City keeper may be punished for throwing flare as Victory slapped with show-cause notice over pitch invasion

I guess we all saw soccer fighting for its place in the Australian psyche. How’d that go?

Apparently the reasoning behind this demonstration was that the A League grand final was going to be played in Sydney . Just imagine if they decided to run the Melbourne cup in Sydney. Would all the Melbourne racing fraternity invade the home straight as a protest . No one from Sydney got their nose out of joint when the NRL grand final was played in Brisbane. Admittedly it was Covid related but it's very obvious some of these clubs can't control their fans .

For years the A League have done nothing about flares being brought into grounds and something like this was bound to happen to sooner or later . Coaches and administrators from both of these sides haven't helped their cause . Punishing the goalkeeper won't achieve anything but maybe even worsen it . The next match between these 2 sides has to be spectator free . Violence by spectators in any sport should not be tolerated . You will get isolated dust ups in all codes and most are alcohol related but pitch invasions someone ( fans) needs some lengthy bans .

I would say he didnt take the bait so much as react in the heat of the moment..and it looks clear he diidnt aim his throw anywhere in particular. I think a fine is fine ( :silly: ) but a suspension unnecessary although I dont think he should play this weekend for his own sake.

The crowd baited Glover and he took it hook, line & sinker. It's not a hanging offence, but worthy of a modest fine and suspended loss of matches. Need to send a message the players, or else some other idiots will try again & bait a player.

You'll never be able to post a sensible argument if you can't wield the English language with ease. You both fail miserably in this department.

Punter - there is an over-riding factor that not many contributors have commented on. It can be described in one word---------MONEY. The fact that the "suits", who run the organisations set up to improve our game, decided to "sell" the Grand Finals without any apparent consultation with the clubs points to the fact they have chosen to ignore recent history, which tells us that whenever a Grand Final has been played at the successful team's "home" ground, the Australian love for Grand Finals has seen every ground a sell - out, in Brisbane ,Perth,& Sydney, so, other than a quick financial fix, what excuse can they give for "playing" with what up to now has been a very successful format. The answer? Government MONEY. from projected tourism. Is that to say the Gold Coast would not be a better place to spend a weekend, or Brisbane, with both the Gold Coast or the Sunshine Coat holiday areas , already set up for family tourism. No the explanations not coming from the millionaires points to one thing,MONEY, MONEY ,MONEY. To get to the pitch invasion..You don't have to be Hercule Poirot to point out that the black shirt brigade were the main offenders, so it should be reasonable to suggest that with the multitude of photos available it would be comparatively easy to nail the culprits. When that is done it will be how our lawmakers deal with the offenders. jb

Dear Dumbo, You raised some interesting points. Firstly, it is about the responsibility of security of the match. In the Melbourne Derby last weekend, City FC was the host. Is the responsibility of security resting on Melbourne City? Then, has Melbourne City FC had the responsibility of security to stop people smuggling dangerous items, such as flares, into the stadium? Secondly, for UK, there are numerous reports about using sniffer dogs to detect illegal flares in stadia. In Australia, a report by Heraldsun on 8 Oct 2015 says, "SNIFFER dogs will be unleashed inside Melbourne soccer stadiums to catch hooligans igniting flares."

This is far from a unique situation to Australia, because in whole swathes of Asia local football has been marginalised in a market addicted to European and South American football. There is a kind of "colonial hangover" mentality in those parts in which anything from Europe and South America is automatically conferred with a kind of superiority. Add to that a celebrity-crazed culture in that part of the world. It doesn't help either that in a country like Malaysia, local football is widely derided for corruption, incompetence and indisciplined/indifferent players. But let's look at the countries which got out of the group stage of the World Cup. Even when most of these teams these days are made up of players playing abroad, you have this to consider: - Netherlands and Portugal are generally regarded the two of the best leagues outside of the Big 5 in Europe. - Croatia still has a top 20 UEFA coefficient ranking - Brazil and Argentina have two of the best leagues outside of Europe - Japan, USA and South Korea all have viable, respectable professional leagues - Morocco has one of the best leagues in Africa and together with Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria, dominates the continent's club football With all of the above, you wonder how Australia can even attempt to get it right? Now look around the Balkans and Scandinavia - they do support their local clubs but they're also addicted to the big leagues just as much (and fans from those countries do rock up to English, Spanish, German and Italian games). They've found a happy medium, but we don't have the luxury of being like them here. Are we doomed to be like our Asian neighbours? One with a barely functioning league, interest in World Cups and Euros, and otherwise addicted to a diet of TV football viewing?

I dont know if they were flares or these safe smoke things, and who cares. The flares at the City end as well couldn't care less. You dont maintain a vigil on those who know where to draw the line versus who clearly cross it. With flares directly thrown at two people at the same game MV active have taken it to a whole other level. Hammer blow the MV supporters is the solution trying to get sucked into their deflection game which I have seen countless times. You hammer the worst the others know to stay in line thats how it works in real life.

Melbourne likes to claim this, but it's frankly just not true. Their vaunted sporting passion is really just a consequence of geographical centralisation in which both the CBD and sporting infrastructure are all in the geogrpahic and demographic centre of the city. Even still, they can't sell out a Bledisloe at the MCG, nor did they sell out games against England in the Union earlier this year. It's really just the AFL capital of Australia - everything else is purely dependent on good timing and context.

Cricket doesn't have to fight for it's place in the Australian psyche, this is why your comment is as wrong as it can get.

One aspect that has not been commented on is: "show why the club “should not face serious sanctions for bringing the game into disrepute through the conduct of its supporters”. " I have no axe to grind for Melbourne Victory, but I feel that this "guilty until proven innocent" approach is unfair to the club. The fans are not acting under the direction of MV. There seems to little that MV can do to stop them, other than by volunteering to play every single game behind closed doors. The only criticism that could be raised (in my opinion) is that MV has not spent money attempting to identify fans who arrive with flares. How much it would cost to buy and train and keep sniffer dogs, able to scent flares - I have no idea. It would not be cheap, certainly. However, no other club has bought its own dogs, so MV has not behaved any less responsibly than all the other A League clubs. All of this comes down to risk management. A club with no history of poor fan behaviour can afford to get away without buying dogs, and not suffer any consequences. Should MV be penalised for accepting the risk and for not spending money (that they cannot afford) to mitigate it? I think penalising the club is a cheap, easy solution for the league. Ot will be unjust and ineffective.

This thread is factually untrue. At the Sydney derby, the Cove let off a large number of flares behind the Traitors Will Perish banner . If you want to target a few clubs then include SFC.

"There’s an eternal frustration among many football supporters that so many jump on the Socceroos bandwagon every four years..." This is just so weird. When Australia hosts the Ashes, I love seeing 90,000 people at the MCG. I've never thought: "Those phonies, where were you for the Sheffield Shield matches!!!"

Melbourne sporting capital of the world (Australia) will watch 2 ants climbing up a hill. Sydney, despite having a team in the AFL GF, Australia's biggest sporting event, no buzz, no feelings like it was during the Socceroos run in Sydney for AFL GF.

Your post was badly written and unclear. If you had a point, it wasn't particularly well communicated.

No you not understanding my post, lets just leave it there. I have no care of where any GFs are held, but that's not my point.

Didn’t the fans/supporters/alleged criminals want a lit flare in their vicinity?

What? I can't really understand the point you're making in this post. Sydney hosts the NRL GF and Melbourne have the AFL GF, but you're not exactly wanting for events in either city.