If you celebrate everything, you're celebrating nothing: NRL must show us respect and shut up about Respect Round

Peter V’landys is, without doubt, a talented man. Where lesser men might come up with an idea with which there is only one problem, he puts his remarkable mind to work to devise plans with multi-faceted faults. His bad ideas glitter like diamonds of ill-thinking. You’ve got to admire that, sort of.

The ARL Commission chairman’s latest idea is for a “Respect Round” in the NRL to celebrate the concept of respect. The first issue is that this is not actually an original idea. The NSWRL already has a Respect Round, or as they put it a #RESPECT Round.

The NSWRL’s celebration of respect, however, is not quite the same as the NRL’s brainwave. In the NSWRL, the round is meant to emphasise respect towards officials and highlight the contribution referees and touch judges make to the game.

Apart from those people who throw garbage at teenage officials on Saturday mornings, most would agree this is a very worthy cause and quite a good theme for a round.

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And that just highlights the next problem with the V’landys idea. Because his version of “Respect Round” isn’t about reinforcing respect for refs, or for anyone in particular. It’s just respect, in general. “Respect for everyone’s views”, as he puts it.

(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

This is a problem because a themed round really only makes sense if it’s directed in a specific direction. “Women in League” celebrates women. “Indigenous round” celebrates Indigenous players. A Pride Round, the idea of which prompted V’landys’ to offer “respect” instead, would celebrate LGBTQI+ people in the game.

But “respect”, in the chairman’s conception, doesn’t celebrate anyone in particular – or rather, it kind of celebrates everyone, which ends up being the same thing.

If you’re celebrating everything, you’re celebrating nothing.

“Respect for everyone’s views”? How the hell does anyone get excited about THAT? It’s like saying that instead of excluding people by having an Indigenous Round, let’s have an All Races Round.

Or replace Women In League with People In League. Basically he is saying it’s a bit too scary to dedicate a round to a particular group, so let’s dedicate one to every group. What on earth is the point?

But wait, there’s more! Even if you were willing to accept that a round celebrating the concept of respect is not too abstract to mean anything at all, V’landys, in floating the idea, is just plain wrong.

Here’s what he said: “We pride ourselves on being an inclusive game. To be an inclusive game you have to respect everyone’s view.”

Well … no. You just do not have to respect everyone’s view, and in fact anyone who says they DO respect everyone’s view is lying.

For example, if the chairman of the ARL Commission respects the view of people who think rugby league is awful, he’s in the wrong job.

It is simply not true you have to respect everyone’s view to be inclusive. It is important to respect people, but in order to do that you don’t have to respect every opinion they hold.

For example, I can respect the Manly Seven who lit the match beneath the Pride issue last year. I can respect them as men, I can respect their abilities. I can even admire their courage and determination to stick by their principles despite the avalanche of abuse that was bound to come their way. And I can certainly sympathise with the fact that they are devout believers in a religion which puts them at odds with the world they live in.

Jason Saab celebrates scoring a try. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

But their views? Their views, in and of themselves, are stupid. Religions that say that homosexuality is a sin are stupid, and although I feel more pity than anger towards people – and I’ve known a few – who genuinely bear no ill-will towards gay people but also genuinely believe that they’re going to Hell, I also think that is a ludicrous belief and it’s a damn shame they’ve had it hammered into their brains.

Of course, my belief that their religion is stupid is one that they will not respect, as is only fair.

The idiocy of V’landys’ assertion that you must “respect everyone’s view” becomes even more apparent when you push right to the extreme and bear in mind that there are people in the world today who hold the view that black people are subhuman, that Jews should be rounded up and killed, and that the Roman Empire is a hoax cooked up by medieval Europeans to trick everyone into thinking white people are the best.

If the “Respect Round” ever comes to pass I look forward to sticking any of those on a banner and holding it up at Allianz Stadium.

Which brings us to the final, and possibly biggest, problem with the wishy-washy Respect Round nonsense. If such a round came to pass, the best-case scenario would be that the community meet it with eye-rolling indifference.

Because if everyone really got on board with the concept, what we’d be looking at is an unleashing in the public square of the worst, dumbest, craziest and most vicious views, all carrying the stamp of approval of NRL headquarters thanks to the declaration that the NRL is determined to respect EVERY view.

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Players spouting homophobic garbage? Pushing dangerous anti-vax conspiracy theories? Racism? Sexism? Flat-earthers? I’d bet good money on pretty much any lunacy being present somewhere in the rugby league community, and a Respect Round is not just an invitation to all to bellow it as loudly as possible: it’s an invitation to the media to seek it out, prod and poke people until they say something calculated to provoke maximum fury, and smile with satisfaction as the clicks roll in.

In a nutshell, what I’m saying is this: If V’landys wants to put a Respect Round into place, he is hopefully prepared to make a blizzard of public statements disavowing myriad revolting opinions that he has already officially declared his full respect for. Which, silver lining, would at least be pretty fun to watch.

The fact is, themed rounds aren’t a necessity. Rugby league can survive and thrive without them, and though they are nice things to have, there are many more concrete and practical things a sport’s administration can do to support marginalised people. You don’t HAVE to have a Pride Round. The NRL has many means at its disposal to support and encourage LGBTQI+ people in rugby league without an official round. If they decide the round is not necessary, fine.

But if you decide not to have a round, just don’t have a round. Don’t reject the concept of a positive round that makes a definitive statement in support of something, and replace it with a meaningless round that makes a nebulous statement in support of nothing while also giving encouragement and succour to the very worst in us. You’re just making yourself look stupid, cowardly and cynical all at once.

But then again, V’landys always was good at multi-tasking.