There are few endeavours that stir up human emotions more than sporting competition.
In a footballing sense, that passion has sometimes turned ugly. Historically, many supporters have struggled to maintain a sense of dignity and decorum, thanks to frustrations around the team they support and a hope that it could do better.
Whether it be mayhem in the terraces, public brawling or rather unsportsmanlike tactics used by home fans to disrupt the preparations of a visiting nation, the game is littered with examples; none of which should be condoned or encouraged.
No sport is immune and football has its challenges like any other.
While aggressive fan behaviour across all sports could be seen as confined within the walls of the game itself, there is growing evidence of a potential ‘bleeding’ into people’s domestic situations.
Last Thursday, The Age featured a piece by Melissa Cunningham and Chloe Booker which I read with particular interest. The article referenced the concerns of the Chief Commissioner of Victorian Police and the predicted spike in family violence on AFL grand final day.
The authorities were anticipating a 20 per cent increase and the need to attend an incident every seven minutes.
Reading a little more broadly, it became apparent that an increased occurrence of domestic issues on grand final day had a historically undeniable precedent. Similar increases have been noted on rugby league State of Origin nights by the Australian Bureau of Crime Statistics, where over a six year period domestic assaults jumped an average of 40.7 per cent.
Further data seemed somewhat consistent, with a pattern emerging across the more significant days on the Australian sporting calendar.
When the Commissioner referred to grand final day as ‘one of our biggest nights of the year’, with New Years Eve still the most troublesome, I reflected rather somberly on what sport had apparently become to some people.
Intrigued and alarmed at the data, I kept digging and stumbled across a disturbing graph on the Medibank website, under the Media Centre sub-heading. The graph represented the percentage increase in online counselling web chats registered by the 1800RESPECT organisation during major events.
The NRL and AFL grand finals saw the most significant increases, yet the 2018 A-League grand final was comparable with Game 2 of the State of Origin Series, the Australian Grand Prix and the Australian Open Men’s Final at Melbourne Park.
While media attention has been focused elsewhere throughout 2018, with violent attacks and brawling becoming a significant problem in Australian rules football, the issue encompasses the entire community and football has a key role to play in the education process.
As the game continues to grow in Australia, derby passions rise higher and club allegiances build more solid roots of strength, every effort must be made to prevent passionate support from morphing into violence. Acting now may avoid the ingrained cultures of aggression evidenced in other codes and other parts of the football world.
Researchers at Lancaster University in the UK discovered a 38 per cent increase in domestic violence figures when England’s national football team suffered defeat during the 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cups.
Logic suggests that alcohol and a little baiting from others fuels the issue. Watching matches in pubs, clubs, at parties and the venue itself can bring out the worst in people, both the aggressor and those who retaliate. It appears that frustrations borne of the match itself can filter back to the domestic setting, yet the point of origin is undoubtedly the contest.
Apart from the sheer disappointment of a loss, much violence is fanned by words; the most powerful commodity on the planet. Violent confrontation should be far removed from baiting and antagonism and certainly not the natural postscript to it, yet when alcohol driven, some seem incapable of any other course of action.
Can sport be a source of positive change? (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Australia is fortunate that fans are rarely cordoned off in separate areas to protect themselves from each other, yet there are moments when this does prove a prudent move. The A-League is a relatively tame environment and most fans are able to ignore any attempts to bait, however, there will always be a minority that are more easily engaged.
Football has a culture of banter that, at times, can be clever and witty, whilst at others it is just plain offensive. These days, much of the vitriol and insult takes place post-game and the digital world provides an impenetrable avenue of insult.
Many football fans appear obsessed with which team arrived in a city first, whether a particular league is real or tin-pot and which clubs’ supporters are deemed to be plastic.
Social media provides a fortress for such questions and their associated answers to be launched venomously around the globe. Some rather socially compromised people then claim bragging rights in a rather pathetic game of one-upmanship; designed to do little more than tease and insult their target.
Most football supporters do so responsibly. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
None of this is good for the game and potentially damaging in the long term.
It appears that the dynamics around passionate support across all sports have changed and physical and virtual insults aren’t bouncing off the recipients as they may have previously. Contrastingly, they are fueling much anger. That anger is then, sadly, filtering into homes and relationships.
As the monetary stakes in sport continue to elevate the passions in supporters, a win or a loss appears to be meaning more to some fans than ever before. Potentially, it is all being taken far too personally and violence at matches and at home, suggests the need for intervention, for those whose perspective on what is ultimately a game has been lost.
Football is a beautiful game. Yet it is also one that should attempt to set the standard in this country and never infringe on the basic human rights of dignity and respect that should be enjoyed by all.
As stewards of the game, we should all keep working on it.
Waz
Roar Rookie
Well you and I both know people will find nd negatives in what comes next. But we are moving forward at last
Waz
Roar Rookie
@ The Joy of X I can’t take your post seriously because there’s too many stereo-type statements in there. It looks like you’re trying to stir things up, you’re new around here aren’t you? Not another multi surely??? The AFL have had their dose of reality this season, a high scoring game but with plenty of crowd violence. There’s even a FB page dedicated to it sadly. But that debunks the scoring myth. AFL had 12 arrests at the GF which is almost as many as an entire A League season. The Test Cricket has more arrests in one day than an entire A League season. Don’t get me started on the Horse Racing. And the junior Rugby League finals in QLD are plagued by crowd violence every year. Do your research. Away from sport is now better, king hits/coward punches are nothing to do with football
AR
Guest
“I’d estimate more people watch Football on various media platforms all across AUS over 12 months than watch any other sport.” I love the intellectual rigour involved in these sweeping statements.
chris
Guest
Fad the AFL does have a serious problem. Maybe now that its getting reported as opposed to it being buried by the compliant media in years gone by something will be done. I hope something is done to curb this violence. People will start to think twice about going to a mens game. Lucky the womens game has come along. Maybe that will temper the crowd violence
Fadida
Guest
The ignorance lies with you Joy. Refer to Nick's post above, the A-league is overpoliced. Fights at football don't happen at football because the game is low scoring or "boring". AFL has a growing problem. A significant problem.
Fadida
Guest
Regardless it passed, much to the disappointment of those claiming the apocalypse was coming!
Fadida
Guest
Right on cue along comes a naive Australian claiming violence is due to the "boring" nature of football! Incredible. One has to assume by his own logic AFL is getting really boring because fans are fighting on a weekly basis.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
Fad - growing up in an era of really bad football violence and having been involved in it as a teenager I will say categorically that football was just a vehicle for it. In the 60’s there were mods and rockers, various types of gangs and there were pitch battles along sea fronts at various towns around the UK. In the 70’s and 80’s the gangs gathered under the banner of. Football club yet many of the so called fans hardly ever watched a game as what was interesting went on outside in the streets, the pubs , the railways stations and the motorway service centres up and down the country. There were lots of small cells that often combined for safety in numbers especially when traveling away. There were even groups of fans in London that united together just to “meet and greet” the likes of Leeds, Nottingham Forest, Man U etc when they arrived in the capital. It made no difference whether a team was winning or not although losing was used as an excuse for violence and destruction of property and sometimes looting. The media used to lap it up and one national paper even ran a hooligan league. Now that was really smart....where on the table would you like to be? It was based on arrests at games, civil disturbances and “incidents”. For a while, fans would try and outdo each other to climb into the coveted position of public enemy number one. I was surprised there were not more deaths really. I was at an infamous fixture when someone was pushed in front of a train.........that served as something of a wake up call to me! The violence went side by side to football. Yes the connection was there but only out of convenience really, it could have been anything. I knew at least 40-50 people who were at The Heysel stadium in 1985 who certainly did not support Liverpool and they were not Italian either and that night is something that is etched in the memory of many football fans who watched the horror unfold. Way beyond football!
Cugel
Roar Rookie
Yeah.. when the NRL grand final went to a night timeslot, much whining ensued. But when it came down to the nitty gritty about why it was a bad thing, it so often came back to being too s-faced by kick off time.
The Joy Of X
Roar Rookie
Waz You wrote, re incidence of violence '....Many Australians have been in denial on this topic for some time conveniently calling hooligans "unaustralian" and linking it to "the sok-ha"....everyone really knew, its not a football (ie soccer) problem its a problem for society'. You are incorrect. Crowd violence is definitely MUCH more of a soccer problem, compared to other sports. This may be because the very low (or no) scoring -or the sometimes very lengthy periods of no realistic shots on goal- makes soccer fans very frustrated. Possibly, with this lack of scoring etc., a small minority of fans want to create their own " entertainment" by chants etc. (sometimes insulting and threatening to the other team/its fans); or to vent their frustration by damaging property, violence or threats of violence. It is false for you to simply assert that, if there is violence in SOCIETY, it will also automatically be reflected in sports' fans violent behaviour. You are incorrectly denying that violence is an INHERENT aspect of soccer (admittedly, for a very small minority soccer fans). As proof your assertion is false, there are many countries which have very low violent crime rates, yet regularly have large scale soccer-related violence eg Sweden https://www.thelocal.se/20170428/football-fans-attack-swedish-police-in-violent-riot
The Joy Of X
Roar Rookie
Stuart You stated above "....yet the 2018 A League Grand Final was comparable with Game 2 of the State Of Origin series, the Australian Grand Prix, and the Australian Open Men's Final" (re incidence of domestic violence). As the A League Grand Final has a far smaller audience (TV and/or crowd), the fact that the incidence of domestic violence "....was comparable with Game 2 of the State Of Origin series, the Australian Grand Prix, and the Australian Men's Final" is proof that soccer fans have a far greater propensity for domestic violence. Do you agree?
The Joy Of X
Roar Rookie
Stuart I challenge your comment that "....violent attacks and brawling becoming a SIGNIFICANT problem in Australian Rules football....". This is factually incorrect, and demonstrates ignorance and/or an agenda on your part. 7,100,000+ fans attended AFL games in 2018; and 250,000,000+ in the last 50 years (VFL/AFL). The number of brawls or individual assaults inside or outside Australian Football stadia is miniscule, there is no "significant problem". One brawl or assault, however, is still unacceptable. How many brawls or individual attacks do you claim to have occurred over the last 50 years? How do you justify your ridiculous claim of a "significant" problem for Australian Football? The police in the various states consider it necessary to allocate far more police, pro rata of crowds, to soccer matches than to the other codes of Australian Football, League and Union. This proves that soccer is the biggest miscreant regarding violent and anti-social fan behaviour.
Nick Symonds
Guest
NEWS: And the winner in the battle to control Australian football is...FIFA - GOAL.COM FFA chairman Steven Lowy confirmed he will resign from his role after the result of the meeting's vote in a press conference held shortly after. Under the new FFA model, member federations will receive 55 votes, A-League clubs 28, the PFA seven and a newly established Women’s Football Council 10. In a separate vote, the federations voted unanimously for the A-League to be separate from the game's governing body - a change which will occur on March 31. It's understood the shake-up is likely to delay the proposed A-League expansion - with prospective clubs having to wait until the FFA structure has settled before a decision will be announced. http://www.goal.com/en-au/news/ffa-dissolved-new-constitution-approved-for-australias/1nmsqdvo9s6vd127ryli2x6sz0 - DAILY FOOTBALL SHOW Under the new system, member federations will receive 55 votes, the APFCA 28, the PFA seven and a newly established Women’s Football Council 10. Lowy has already made clear his intentions to depart the FFA should the recommendations pass, ending over half a century of Lowy family involvement in the game in Australia. Reports from The Australian have indicated that board members Joseph Healy, Crispin Murray and Kelly Bayer Rosmarin will also depart alongside Lowy. Former Melbourne Victory board member Chris Nikou – who represented the FFA on the initial CRWG – is expected to stay, however, with The Australian indicating the Melbourne lawyer has been floated as a potential compromise candidate to fill the soon to be vacant chair role. Former Australian Labor Party powerbroker Stephen Conroy – a diehard Melbourne City fan – has also been floated as a possibility to fill the chair role according to The Australian. https://dailyfootballshow.com/peace-in-our-time-sweeping-changes-to-australian-football-governance-passed-at-egm/
Waz
Roar Rookie
At 8-2 it ran close
Nick Symonds
Guest
NEWS - GENERAL FAN VIOLENCE A-LEAGUE boss Greg O’Rourke has revealed there were just 19 arrests last season across 135 matches, justifying claims that A-League games are being over-policed. Speaking on the Fox Football Podcast, O’Rourke says he has been engaged in constructive discussions with police ahead of the new season, with plans to change their approach. https://www.foxsports.com.au/football/aleague-boss-greg-orourke-reveals-just-19-arrests-were-made-at-matches-last-season/news-story/105be8ef96d11f0bb090a325e04a0157
Fadida
Guest
It was always going to pass. The doom mongers will need to find a new horse to ride
Fadida
Guest
It's funny how for decades football fans in Australia have been trying to explain football violence around the world as a reflection of society, rather than a result of boredom due to low scoring/frustration at refereeing decisions etc that the naive/biased Australian public claimed. Now crowd violence is most definitely at the forefront of AFL, and it's supporters are claiming "it's society, not the game"! It'll only get worse too.
reuster75
Roar Rookie
Alcohol is often blamed in these situations and whilst it plays a part there is no research that proves that it plays a bigger role than any other factor. It doesn't have magical powers that suddenly turns people into vicious beasts. As I said undoubtedly it does cause problems but to consistently blame alcohol just obscures the real truth that people are violent because they can and sadly when it comes to domestic violence there aren't enough processes in place to help women escape these situations.
reuster75
Roar Rookie
Exactly, sport is only ever a reflection of the society in which we live. Sporting codes get a hell of a lot of taxpayer money these days so should be doing a lot more in trying to take a lead on social justice issues such as domestic violence (as much as any one person or organisation can anyway). They have a great ability to be able to start conversations (such as what Jimmy Bartel from Geelong in the AFL did a few years ago when he didn't shave for an entire season to highlight the issues of domestic violence).
reuster75
Roar Rookie
Also hopefully more professional clubs having a women's team in the various codes as well will help reduce the risk of a toxic masculine environment as can sometimes be the case, which in turn will flow through into society at large.