Posts tagged ‘AFL’
Believe it or Not? You tell us
This website has always been about sports other than AFL, however the verdict of “Not Guilty” by the AFL’s internal Anti Doping Tribunal into the alleged doping of players at Essendon Football club has caused us to dedicate one story to this issue.
First of all was any other outcome ever likely? Seriously, were the AFL ever going to find a club as big as, and with as much history as Essendon guilty and then possibly have to expel them from the competition? For those outside of the tight-knit AFL propaganda wheel this was never going to happen.
Despite not covering this sport, it has been common knowledge amongst most people in the media that the drug testing in the AFL has been some of the slackest in Australian sport. Rumours abound of clubs being tipped off that certain players are due to be tested and the clubs telling those players not to come to training, so they cannot be tested; another player then being tested in their place. Why have they not gone to said player’s house and tested him? Then there were rumours of players who did test positive being told that they had a “hamstring strain” and would have to sit out a few weeks until they could be tested again and were clean.
The Tribunal found that there was “insufficient evidence” to uphold the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority’s belief that the 34 past and present Bombers were injected with the banned drug Thymosin beta-4 during 2012. Which many will read to say there was evidence, but the AFL felt not enough to tarnish their competition or expel one of their top clubs.
Not surprisingly the Australian Sports Anti Doping Association (ASADA) were very disappointed with the findings; although they honestly cannot be surprised as when it comes to this sport in Australia the normal rules do not apply. After all it is called our “national game” when clearly other sports have far more right to be named as such.
ASADA CEO Ben McDevitt has said that he was disappointed by the decision and still insists that Essendon’s behaviour in 2012 was “absolutely and utterly disgraceful.” “It was not a supplements programme but an injection regime and the players and the fans were so poorly let down by the club,” he said in a statement released by ASADA. ASADA will hold a press conference tomorrow and still have 21 days in which to take up the right to appeal the decision, although one wonders what good that will do.
So as a sports fan do you believe this verdict? We would love to hear what the average fan thinks, and whether the AFL by reaching this decision have in fact further harmed their credibility.
Attracting A Global Audience Key to Opening Game
It is quite laughable the reaction of the AFL affiliates and the media covering the sport in Western Australia to the news that there is a bid for the Socceroos to play England as the focal point of the New Stadium at Burswood. All it has done is show how stuck in the past they all are.
Sure a Western Derby is a big attraction in Western Australia for those who follow the code, but how does it compare to a top class international in football? That is the trouble AFL does not have a higher level than the AFL. Its hybrid games against the amateur Irish teams have an equally limited appeal as does the game itself does. Like many other national sports around the world if it is not going to catch on internationally in the first 100 years of its existence it is unlikely ever to.
We will be fed that old line that Perth is a “Football town,” a line fuelled by those with a vested interest. No city is more of a footy town than Melbourne, yet look how they embrace every sport at every level, by creating decent facilities and attracting major events. They are not so insular in their views and have now established themselves as the Sporting Capital in the country.
It is incredible to read Mr Cransberg, Chairman of the West Coast Eagles say that as the sport most likely to be the main user of the stadium they should be afforded primary consideration. Why? This stadium does not belong to the AFL it belongs to the taxpayers of Western Australia. The West Coast Eagles will merely be tenants just as will many other sports and musical acts.
Head of the WA Football Commission Gary Walton was quoted as saying, “International events come with pretty significant up-front investment where a derby will in my view guarantee a capacity crowd and it’ll come at no cost to the state.” What small minded insular thinking. It is people with attitudes such as this that hold Western Australia back.
This is supposed to be a state of the art stadium when it is completed, so why would you have as your opening event something that will only garner minimum media coverage within Australia. By hosting a top international sporting event you are immediately putting the stadium, and Perth on the world map as having a venue suitable for world class events. If England or World Champions Germany played the Socceroos you would be assured a sell out crowd. If the Wallabies played whoever lifts the Rugby World Cup at the end of this year it is just as likely to sell out, as would an Ashes Test match. The true code of Football however has to be the biggest drawcard, as it is a truly global sport. The fact is all of these sporting events played between international teams will have far more global and national appeal than a local AFL match, and anyone who says otherwise needs to get on a plane and go and experience the real world outside of Western Australia.
What is worrying is the bias and factual inaccuracies run by the West Australian Newspaper. Mark Duffield wrote that ‘the state government will, in three years time have forgiven Australian soccer officials for leaving Perth off its map of Australia when it drew up the Asian Cup Program.” Yes, they did fail to promote the tournament in the West, have any ambassadors or fan Parks, but the biggest problem was the only feasible venue, NIB Stadium fails to meet FIFA requirements. The FFA stated after the game against Indonesia at Subiaco Oval in 2005 that they would never host an international there again because it was unsuitable for television and spectators. Had the State Government spent some of the money allocated to the refurbishment of NIB stadium on upgrading the changing rooms, then Western Australia would have a case to answer as to why we were left out of having any games. The truth is it was our own government who are at fault on this occasion. (Build it Properly and they Will Come). Some cynics have questioned whether the Sports minister did this deliberately so that Football would not be able to challenge his beloved AFL; It is extremely unlikely that a politician would be that petty and small-minded.
So why would Mr Duffield mislead his readers? Then again you cannot expect Mr Duffield to know these things as being the Chief Football writer, his time would be taken up finding inane stories to keep AFL on the back page of the paper for 350 days of the year. It is also interesting to note that the WA Football Commission has in the past paid for editorial coverage in the West Australian, to ensure that they received two or four pages coverage, yet never did the paper reveal that the space was paid for.
To be fair to Mr Duffield he does make a valid point asking why should it be a sporting event that opens the stadium, why can’t it be a concert of epic proportions? The most obvious answer would be because it is first and foremost a sporting venue.
If we wanted mass exposure maybe looking at hosting the T20 Champions League in Perth would be an option. That would attract a massive audience in the subcontinent and would give thousands of people the chance to be a part of an opening event.
The truth is whatever event or events in what should be an opening week of celebrations are staged, they must be ones that attract global attention. Perth needs to shout about this stadium and the fact that finally we have a stadium to match the best in the world – if it in fact does. Only by global exposure will we attract future events.
It is also important to realise that only by hosting the Socceroos will we see European clubs put pressure on the FFA to have more games here as the flying time will be less for their players returning home! So Football’s case actually would have a long term gain.
A SADA Day In Australian Sport, There Probably Never Was
Dedication, commitment, professionalism and passion are the key attributes that have seen Australia respected as a sporting nation around the world. Underpinning that drive has been Australia’s determination to be a leader behind the scenes in areas such as sports science, sports psychology and coaching methods. For such a small country many bigger one marvelled at how we continued to produce so many world class athletes over and over again, as well as world class coaches. Sadly events of the past year have seriously damaged that reputation.
The rest of the world looks at Australian sport with admiration, and it would be fair to say that rarely is a finger of suspicion pointed at Australia or Australian athletes for cheating.
In the past year we have seen two codes of football, two sports that claim to be the biggest sports – apart from cricket – in the nation, damage that reputation, with drawn out performance enhancing drug accusations; To be fair they have been greatly assisted in damaging that reputation by the bumbling way the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) have handled both substantial breaches.
Mind you dealing with such iconic football codes as National Rugby League (NRL) and the Australian Football League (AFL) was always going to be extremely challenging, as many powerful people, including politicians and media personalities have strong ties with both codes, and that is not mentioning the huge amounts of money being tied up in lucrative television broadcast deals.
Without question Essendon AFL club, formed in 1871 as a junior club and which has been playing competitively at senior level since 1878 is a big club. The club has won 16 VFL/AFL premierships which, along with Carlton, is the most of any club in the AFL. So ASADA were taking on not only a well established club but one with history on its side.
The Cronulla- Sutherland Sharks do not have quite such a long history. They were admitted into the New South Wales Rugby League premiership, in 1967. This was at the time the premier rugby league competition, before the Australian Rugby League and the current National Rugby League (NRL) competition. The club has competed in every premiership season since then, sadly despite nearly 50 years of competition they have only appeared in three Grand Finals and never won. They have however won the minor premiership twice, in 1988 and 1999.
The news yesterday that more than a dozen Cronulla players from the Sharks’ 2011 squad had ‘struck a deal’ with ASADA has appalled and disgusted athletes from other sports, especially those who compete in individual events, as they know full well that they would never have received such leniency or been offered the chance to broker such a deal.
ASADA issued a retrospective suspension, agreed to on Friday, that means 10 current NRL players will miss as little as three rounds of the current season despite having to make admissions about their role in the club’s supplements program three years ago. So three games for admitting taking performance enhancing drugs that were on the banned substance list. Not much of a price to pay for breaking the rules and cheating. That is bound to deter others.
Let us remind people that former Socceroo Stan Lazaridis had to suffer a year out of the game at the end of his career for testing positive for anti-androgen Finasteride, a prescription drug he was taking for alopecia. To be fair to ASADA hIs ban was also backdated to the time he tested positive. However although the drug was banned at the time and has since been removed from the banned substance list, it had no performance enhancing capabilities; however it had been used in some cases as a masking agent. Why was he not afforded a similar such ban?
Not surprisingly Olympic Athletes have been quick to come out and slam the ‘agreement.’
Swimmer Melanie Schlanger resorted to Twitter first stating “A backdated 12 month ban for taking a banned substance?! Players to miss only a few games?! I feel sad for sport today,” In a later Tweet she made the point that every athlete who competes at the highest level is well aware of, “I trust no one. I am well aware that I alone am responsible for everything I put in my body. Know that since I was 14.”
Weightlifter Damon Kelly, is quoted as saying “I doubt that any Olympic sport would get that leniency, I’ve been getting drug tested for 16 years. We’re always told and educated that what you put in your body is your responsibility. It seems like they operate on a set of different expectations and rules.”
It certainly does. Every single athlete with aspirations to play professionally or at the highest level is told they are responsible for what they take and that they must check. They are even told to keep the 24hour number in their wallets so they can call and check. So there is absolutely no excuse.
Had such wide scale doping in a club taken part in football in Europe the chances are that no matter how big the club, they would have been relegated from top flight competition. We have seen this with Italian giants Juventus and Glasgow Rangers, although for very different reasons.
Australia does not have the luxury of a any two tier sporting competition, so no offending team can be relegated. The only option therefore is to expel them from the league.
In these two codes of football people will tell you that these two clubs are an intrinsic part of the community, Therefore to expel them would do untold damage to that region. This is a weak argument, as if they were so intrinsic to the community, should they not conduct themselves in a way that brings pride, and not shame to that community? Again looking to Europe, every year a team drops out of the English Football League, because they came bottom of the 92 clubs. Every year a community mourns the fact. Yet the clubs survive and many fight their way back a few years later.
There is no doubt pressure from above has been brought to bear on ASADA.What is unforgivable is that they have bowed to that pressure. There is no doubt that the people at the top of both the NRL and the AFL were also not prepared to make decisions that needed to be made, and that was that both teams in each code should have been expelled. They have all left the door open to more abuse in the future rather than drawing a line in the sand that no one must cross.
All, ASDA, the AFL, the NRL, Essendon and Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks have sullied the name of Australian sport and its clean reputation globally. The punishments have made the country a laughing stock and now raise unwanted questions of leniency.
ASADA is finished in Australia. It needs to be shut down by the World Anti Doping Association (WADA) and a new entity led by people with strong backbones as well as moral fibre created. In fact WADA needs to review all of its satellite operations as very few are operating to the levels that sports fans expect. Let us not forget that many questions have been raised in the past year about the United States body.
When you have a dual Olympian and Commonwealth Games Gold medallist in Benn Harradine tweeting “Is it possible to refuse a test from asada on the grounds of incompetence. I am concerned about their professionalism.” It is clear that this ‘deal’ has eroded all faith in ASADA, and its future is limited.
It has been a very sad day for Australian sport, very sad indeed, and one that will change the way the world views us from hereon in.
Time to Kick In For Funding
When you are in charge of handing out money your are always going to be popular with those who receive and far from popular with those who miss out. The Australian Sports Commission (ASC)is no doubt well aware of the situation, and have upset many with their latest funding announcements.
The biggest losers were Tennis and Surf Lifesaving who both lost over $400,000 of funding. Cricket lost 200k, AFL 194k, Athletics 50k Football350k Pentathlon 25k (this was for one athlete) and Squash 320k. Many have asked why mainstream sports such as Cricket, AFL, Football and Rugby Union are still receiving money when they have multi-million dollar television deals and it would be hard to argue with that thinking. These monies though tend to be spent on development and youth international teams, as the ASC confirms in its Investment allocation 2014–15 document:
“Consistent with the high performance investment principle which takes account of a national sporting organisation’s own revenue, the ASC has decided to cease to invest in the high performance programs for sports with significant broadcast and other commercial revenue. These sports are iconic for Australians and highly successful, setting an example for other sports. The ASC will continue to invest in these sports for participation in 2014–15. The AIS has worked closely with these sports and will continue to seek alternative partnerships and collaboration that are mutually beneficial. The AIS will continue to invest in the successful women’s cricket team.”
Squash’s funding has been withdrawn for the following reason: “The high performance investment allocation for squash will reduce by $320,000 (–35 per cent) for 2014–15. Squash has been assessed as having limited ability to contribute to Winning Edge targets. The ASC will provide transition funding of $100,000 for 2014–15 to assist the sport to restructure its programs and operations.”
When it comes to Paralympic sports Powerlifting and football are the two sports to suffer a funding withdrawal.
The reason Powerlifting has seen its funding withdrawn which will be a major blow to rapidly improving lifters from WA Ben Wright and Nang Nguyen, was as follows: “The high performance investment allocation for powerlifting will be withdrawn for 2014–15 ($55,000 in 2013–14). The ASC has determined that the sport is unlikely to contribute to Australia’s 2016 Paralympic Games medal target. There are currently few international-standard athletes in the system and the high performance pathway is not sufficient to increase the depth of athletes.” Both of these lifters have been steadily improving and breaking their own personal records, they now have to overcome this lack of belief in their abilities, hopefully it is the spur to prove the ASC wrong.
In able-bodied football the ASC explains: “The high performance investment allocation for football will be reduced by $350,000 (-15 per cent) for 2014-15. The ASC investment in men’s football is for the pathway teams, in particular the Joeys (under 17) and the Olyroos (under 23). The ASC considers that based on current performance, these teams have limited potential to contribute to Winning Edge targets in the foreseeable future. The ASC acknowledges the significant achievement of the Soccerroos in qualifying for its third straight World Cup given the international competitiveness of football as a sport.” This confirms a belief held by many that the development programs under the FFA have fallen well short of those they inherited.
The ASC continues by saying, “The high performance investment allocation for Paralympic football will be withdrawn for 2014-15 ($175,000 in 2013-14) as the performance profile of the sport suggests it is unlikely to qualify for the 2016 Paralympic Games.
The ASC continues to invest in the women’s high performance football program and will continue to invest in participation for 2014–15.”
This was a body blow to the Para-roos as it basically implied that the team would not be good enough to make it to Rio in 2016.
Australia is currently the only team in Paralympic football in Oceania, and are ranked 10th in the World. To qualify for the Olympics teams must finish in the last eight at the 16 team World Cup. Being ranked 10th in the World one would have thought that the Para-roos would be worth the investment as if they can break into the top eight, something many believe is achievable, they would book their place to Rio.
The withdrawal of funding now means that leading up to the World Cup they will be short of meaningful match practise and will be unable to attend tournaments featuring other international teams, so that they can gauge their level and the work needed to be done. This will also effect their world ranking and could affect their seeding at competition and result in a much harder pathway to qualification. So the withdrawal of the funding could be a self fulfilling prophecy. This is very sad for a program that was making great headway.
Not the Footy Show believes that the good news is the Football Federation of Australia(FFA) are contesting this withdrawal of funding, and hopefully they are successful. If they are not it will be interesting to see what they do to help this program. With each Socceroo in the World Cup squad believed to have earned $20k per game it would be great to see an international played where the able bodied players each donated half of their match fee to their Paralympic counterparts as that would actually result in more than the funding they have lost!
Let us hope that somehow money is found to help the Para-roos and the powerlifters, even if it is no longer coming from the government.
One Cup Full, The Other Half Full
At the end of this week there will be three World Cups taking place simultaneously. One event Australia has never won and in reality is not likely to win, the other two Australia has won both twice, and is in with a very real possibility of winning at least one and making the semi finals of both.
Of course we are talking about the FIFA World Cup about to commence in Brazil, and the already underway Rabobank Hockey World cup for men, and running concurrently, the Women’s World cup.
The contrast between the two events from an Australian perspective is quite remarkable. For a start let us look at the money a very mediocre bunch of Australian footballers will earn for their trip to Brazil where many are tipping them to fail to win a game let alone score a goal. Players are believed to be earning around $20,000 per game. Their Hockey counterparts will not be earning anywhere close to these figures, they will be lucky to be earning more than $2000 per game. In fact many of the defending World Champion Kookaburras side will tell you that if it was not for the Hero Hockey India League where they can earn a five figure sum in six weeks, by playing every two days and traversing the continent in a gruelling schedule, they would not be able to dedicate their time to the sport.
It is strange that Hockey does not appeal to the average Australian more, as Australian sports fans love a team that wins; the Kookaburras and Hockeyroos are two of the nations most successful sporting teams. Australians love sports where plenty of goals or points are scored, take AFL and for women Netball. In Hockey you will see around 4-5 goals per game on average. Australians love a physical battle and a dangerous edge to their sport, hockey gives that with the ball flying at speeds of around 145kmh. Take Australian defender Nick Budgeon, as a junior with Tamar Churinga in Tasmania he broke his jaw playing hockey. It is a tough sport, high on skill and bravery, where a swinging stick can be an extremely dangerous weapon.
The Socceroos took the expanding of the World Cup from 24 teams to 32 teams to qualify for their second World Cup finals , 32 years after their first appearance in 1974. The Kookaburras their hockey equivalent, have been ranked in the top four teams in the World for the past 30 years! The Hockeyroos are Australia’s most successful sporting women’s team.
In terms of World Rankings in men’s hockey Australia are ranked number one, and in women’s number four in the world. In Rugby Union Australia are ranked third in the World, while in football they are ranked 59th.
Some may argue that Football is the World game, and far more nations play the game, also that the World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world, and they would be right. Cricket and Rugby Union are on a similar footing to Hockey, sports originally played by the colonial nations and with similar numbers of nations participating at the highest level today; in fact Hockey has more than cricket!
So the question should be asked why is it that the sports fan in Australia can enjoy every game of the FIFA World Cup, The Rugby Union World Cup and the Cricket World Cup, but not the Hockey World Cup?
One has to feel for Australia’s dedicated and talented hockey players, and also the fans of the sport that they are not given the same television coverage. As to why this is not the case it would be interesting to know why.
Reflections on the Last 8 Years
Last week “Not The Footy Show’ celebrated 8 years on air in Perth. Not bad for a show everyone said would never have any appeal.
Reflecting on the past eight years and the many great guests we have had on the show as well as the various people I have shared the hosting duties with I wondered whether the sporting landscape in Perth had really changed in eight years. The answer is probably not much really, but nationally and internationally, yes.
We are still told that this is a “footy town” (AFL)and have that one particular sport rammed down our throats, even if many of us are not footy fans, or like other sports as well. Sadly many people still believe what they are told; in my experience over the past 8 years, footy is not as important to as many people as it was. The constant rule changes and the handling of misdemeanours by the sports administrators and the press have left people a little disenchanted.
After over 25 years in the media and 8 years presenting “Not the Footy Show” one thing I have noticed is how the media landscape globally has changed.
We see more and more syndicated stories appearing in the press and rarely do we see our newspaper journalists sniffing out a news story, they merely report on events that have already happened. Match reports rarely tell you what actually happened in a game, what minutes goals, tries or runs were scored, or even give you the starting line-ups. Even some cricket reports now do not put the scorecard at the end of the days play. To say this is because the internet is more instant is a cop out, it has come down to money, and costs, profit and loss rather than reporting.
One recent journalism student said he was studying journalism because he loved sport and wanted to cover it. Then surely he should have been studying sports science or something similar? The subject he is studying, journalism, should be the main focus and if he is fortunate to work in sport then he is extremely lucky, that should be his goal, not the reason for his degree. Maybe that is the problem too many journalists are just fans writing about the game, and are unable to seperate the two.
A case in point, 2006 World Cup in Germany, an Australian journalist turned up at the media centre wearing a Socceroos shirt. He was frowned upon by the world’s media, and his integrity was definitely questioned. Now to see journalists in the national team colours is far more common, and accepted. In fact frequently for key matches the presenters are actually sporting the colours of their nation. Is that right? Who am I to judge, but I do feel it shows a shift in attitudes and what is acceptable and what is not. Are these people still simply telling us the story of the game, or are they too like us fans willing one team on. When have you ever heard one of the greats in football commentary, Martin Tyler let his emotions get away from him? Is his style of commentary a thing of the past?
THere is no doubt satellite television has changed everything. If we look at the rights purchases for television and partnerships between media outlets and sporting organisations, the lines have clearly been blurred in the last ten years. Many ‘experts’ are muzzled if they opt to speak their mind and call a dreadful game for what it is. These media partnerships are seen as being more about promotion of the game, rather than honest coverage; the trouble is the average punter with so many televised games can see for themselves and know if a player or a team is playing badly, and simply gets frustrated that the commentators fail to call it as it is. As a result their credibility of the coverage starts to suffer, but not the game itself.
What are we to do though when some television and radio bigwigs state that sport is about entertainment and not honest truthful coverage? So strong are these ‘partnerships’ now that it is nothing new for one of the top executives at the sporting organisation to call his counterpart at the television station and ask them to censure a commentator. The same sadly happens in newspapers as well. It is less prevalent in radio.
One has to ask is this the right way to go? Is this not a controlled media that we in the West so frequently scoffed at when the iron curtain existed? If sport is to be like life, we should praise when it is warranted and criticise in equal measure if mistakes have been made, but we should always temper that by remembering that our stars and heroes are just human beings like us all. They too are fallible, as we all are.
Sport is entertainment, and should never be taken too seriously. However with so much money swirling around it has to be taken more seriously than it used to be as it is indeed big business. Should the truth be stifled, should honest analysis be suppressed? Is that what the fans at home want?
Times change and so do people’s needs, maybe this is what people want, but surely we should never sell such values, as honesty and integrity?
It has been an interesting 8 years, and let us hope that there will be many years to come. The show has grown in popularity and now our guest list is usually full a week out from each show, maybe that says it all.
Thank you once again to all involved over the years, John Lee, Darren Harper, Kody Blay, Dan Israel, Clint Ford, Michael Fontein and Ryan Cope. Its been a lot of fun. The next milestone is our 400th show!
Ashley Morrison
What He Didn’t Say
There is one code of football we rarely mention on this site, or on the show, but in light of the comments made by a man who is highly respected in Australian sport we felt we had to on this occasion.
There is no doubt that AFL coach Kevin Sheedy has opened a hornet’s nest with his comments over the weekend after Greater Western Sydney Giants could only attract 5,830 people to its home match against Adelaide Crows, an all time low crowd not seen in AFL since 1996.
For those who missed his poor attempt at an explanation for such a poor crowd he said that his club lacked ‘the recruiting officer called the immigration department recruiting fans for the West Sydney Wanderers’.
His comments apart from being highly offensive to the inhabitants of Western Sydney will have in fact done his future crowd projections even more harm, but they also say so much more.
Three sports went head to head in Western Sydney, Rugby League, Football and AFL. All three codes invested heavily in this market and it became like a race to the North pole, the code that could boast success first it was felt would hold the keys to being the number one sport in Australia in the next 5-10 years. Of the three codes Football and the AFL are believed to have invested the most, although neither code is willing to reveal exactly how much their push for ascendancy has cost.
One thing is for sure AFL never expected Western Sydney Wanderers to take off the way it did, and Sheedy’s comments reflect that. He would have been led to believe that his club and his code would be the number one sport in that region. It won’t be, it will most likely never rise higher than third in the pecking order between these three codes. Football’s success lies purely and simply in the fact that it is a world game, and no matter what country you come from this one or overseas you can relate to it; and are more likely to have played it at some stage in your life. Rugby League is second to none when it comes to involving the community and that is why they build loyalty. They will not splash the money the way AFL and Football have but rest assured with time they will grow a loyal supporter base.
For years AFL’s monitoring of its participation rates have been skewed, a result of not only counting regular registered participants in their participation numbers, as per Football and Rugby League. If all codes were forced to monitor participation figures the same way Sheedy’s angst may be better explained. One thing is for sure his comments show that in Western Sydney the battle of the codes is well and truly being lost, and we would hazard a guess outside of Victoria although not as apparent, at junior levels the same would be true.
You only have to stand outside of Subiaco oval on a match day to see the age of the supporters filing in and how large a percentage are female to know that the youth of Australia are focussed on other sports. The times are definitely changing and that realisation has finally hit Mr Sheedy, which may explain his ill advised comments.
Central Coast Off Air
For decades community radio has been the lifeblood of football in Australia. Understandably those running the game wanted to take it to a more mainstream audience by having the game and relevant programmes on commercial radio to take it to a wider audience, but in many cases it was given nothing more than lip service and played second fiddle to AFL and NRL.
One thing that was initially forgotten was the support the game had received from community stations and how these stations had built up a loyal following who supported the game and trusted those broadcasters, knowing that many did it purely for the love of the game or enough money for a couple of beers and a toasted sandwich.
It is therefore disappointing to hear that Coast FM on the Central Coast who have covered every season of the Central Coast Mariners A League existence will not be able to broadcast their Asian Champions League game against Suwon Bluewings at Blue Tongue Stadium tonight. In the first two seasons of the Hyundai A-League when 990am Information radio was the sole broadcaster of Perth Glory games, Coast FM picked up our broadcasts and the two stations shared a healthy relationship, both trying to promote the game and a fledging league when commercial radio had no interest.
The reason that they are unable to broadcast tonight comes down to broadcast rights and being unable to afford the requested fee believed to be in the region of $10,000. This is where the game has gone mad. Understandably the AFC want to bring in as much revenue as possible and broadcast rights plat a large part in that revenue stream, but Central Coast Mariners fans expect their regular broadcaster to be able to to bring them these games.
Let’s face it the Asian Champions League has far from captured the imagination of the average Australian football fan, mainly because we know little about the teams from other countries and probably because so far apart from Adelaide United Australian teams have not fared too well in the competition. Therefore would you once again not welcome any publicity you can give the league, and therefore help Coast FM broadcast the game? You are then helping raise the profile of the Asian Champions League and keeping the fans happy.
Surely common sense should prevail and the benefits of allowing them to broadcast be looked at, as they far outweigh any reason to prevent them. Without the support of stations such as Coast FM and other community stations football would have received little air time in Australia in the past 20-30 years, therefore it is important to make sure that they continue to support the game, and help them in times such as these.
India Heading in the Right Direction
For years India was the home of Hockey, but the dawn of artificial pitches and a possibly British influences unwillingness to change their game to suit the new conditions has seen the nation fall well behind the emerging nations. Hockey, just as Rugby Union needs, Wales, New Zealand and South Africa to be strong, need India and Pakistan to get back to the highest level internationally for the game to take the next step.
Those offended by Australia not being mentioned in rugby teams need to understand that with the three countries mentioned, rugby is a more than a game,it is a way of life, and plays a major part in the community. Just as football teams do in England Germany, Holland and South America, and the teams in the AFL do in Australia.
The World Series Hockey Tournament currently underway in India has all of the right intentions. Its aim is to raise the profile of Hockey once again in India and at the halfway stage in the tournament it looks to be succeeding.
Nimbus Sports and Bridgestone are the two companies behind the tournament which is run along the lines of the IPL cricket league. Regrettably launching it now some of the top players in the world are needed in camps to prepare for the Olympics.
However despite those players not being present as the tournament progresses more television networks globally have signed up to air the tournament. Also essentially more sponsors have signed up to be a part of a competition that has captured the imagination of the Indian people.
The World Series Hockey Tournament is now the second highest ranking show on Indian Television after the cricket. It is pulling in more viewers than the English Premier League or the European Champions League, and by a fair margin.
The competition is not perfect, a lot of travel in very short periods of time and teams having to play two games in 24 hours, but it is proving to be a huge success. If ultimately it sees Indian Hockey back at the top of the World or even challenging for such a position it will have been worth it, and let us hope that the powers that be remember the visionaries who came up with the concept.
NotTheFootyShow 