It's the fact that football is a global game that drives its critics crazy

Oh... your failure to respond to my questions and other issues I have put to you (and issues presented to you by Perry Bridge and Kris) is because you say "I've been busy...". I await a quieter time for your detailed response...hopefully in the next 2 days.

#Nemesis Mate - you're not even believing the FFA's numbers. The AFL were 'caught out' doing what the FFA does - including Auskick registrations in participation. Oh - but, MiniRoos when it's 4 a side with no goalies etc is full on meaningful competition!!! No - clearly not - it's introductory fun/participation focused. The irony is the FFA still runs in their Annual reports a total outdoor competition tally that includes MiniRoos. RORT. The AFL in their Annual reports separates AusKick out. So - the AFL is NOT doing what you accuse them of and the FFA ARE. And the biggest ball tamperers are the members of the (direct) free kickwall in soccer!!

I've been busy watching international football matches, ALeague matches & even went to watch my team playing NPL and winning a thriller 4-5 in Ballarat. I've got zero interest in the fictitious data the AFL publishes. No one believes the data. The AFL has been exposed numerous times lying about participation data. Maybe, you can tamper with your balls & make up even bigger numbers. I honestly don't care what AFL fans, or the AFL industry, says about anything. You people are so irrelevant it's quite comical.

#Joy of X There are many ironies - however I gather mostly these fellows would be oblivious to the obvious.

@Kris and your comments of 23.3 -4.01 pm. You wrote " in 2014 the FFA Annual Financial Report references 603K participants in the National Data Base. . in 2015 they reference 635k registered participants. . in 2016 they reference 665k registered participants. . in 2017 they CHANGED TO AUSPLAY and quote 1.1 m participants". There was really an increase of 435K soccer participants in ONE year, in 2017? Really? FFA being "creative"? Why did the FFA alter their reporting in 2017 -and CHANGED TO THE AUSPLAY Survey for participant numbers? (AusPlay will count a surveyed person as a "participant" even if that person replies in the AusPlay Survey that the person was ONLY involved in the sport ONCE in the whole 12 months!) Why are Nemesis and Post Hoc (and FFA) preferring the obviously inadequate and inferior methodology of a Survey of .1% of Australia's population? They should, obviously, rely on their OWN VERY detailed and fully comprehensive Database of all their named, registered participants? The FFA Database is certainly superior to a simple survey. Kris and others...what are these shenanigans about? Where are Nemesis and Post Hoc?

@ Perry Bridge and your Comments 23.3 - 10.19 am and 9.57 pm: re Post Hoc and Nemesis falsehoods. You wrote, with 100% accuracy and effective rebuttals "Are you still going with the 0.1% of the population Survey based on as little as ONCE A YEAR PARTICIPATION" ie a Survey of 24,000. FFA Annual Report 2017 Total Participation 1,631,041 AFL Annual Report 2017 Total Participation 1,547,795 (There is undoubtedly some double and triple counting of the same participants in each sports' numbers) Australian Football has been experiencing strong growth around Australia in the last 2 years -and this is very likely to continue in 2018 with the tsunami of females playing Australian Football...as the AFLW will expand to 18 Clubs in the next few years. The AFL is also being boosted by strong growth in male Football numbers in NSW, ACT, and Queensland (as in other areas). Nemesis decided to retreat from your unassailable rebuttal @ 9.57 pm, and has not been seen on this thread since my post here! He (and Post Hoc) appears to be claiming, bizarrely, the FFA numbers (which have ACTUAL names/details of soccer players, their clubs, schools etc.) are wrong. He also claimed the AFL numbers (which also have ACTUAL names/details of Australian Football players, their clubs, schools etc.) are lies! Having failed in his attempt to challenge/undermine the OFFICIAL FFA and AFL Annual Report participation numbers, Nemesis resorts to childish diversionary tactics ie insulting descriptions of our Australian game. Pathetic, and deserving of opprobrium. Fortunately, he is not typical of average soccer supporters that I know, and the fine game of soccer would not want fans like him. Most soccer fans I know are respectful about Australian Football, fans, or indifferent about it. I recall a Survey of Victory supporters about 10 years ago, and about 40% were also AFL fans. This illconceived article, and the article that pretended the Bulldogs were considering/should launch an A League Club (100% incorrect), were simply designed to generate clicks for sponsors of this site. Very poor "journalism".

True, football is the world game. But as we head towards “big” Australia there will be a lot more jockeying for position between the codes. The AFL is way ahead at the moment and by using the NFL as an example, being an isolated sport in that country only, doesn’t seem to hurt. Sooner NRL expands the better, and that’s from an Adelaidian.

Pretty obvious I meant semantics.

What's "semiatics"? You want to be a smart ar$e, you don't have the "smarts", so that means you're just an ...

#Nemesis Ha! You're a beauty. You're got the actuals in front of you and despite them being the official collated FFA numbers your calling it nonsense because I was the one pointing you to it. Dear oh dear - - I now fully comprehend the "You can lead a horse to water.....".

I love Football, Rugby Union and Cricket equally - don't really have much else to add except 'code wars' and stuff like this really debase the quality of discourse on the site.

#Post_Hoc Yeah - re MiniRoos, However, with say 4 v 4 and no goal keeper and more a focus on skills etc - it's as much as competition game as the 30 minute game at the end of the Auskick session after 60 mins of skills work and fun activities. I put MiniRoos in the same general bucket as Milo In2cricket and ARU's Game On and AFL Auskick. As it is - our Auskick was - allowing for a couple of weeks off in the middle of school hols - in effect about a 20 week program across winter. Most kids who were going to play club footy were heading off by Under 9s so the grades 3-6 still involved after that tended to be those who wouldn't be playing an awful lot of club/team spot at that stage (late bloomers). re Sydney Hills - yeah - okay, but they wouldn't have appeared in the 2016 Annual report but probably not a 500,000 short fall.....I suspect. ;-) btw - stop calling them 'my figures' - - the figures I'm using are actuals and are the FFA's figures. And it's these FFA figures that the FFA trumpeted here: https://www.myfootball.com.au/news/ffa-audit-confirms-football-participation-boom "The audited formal numbers of 1,188,911 together with informal participation levels put the total size of participation at almost 2 million people, giving football the largest participation base of any Australian team sport" Now - as you said and I've pointed out elsewhere - any of these numbers is to be taken with a grain of salt - - it's almost certain that there will be a fair proportion of kids in school participation who are in club numbers too - likewise social/futsal who double up somewhere too. The 'almost' 2 million is the 1.96 million number the FFA refers to in the annual report - the 'informal' and unaffiliated forms. And perhaps they all live in West Sydney somewhere - seems about right?? So - if we accept that the FFA numbers are a little misleading (as are the AFL etc) depending upon the interpretation applied. So too the Ausplay - whereby the premise (once a year) can be far from relevant to the argument the extrapolated estimates are being used to support. That the Ausplay numbers most certainly DO NOT represent official registrations (as #Nemesis tried to assert later in this thread). The real picture - sits somewhere. And keep mindful - I'm simply presenting actual audited numbers based on real registrations. I'm not fabricating anything and I'm not making over the top assertions. My pet hate though is the sentiment by Sydney folk (I suspect) that because soccer is huge there then it's hugest across Australia. Having 63% of national participation *based on outdoor state by state break downs) in NSW/ACT which is about 32% of national population means it's NOT all that representative of the rest of the nation.

AFL want in now… Started with 138K views last night I read 178 K unique views … If it keeps going the A-League will out rate the AFL mens …. Also big cheer the Mariners are undefeated and top of the table. From the end of the link. … https://www.westpac.com.au/news/in-depth/2018/03/at-the-top-of-her-e-league/?promoCode=link&cid=wi:br:1803:soc:TW:ESPORT The AFL is also thinking about this, according to its general manager of growth, digital and audience, Darren Birch, who says separate women’s AFL esports teams could be an option. “We’d love to be a pioneer in the esports environment and support girls and women. It is dominated by males, but there’s no reason why that should be the case,” says Birch. Dominic Remond, chief executive of Gfinity Esports Australia agrees and says the key to more female involvement is having visible role models. “We’ve seen the positive impact of profile athletes and administrators in driving interest and participation with the WBBL, AFLW and W-League and esports should follow a similar strategy,” he says.

That's child abuse !

thanks again Mike

I am not going to read 300 plus posts on this topic, but congrats Mike for the huge number of clicks. Better off leaving the other sports to tear themselves apart, and concentrate on the World Cup and the lead up. Some positivity please!

AFL want in now... Started with 138K views last night I read 178 K unique views ... If it keeps going the A-League will out rate the AFL mens .... Also big cheer the Mariners are undefeated and top of the table. From the end of the link. ... https://www.westpac.com.au/news/in-depth/2018/03/at-the-top-of-her-e-league/?promoCode=link&cid=wi:br:1803:soc:TW:ESPORT The AFL is also thinking about this, according to its general manager of growth, digital and audience, Darren Birch, who says separate women’s AFL esports teams could be an option. “We'd love to be a pioneer in the esports environment and support girls and women. It is dominated by males, but there's no reason why that should be the case,” says Birch. Dominic Remond, chief executive of Gfinity Esports Australia agrees and says the key to more female involvement is having visible role models. “We’ve seen the positive impact of profile athletes and administrators in driving interest and participation with the WBBL, AFLW and W-League and esports should follow a similar strategy,” he says.

re youth stats. I wouldn't worry about it. We've been hearing this bleat for decades yet strangely the big dollars have continued to flow to the AFL & NRL Idle question: What is the contract value of the highest paid player in whatever the domestic soccer comp is called this week?

I think it only works for YouTube clips on this site. In other words: I have NFI.

"Also what do you tell a kid who has talent?" In your case; "I'm getting your dna tested".