Turnbull government pledges $4 million for Australia's 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup bid

#Chris Nor should you be stressed. The 'official participation' numbers can not possibly be an extrapolation from a survey - of 0.1%, pushing it over the remaining 99.9%. Sheesh - I'd hate to sit next to you on election night!! The official numbers are what the FFA, NSWFF, NNSWFF, FFV, AFL etc publish in their annual reports. But - yes - ground availability is a big issue in Sydney and Melbourne for all sports and that's the crux of the start of this discussion - let the elite pay for their stadia and Govts invest in grassroots.

But, but, but according to some the time zone doesn't fit!!!!!

PB I'm not stressed at all. Football continues to grow at a greater pace than the other codes. What we need to ensure is that grounds are allocated to the appropriate sports and not based on the propaganda AFL excels at. The clubs and the numbers you quote in your last post are just minuscule compared to football. You talk 10 clubs here and there while football speaks in the 100's of clubs. This is not about who's bigger but in the clubs I am involved in and have been involved in there are on average 3 teams (sometimes more) sharing a ground for training. Thats simply not good enough. Games are moved to Sundays because there are not enough grounds on Saturdays to accommodate them. What i see driving around on weekends in Sydney backs up the official participation numbers provided by the govt.

#Chris There is a vibrant enough AFL community in NSW. Sydney itself - has mens premier plus 5 divisions below that. U19s Div 1 and Div2, and Womens Premier and Div 1. Premier Div was in 2017 a 9 team comp (Sydney Uni, UNSW Eastern Subs, North Shore, St George, Pennant Hills, East Coast, UTS Bats, Manly Warringah, Western Subs). Div 1 was a 10 team comp, inc Camden, Macquarie Uni, Balmain, Southern Power, Holroyd Parramatta and Western 'Magic'. - along with 2nds from St George, Pennant Hills, Syd Uni, UTS. Div 2 a 12 team comp (18 rnd H&A season) - we see Penrish, Wollondilly, Randwick and S-W Syd Magpies join in. Div 3 was an 8 team comp - Nor-West Jets and Campbelltown Blues join in. Div 4 a 10 team comp - 17 rnd H&A season - all teams of clubs already mentioned. And down to Div 5, a 13 team comp again all teams part of clubs already mentioned. The 2 womens divs, 8 and 14 teams respectively. The Sydney Jnrs is split across 4 regions (City, North, South and Western as well as 'Independent Schools'). Drilling into Western Syd in 2017 included mini leagues of U9 South, West Grey (Blacktown Suns Gold, Penrith, Hawkesbury, Emu/Plains, St Clair, Blue Mts White), West Orange (Blacktown Suns Red, Kellyville Rouse Hill Magpies, Baulkham Hills, Emu Plains, Blue Mts, Greystances) and West White. Then up to U10s, then U11s, U12s, U13s, U14s, U15s, U17s. Anyway - - I won't go on any further there. Then there are AFL Canberra, AFL Sapphire Coast, AFL South Coast (inc Seniors, Illawarra Jnrs and Shoalhaven Juniors), AFL Hunter Coast and the Black Diamond AFL, AFL North Coast, AFL Central West and AFL Riverina, Northern Riverina and Hume and AFL Broken Hill. The AFL official numbers for NSW for 2016 (the previous year Annual Report) are 96K competitions and 141K programs. (noting again Auskick is included in programs). So - yep - I'm happy that there's a pretty vibrant Aust Footy community in NSW. And from your perspective as a soccer officianado - don't stress too much - it'll be the Rugby codes that are losing out here.

"Try driving around Paddington, Alexandria and Glebe – you will see quite a few playing AFL, although dwarfed by Football" Clipper you'd be lucky if there were more than half a dozen fields in those 3 suburbs that you mention.

@clipper - league is very much part of the conversation in Sydney. I think you are being mischievous to suggest otherwise. Yes player numbers are way down and trending down. But to suggest its not in the day to day conversations people have is just plain wrong. People talk league, cricket, football and some union. PB thinks there is a vibrant AFL culture here and its simply not true.

#Clipper So you reckon the FFA are so ordinary at their job that they only know of about half of their registered participants? I guess that's possible.

Have to agree with you Redondo, that is the most pathetic discussion I've seen on the Roar. It got Clipper involved as well, who usually targets rugby league die hards with his comments. These guys can believe whatever they want.

#Post Hoc If you actually believe a survey of 24,000 and extrapolation out from there is more reliable empirical evidence than are the actual figures of quantifiable registrations of the sports bodies involved - - then I put back to you that you are the faith dealer and I am the one relying on observed and measured data. This is what's so funny - you're trying to label me with what you yourself are doing. You are the faith based church. The irony is - your church has produced these actual numbers and you don't seem to believe them? Have you had a look at the FFA report or the Football NSW report??

Chris - I've never lived in Melbourne or any so called 'AFL' states, but in my Sydney circle, still containing no ex Victorians, there is much talk of AFL, Football, Tennis, Rugby. Try driving around Paddington, Alexandria and Glebe - you will see quite a few playing AFL, although dwarfed by Football, but I've seen more AFL than league, which is almost invisible in the east and inner suburbs. I do have to agree with other posters re participation figures - an independent account is a better view - all sports try to fluff up their figures, as that's key to Government monies.

#Chris Mate - that's perhaps enough - if all the ex Vics, Tas, WA, SA folk have somewhere to go other than take up soccer or rugby then that's a good thing - they can avoid having to talk to the locals!! ;-)

#Post Hoc The then VFL purchased 85 hectares of market gardening and grazing land in 1962 out at 'Mulgrave' for £250,000 - at this time (ironically, the search started after the MCC prohibited the VFL from the MCG in 1950 and originally focussed on Carlton but the original 70K design grew to 125K and the cost blow out stopped the project). It was going to be a Carlton Olympic Venue!! Imagine that. Ironically Kenneth Luke was Carlton President. The previous year Monash University (known for years as the Farm) was set up on farmland along Wellington Rd - a couple of kms nearer the city than the site the VFL purchased. The AFL deal re Etihad was engineered by Graeme Samuel - that deal was actually finalised in 1999. And yes - it provided the AFL a pretty rosie long term outcome. What it really did was added the 'T' to a BOO project, instead of Build/Own/Operate it then became a Build/Own/Operate/Transfer project and that was not the Govt's gift - that was the result of Graeme Samuel wearing two hats and negotiating with the developers to get the project done (as again, without the AFL there was no project). Gift?......no.....good deal....yep....the Govt Gift was still the sale price of the land so close the CBD to the developers along with other plots of land for other purposes. The AFL had no real future at VFL park - because State Govt wouldn't connect PT to it (had once been promised) and had blocked expansion (so, AFL would go into debt just to keep it limping along as a white elephant - although one could argue that since Eastlink came in place that that venue would be more accessible now.).

PB you need to understand that in Sydney, noone even talks about AFL (apart from ex-Victorians). Your "build it and they will come" is just more nonsense from you.

Perry, Galileo you are not, when presented with evidence that did not suit his understanding, Galileo changed his views. When evidence doesn't suit your wants, you ignore them and look for something that maintains your belief. You are more closely aligned to a creationist or Global Warming denier (they tend to like aligning themselves with Galileo as well)

#Redondo Winner winner chicken dinner I like that one - - good idea - time to wrap up the week in readiness for an ever so slight (30mins) POETS heading home via just one drink at the pub.

#Chris What you'll find for the 'off broadway' codes is that you're going to have to go out of your way more often than not to find them. The primary venues will be taken already. Same here in Melbourne - where I drive around I mostly only go past ovals and therefore only see Aust Footy and Cricket - it's much harder to find soccer being played but in the main that's because the soccer fields are more hidden away. You'll also find that something like AFL Auskick in a market like Sydney will have to slot in at different times - there'll be a lot of after school auskick and perhaps Friday evenings instead of Saturday mornings. But even here in Melb - the Auskick I used to coach with my kids at was Sat morning, where I play oldies footy they have a Sunday morning and where one of my kids played footy they had a Friday night. And that again is the blight for all the footy codes - invariably more teams (esp with girls/womens) sharing the venues - it's hard for the codes to get by with what they currently have access to. And that's why all the codes MUST get involved in schools - because apart from anything else they need to help develop facilities that might be access on the weekends. Even in Sydney - the AFL has a shortage of grounds and have clubs at capacity that have had to turn away kids.

Perry - let go! Read this Zen story - it might help: ‘A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked if they could help her cross to the other side. The two monks glanced at one another because they had taken vows not to touch a woman. Then, without a word, the older monk picked up the woman, carried her across the river, placed her gently on the other side, and carried on his 
journey. The younger monk couldn’t believe what had just happened. After rejoining his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between them. Two more hours passed, then three, finally the younger monk could contain himself any longer, and blurted out “As monks, we are not permitted a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?” The older monk looked at him and replied, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”’

It was a gift to the AFL, the land was given by the government to build an AFL Stadium on it was a replacement for VFL Park, which the AFL received a lovely sale price on, (which again was once public land but was 'sold' to the VFL decades earlier. So if/when AFL sell Etihad I assume they will give all the money to the Government Less the $3 million of course. After all how can they not?

The point Perry is the figures the Government base their funding models off, the figures that Councils base their ground designs off, are not the very rubbery figures of AFL HQ (see birchgrove fraud to see why Councils don't do that) they base them off the AusPlay numbers. So 2 different sets of figures both sourced by Independent government organisations both say Football has more participants ie is the most participated sport in the country. But because they confronts your sensibilities, because it does not make AFL the number 1 participated sport in the country you have to dismiss it. Sorry mate but you don't get to do that. Football is the most participated sport in the world, it is also has the highest participation in Australia, I suggest you deal with that, because in every facet that matters those are the facts. If you can't I suggest you might want to spend time on a different tab.

Shame on you Claudio - you sparked the most boring ‘mine is bigger than yours’ argument ever.