying out loud. The comparison of codes is one thing - the comparison of leagues is quite a different thing. Are you now going to argue that the NFL isn't, after all, the best attended sports league in the world on the grounds that American football isn't played much outside of America? That's an argument that American football isn't the biggest code, but it's not an argument that the NFL isn't the biggest individual league. When you count EPL statistics, do you add in and average the numbers for all the football leagues, at any level, anywhere in the world, or do you look at the statistics for the EPL? When you talk about a code, you look at all the numbers, everywhere - participation, attendance, income, etc etc. And that leaves football leading the pack. But when you talk about leagues, you look at the league - attendance, income, debt, etc - it's a different measurement and within its own parameters, every bit as valid as the bigger measurement because its measuring something different.