Category Archives: Issues

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The end of an era for the Socceroo Realm

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13 November 2017

No, the Socceroo Realm is not disappearing! It’s evolving. Evolving with the times. Primarily that is with its format. Since its inception almost 20 years ago (yes, the Socceroo Realm will be 20 years old in March 2018!), it’s lived on my personal webspace allocated by my ISP at alphalink.com.au. That was the primary site. With the advent of mobile devices, a secondary site was setup a few years ago at wordpress.com. Part of this was to make it more readable on phones. Another part was for more visibility. The final part was for remote updating. On alphalink, I could only really update it at home. Coincidentally, I leave for Japan for holidays late on the night of Australia vs Honduras and possibly will miss the latter stages of the game. Any website update about our success (or demise) in qualifying will be done on the phone in Japan!

Australia vs Iran 1997 World Cup qualifier ticket

The event that started it all. My ticket to the fatal World Cup qualifier between Australia and Iran in 1997.

Then there’s the evolution in web technology. The Socceroo Realm started as a basic HTML site, and it still is a basic HTML site. There’s no java, no SQL, no PHP or ASP, no plugins, no database connections and no user interaction. It’s 100% static pages and the entire 20 years worth of blogging is spread over 110 pages and totals less that 4MB in data. To upgrade the site would require too much learning, and too much hassle. Almost certainly my ISP’s webspace wouldn’t offer all the tools required anyway, and the 20 MBs of space wouldn’t last long. Nor has it ever been viable to upgrade given it’s a 100% personal opinion site, not the news and information service that was part of its original premise. Since the primary reason for writing was fun, learning HTML was as far as I ever wanted to go. Besides, free editing software meant producing HTML pages weren’t much more complicated than creating a Word document.

Since the WordPress site came into existence, I’ve maintained both it and the alphalink site. Typically WordPress is updated first, and a few days later the content added to the alphalink site. My Twitter feed was embedded at alphalink so those that frequented the site could see the updates immediately, plus any spontaneous thoughts. In fact, being able to react instantaneously on Twitter has placed a greater premium on mobile access, and a lesser need for sitting behind a computer for a general, more formal, update. Although, football times have changed significantly over the years too. Whereby Australia’s time in Oceania meant the entire focus was on the intercontinental World Cup playoff every four years and the Confederations Cup and Youth tournaments during the interim period, these days, in Asia, there’s so many games that writing has become more focused on broader issues of the campaign, rather than the minutiae of each game.

Recently I moved house and ditched the old ISP for a new one. That means my alphalink webspace will soon die. So, too, will my email address of warrior@ that many readers have used over the years. Yes, the warrior is dead, long live the warrior! I actually resent losing that more than anything else, and I might even be one of the last people using the alphalink.com.au domain. The company has long disappeared, being subsumed by Chariot, which in turn is under TPG. How the charges have changed too. In 1997 it was $100 per year for a 33kbps connection on dial-up for 2 hours during peak time of 6pm to 11pm (or unlimited 3-hour blocks off peak) whereas in 2017 it’s $60 per month for unlimited ADSL2. While I could keep warrior@ for a small fee each year, again, mobile devices have made gmail and yahoo far more easier to use, and consequently nearly all email has transitioned away from alphalink already.

In preparation of this process, the socceroorealm.com domain now points to the WordPress site. I could even set up warrior@ email address at that domain if I wanted. The dilemma is the full site at alphalink. The scheduled termination of my alphalink connection is 22 November. Presumably that’s when the website dies. Whether it’s reprised somewhere else, who knows. At best, it reappears on a free-hosting service, and any updates would be giant ones after each major campaign or tournament. At worst, it disappears from cyberspace altogether, and as a compromise, I will feature regular “Blasts From The Past” of old posts on the WordPress site. After all, almost twenty years of Socceroo Realm history, it can’t be forgotten completely.

Whatever happens long term, all you need to remember is one thing: socceroorealm.com. That will always get you to the Socceroo Realm. On social media it’s twitter.com/socceroorealm and facebook.com/socceroorealm. If you want to preserve anything yourself, notably the six articles over the years covering the infamous Iran Game of 1997, feel free to copy anything. Easiest is to look under the Action and Blogs section on the alphalink site. Remember, 22 November 2017 is the day it’s likely to all disappear.

Pros and Cons of a 48-team World Cup

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15 January 2017

After all the years of squabbling among the confederations for World Cup places, FIFA took the obvious answer to a surprising conclusion. While the World Cup was ripe for an increase in World Cup teams, to go from 32 teams now to 48 teams for 2026 was a drastic leap. The one caveat is the last increase was in 1998 when 32 teams participated, up from 24 in 1994. The World Cup probably should be 40 teams already, and by 2026 it will be 28 years since the last change. The format will be 16 groups of 3 teams with the top 2 progressing to the knockout phase, which adds a round of 32 to its schedule. While the number of matches overall in the tournament increases from 64 to 80, the maximum number of matches per team remains at seven.

PROS

1) More teams

This is the clear reason for expansion. Regions like Africa and Asia desperately wanted more places, and with the huge amount of money in Asia these days, it means more money for FIFA. Expect both regions to get an extra 4 spots, so Africa’s 5 becomes 9 and Asia’s 4.5 becomes 8 or 9. Oceania is certain to finally get the spot that a full member confederation deserves. They have a spot at every other FIFA tournament and the World Cup should be no exception.

2) More dreams

Teams that once had no hope to qualify now finally can dream about it. Oceania is a classic example, with the likes of Fiji, Vanuatu and Tahiti now only required to get past New Zealand, while in Asia the likes of China, Thailand, Vietnam and Uzbekistan can expect to regularly challenge for a World Cup spot. More than that, it will be nice to see these new teams at the World Cup. Look at the intrigue and excitement the likes of Iceland and Wales created in Euro 2016 when it expanded from 16 to 24 teams, or when Tahiti was Oceania’s representative at the 2013 Confederations Cup.

3) More excitement

The format means there’s one less group game and one more knockout game. While teams could often grind their way through the group phase with defensive tactics, now they need to tackly the group head on. Not so much to qualify, as 2 out of three is statistically an easier task, it’s for seeding purposes so to avoid stronger teams in the early rounds of knockout phase. There’ll also be far fewer, if any, dead matches. With 4-team groups, teams could often be qualified with one match remaining.

4) More representative of the world

Football is not a European and South American sport anymore. If they won’t cede spots to the likes of Asia and Africa to make the World Cup a fairer representation, then the number of teams must increase. Current speculation is Europe with have 16 spots (up from 13), Africa 9 (5), Asia 8.5 (4.5), South America 6 (4.5), Concacaf 6.5 (3.5), Oceania 1 (.5) and 1 for the host. The only inter-continental playoff will be Asia vs Concacaf.

CONS

1) Too many teams

Nearly a quarter of FIFA’s members will now qualify, which dilutes the basic challenge in the first place. Where’s the prestige in qualifying? Also, after two years and many qualifying games, your reward is only two games at the World Cup, not three as currently. That aspect seems an imbalance at least. In percentages terms, the number teams qualifying still quite low, particularly compared to other sports. Under a quarter of teams at football’s World Cup, compared to often 100% of Test level nations at cricket’s and all of tier 1 and most of tier 2 at rugby’s.

2) Less dreams

Sure, while the minnows are now guppies, guppies like Australia become piranhas. So much of the joy when qualifying for 2006 was that it was the first such qualification in 32 years. That mountain to conquer is already a hill in Asia, and the hill will become rubble with the extra four spots allocated. Being perennial World Cup qualifiers is not ideal for a developing nation like Australia. We need the kick up the backside occasionally, much like our youth program is now receiving after recent debacles of multiple failed qualifying campaigns at youth and Olympic level. With the move into Asia I was already prepared to accept missing one World Cup out of every 3, or even missing two in a row if the sport was in malaise. Most top European countries occasionally miss major tournaments, and if it’s ok for them to bomb out at times it should be good enough for us.

3) No 4-team group

Even with the increase of teams over the years, one time honoured staple remained: groups of 4 teams. The change to 3-team groups means each team plays only 2 matches and the odd number of teams means the final games of a group can’t be played simultaneously. This means teams can play for certain results to help others progress. While this ethical problem is quite rare in practice and still possible in a 4-team group, FIFA were always so adamant in preventing it… until now. Tied groups will also become a problem. FIFA are talking about penalty shootouts to split drawn games. That would be a disaster as weaker teams will play for draws. Goal difference and other tie-breaking mechanisms must still be used. In the worst case scenario, maybe 30 minute playoffs are introduced.

4) The squabble for spots will continue

Everyone will be happy in the short term with the extra spots. After that, watch the squabbling resume. South America are so greedy they will probably want all their countries represented. Already if you consider they will get at least 1.5 extra spots, that’s 6 out of 10 teams going. Ridiculous. As mentioned in these pages many times, spots should be based on past performances, with confederations streamlined to facilitate this. That means the Americas should be one confederation and Oceania should merge with Asia. That leaves roughly four regions of 50 teams. To each goes 8 direct spots with 1 to the host. The remaining 15 spots are allocated by previous World Cup performances over the past 3 Cups. If Asia/Oceania get 6 teams among the top 15 best performed teams, that’s six spots to them. Typically they get zero or one, so they’ll sit on 8 or 9, while Europe with usually 8 teams through will get 16 spots in total.

COMPROMISE

My personal preference is four 40 teams over 10 groups. So you still keep the 4-team group and, more importantly, make each match extra important because only 6 of the 10 second placed teams progress to the knockout phase.

Culture is to blame for wrong offside calls, not the referees

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06 January 2015

Sydney FC’s Marc Janko was denied “goal of the year” by a refereeing blunder according to their coach Graham Arnold in an A-League match last weekend: “They do it every week … they may as well just give the championship trophy to the referees because they decide what’s going on. They ruin games every week and today they have ruined goal of the year.” While no one disputes Janko’s goal was legal, and you need to admire Arnold’s humour of awarding the referees the championship, the fault is not with the referee, it’s with the sport’s culture.

The simple fact is that the sport loves denying goals. If the roles were reversed, and Newcastle Jets scored a cracking goal and the player was an eyelash offside, you could bet Arnold would be going even more bonkers. Fans, also, will similarly be just as apoplectic if there’s a hint of offside. We just won’t tolerate such goals, feeling that they are the greatest injustice in the game.

As response to the outrage of close offside calls, the referees are not making mistakes, they are refereeing according to the culture that the sport demands. Facts are that it is impossible for a referee to be looking at two spots at once, so there’s always a degree of an educated guess, or a hunch, when waving offside, no matter their level of experience. Given the sport’s hatred of marginally offside goals, their inclination is to lean towards waving offside. That even includes betraying FIFA’s “favour the attackers” edict.

Football’s culture fervently ignores “favour the attacker”. You see commentators all the time debating a close call, whether a shoulder was a whisker offside or not, or the player was “level” with the last defender. Wrong. If it’s that close, the instinctive response should be “that’s good enough, play on”. You favour the attacker. That also includes the more common outcome of an incorrect offside call – that a “goal scoring opportunity” is denied. Janko’s case was more unusual in that a goal was scored, then cancelled, make it feel more egregious. Really, any wrong call, no matter the outcome, should feel egregious.

No, the referees are not destroying the sport, the culture is. Denying goals, and denying goal scoring opportunities, and loving it. Arnold’s idea of full-time referees won’t work. In my observation, 90% of close offside calls at any level of the game are incorrect. Those that are incorrect, they are close enough under the “favour attackers” edict to be deemed correct. Therefore every single close offside call in the sport is wrong.

Clearly the edict fails. The only solution is for the law to change and the culture to follow. Let’s remember, the offside law was invented to stop loitering near the goal; never for this cynical, tactical ploy of running attackers offside by a few millimetres. The offside law should be updated to read “clearly offside” and the edict to favour the attackers  should advise “up to a full bodywidth offside is acceptable”. Then we might start to favour the attackers, and start to favour football, and also make the referees’ job far more humanly possible.

Full site: Socceroo Realm

End triple-punishment and dubious offsides, for the good of the game

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20 February 2014

Picture it: World Cup, South Africa, June 2010, Australia vs Ghana. In a goal mouth scramble, a Ghanian player strikes a thunderbolt for goal and it hits Harry Kewell on the arm, denying the goal. Penalty for Ghana. Despite the apparent accidental hand-ball, Kewell sent off, and banned for the next match. Unjust, ridiculous, absurd? You name it. It is. Especially when barely a match goes by and referees are denying goal scoring chances by their ineptitude to officiate offsides correctly. While no attention is given to the offside rule and the obvious need to help referees, players are dealt a brutish blow under the guise of “denying a goal-scoring opportunity”. Except the opportunity was never denied. Ghana was awarded a penalty, and scored.

Last night, the Champions League featuring Arsenal and Bayern Munich, enter Arsenal’s goalie, Wojciech Szczesny, who brought down Arjen Robben has he tried to poke a lobbed ball into the net. The goalie, entitled to go and try stop this, clumsily collided into Robben, and a penalty is called. After some minor deliberation, out popped the red, and with that, Szczesny suspended from his next match. Had there been no contact, it looked like Robben’s poke may have gone wide. In effect, he wasn’t even denied a goal scoring chance, he was provided a better one. Statistically, a penalty is far more likely to be converted than any one on one in general play against the goalkeeper. Only in handball situations like that of Kewell could it be said a team’s goal scoring chance is reduced via issuing a penalty.

It must be said, these two incidents are not the typical examples of the rule. Kewell was a handball and clearly stopped the goal, while Szczesny’s red card was valid for the ugly boot to Robben’s shin that quite easily could have broken his leg, even though it’s the “triple punishment” factor of seemingly a goalie’s non-dangerous penalty making the headlines. The more typical incidents are genuine attempts by a defender to tackle or a goalie to stop an attacker shooting, and bringing them down in the process. Outside the penalty box, it’s simply a foul. Inside, it’s mutated into this big, ugly monster of “denying goal scoring opportunities” and “last defender”, and other such pontificating. By the way, if you bring down a player outside the box, who’s to say you’re not denying a goal-scoring opportunity anyway? The width of a line should not matter between a red card or not. This is, indeed, the genesis of the rule.

Picture it. World Cup, Italy, 1990, known as the Cynical or Ugly World Cup. Countless tackles, often from behind, deliberating bringing down a player to stop them advancing on goal, specifically into the penalty box, where any foul would then have serious consequences of a penalty. I vaguely recall a Swedish player, versus Costa Rica, actually pulling down a player by a rugby tackle. Back then the penalty was a yellow card. FIFA’s response to this terrible behaviour was award such “professional fouls” a straight red. This was especially the case if you were the “last defender”, as obviously dragging down the player was your last recourse to deny an open attack on goal. For goalies, the rule was even more relevant, being used on those rushing outside the box to foul a player, not for fouling a player inside. Most famous case Australians will recall is by Robbie Zabica away to Canada in the 1993 World Cup qualifiers, Zabica was sent off early in the game, with Mark Schwarzer making his surprise debut. Both Zabica and Schwarzer were only involved because Mark Bosnich had sensationally “retired” from international football after submitting to the pressure from his club Aston Villa. He was back for the series against Argentina. The rule worked perfectly then. Had Zabica not been sent off, Australia would not have been penalised fairly for this infringement and Canada never get their goal scoring chance redressed. Players never respected yellow cards then. They still don’t. A red card is the only solution to stop this blight on the game.

Over 20 years since the law was enacted, commentators and fans and FIFA themselves have let it run amok. Even last week in Melbourne Victory’s Asian Champions League qualifier in Geelong, Fox Sport’s Andy Harper was prattling on about MV’s penalty and whether the Thai club should also have been given a red card. The foul was merely a clumsy attempt at winning the ball, which would have been a standard foul outside the box, so a free kick and no card. Here was Harper musing of the “last defender” despite several other Thai players in the box and the goalie in play to attempt a save. If you give that a red card, you give every penalty a red card, as essentially you are always “denying a goal scoring opportunity”. As his wont, at the other end, Harper was musing about a shoulder being offside for MV’s second goal. On one hand he wants to destroy one club’s chances with a severe punishment for a standard, miss-timed tackle while rewarding a team with a penalty and an extra player for the rest of the match, yet the player with maybe his shirt fabric offside, he wants this goal denied? There’s no consistency in philosophy for the good of the game, or any semblance of sane logic.

FIFA’s law: A player is sent off if he commits: 5) denies an obvious goalscoring opportunity to an opponent moving towards the player’s goal by an offence punishable by a free kick or a penalty kick. The way the law is now, any foul could be a red card, as most players fouled are indeed moving towards goal and making an obvious goal-scoring opportunity. Note there’s no mention in the laws about the “last defender”, so that was only ever a commentator’s concoction, or maybe an outdated guideline.

The laws surrounding handball are even more bizarre, being a microcosm for the extremes of the game. It’s either a free kick if a player: handles the ball deliberately. Or it’s a red card if a player: denies the opposing team a goal or goalscoring opportunity by deliberately handling the ball. There’s no case for a yellow card, and what constitutes “deliberately”? To a referee, deciding on “deliberate” is deciding between play-on or issuing a penalty, red card and a one match ban. Preposterous.

FIFA are apparently examining the laws that lead to this triple-punishment nonsense. Here is the solution. Any outfield player that deliberately brings down another that is clear on goal and outside the penalty box is red carded. Such infringements would be tackles at the feet, high tackles, tackles from behind, man-handling and shirt pulling. If a goalie rushes outside a box and brings down a player, red card. Any foul within the box is judged as it would be outside the box: unintentional is a penalty (or a direct free kick outside the box); intentional is a penalty (so an almost certain goal) and a yellow card. A shirt pull or holding is regarded as intentional. Handball should always be a penalty or free kick unless it directly blocks the ball from scoring (hits a defender on the line and the goalie is beaten), then it’s an automatic goal. Intentional handball (like arms extended) is a yellow – and that should be all over the pitch.

If you actually made yellow cards a 10 or 15 suspension from the game, they might create some deterrent factor too. Part of this move to wanton red cards is that a yellow is just not sufficient for some challenges. Now we are at the other end of outrage that a red is too severe. UEFA president Michel Platini is suggesting an orange card that would be a 15 minute suspension from the game to prevent this triple punishment scenario. A penalty and 15 minutes out of the game? Seems fairer. Either way, there is a ridiculous discrepancy between a red and a yellow card right now that should be addressed. It’s long been problematic.

Remember, you still have other laws for red cards like serious foul play and violent conduct, so if a player goes in with flying studs up or grapples an opponent to the ground, red card irsrespective of location of the foul. If a player grabs the ball like a basketball player as Luis Suarez did for Uruguay against Ghana in the 2010 World Cup semi final, red card (as it rightfully was). For the fabric of the game, let’s get it back to basics and the intention of the laws.

Triple punishment was never, ever envisaged as part of cleaning up the game. The intent was a double punishment for dreadful actions outside the box where an attack on goal was stopped totally and the opposition not rewarded. Inside the penalty box there was already the severe punishment of an almost certain goal via a penalty. Therefore the triple punishment should only ever be seen for the most cynical and unsportsmanlike of challenges, not for common skirmishes. Likewise the offside law was to stop strikers camping in the goal mouth, not to be recalled because defences are running them offside by an eyelash. When you actually have a “favour the attackers” guideline to support the rule, it’s even more bizarre that there are pinheads crusading on the tiniest of technicalities that only serve to harm the game, not enhance it.

More: http://socceroorealm.com

Bigotry rears its ugly head again – and it’s us

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27 January 2014

The day after Manchester City purchased an 80% controlling arm of Melbourne Heart, Melbourne’s Herald Sun ran this cartoon:

Melbourne Heart New Owners (c) Herald Sun

Melbourne Heart New Owners (c) Herald Sun

While the odd twits on twitter immediately ran with it accusing the HS used the cartoon to “welcome” the investment of money by the Arab-owned Manchester City, it wasn’t until SBS and their theworldgame website that a full exploitation of it came to fruition. Philip Micallef, who says he did not derive any pleasure from writing the piece, said this:

In a case of bad taste at best and blatant racism at worst, it published a cartoon depicting an Arab sheikh and a set of ‘cheer girls’ dressed in black burqas ushering the Heart team onto the field. A caption read “That should sheikh up the A-League”. What on earth was the Herald Sun thinking?

Did it think at all about the ramifications of publishing such a tasteless cartoon in the present political climate? Did it realise that as host country of the 2015 Asian Cup it is Australia’s obligation to welcome the participants not poke fun at their culture? Did it really believe that its hundreds of thousands of readers would approve of such ignorance and opportunism or, more seriously, find it funny? Did it honestly expect to get away with its flagrant disregard for basic human courtesy.

Australia arguably embraces multiculturalism like no other country and the Herald Sun’s cartoon went against everything that we stand for. I refuse to believe that there were more sinister motives at play here like purposely damaging the event’s credibility behind the publication of the controversial cartoon. However if the newspaper’s intention was merely to have some fun, surely it must have known that what is considered ‘just a bit of fun’ by us might not be seen as ‘fun’ by people from a different background, whether they live in Australia, Indonesia or Iran.

Ironically, Micallef’s description of the cartoon, “depicting an Arab sheikh and a set of ‘cheer girls’ dressed in black burqas ushering the Heart team onto the field”, is stunning for its accuracy and simplicity. Should the girls be dressed in bikinis? That would have stripped these women of their basic human courtesy. The intention of the newspaper was to satirise the news, as it does every single day about the biggest story. In a country that arguably embraces multiculturalism like no other, then no group should should be excluded, or we make a blanket law that protects all groups.

The real heart of the issue is not this cartoon by the HS, it’s again this vendetta by SBS and “us”, the football public, against a news operation because we are so insecure and precious about our flaws in the game. Craig Foster, in his Fairfax column about the purchase, also made a sleight at “half” of the media in Melbourne, only because that “half” doesn’t have him on their payroll. This grievance is built particularly that certain media outlets have the temerity to report crowd trouble and violence associated with our game, and therefore are anti-football. While I, the biggest proponent of free speech, especially when it comes to satire, did find this cartoon a little unsavoury, in no way would that suddenly propel me into a tirade of ridiculous claims of xenophobia and that a news operation is trying to destroy the game in this country and create racial hatred. At most, I’d suggest HS is better than this, that it doesn’t match their general reportage of the game, so is it worth the risk of upsetting their true enemies? No, not the risk of upsetting Muslims. They’ve actually fled to this country because basic freedoms are allowed. It’s the risk of upsetting the rapacious and hypocritical traditional football media. If a Catholic-run club bought MH and the cartoon had a group of priests cheering with “GO BOYS” across their tummies, would there be an issue? Not only would we all be laughing it up, the cartoon would be immediately inducted into the Hall Of Fame of Cartoon Satire.

If only such scene as depicted were even true. In these despotic nations, women aren’t even allowed to attend games. The only time I’ve seen such a breach of this ultra sexism and misogyny was after the Iran Game, where TV scenes in Tehran showed women “breaking free”, to fill the streets and the national stadium, unable to keep further suppressed their desire to grandly celebration their nation’s success. Yes, they were dressed like this, except for any lettering on their clothes, nor carrying pom-poms. Mark Knight, who is a superb satirist and indeed has mocked the Catholic religion in cartoons because NO one is immune to his wit, erred in that he should have used sheikhs, not women. Then again, what message is actually offensive? I see a despondent sheikh annoyed that women are out celebrating a football team, and this could shake up the A-League. Or maybe it will shake up the Islamic religion? Maybe it’s our own sensitivities that Arab Oil and Tourism, often built on slave labour, are funding this new club. Much like we’re aghast that Qatar “bought” the 2022 World Cup. Instead of confronting our insecurities, we attempt to brush it aside, and throw around labels like “racism” and “xenophobia” to distract from our own uneasiness by tarnishing someone else. The classic case of self-absolution by diminution of others.

It wouldn’t be so deceitful this crusade against HS if there was at least a minuscule attempt at balance by SBS. Fine to trash them for the cartoon; it’s disgraceful to use it to impugn the daily coverage as anything even remotely near similar. On the day of the announcement, the HS homepage had a massive headline reporting this great news. That led to at least four fully featured articles of news, opinion and video – all positive. In fact, you could visit HS every day and look under sport then football (note football, not soccer), and see an expansive and positive coverage of our game. When is that ever mentioned by SBS? Never. Of course, it doesn’t tickle the agenda of biased media against our poor, wretched souls struggling to survive. So it’s the cartoon, the once since probably never cartoon, that gets all the attention.

The absurdity of our crusade is even more ridiculous when our goal is to make football mainstream. There’s no bigger mainstream newspaper than the HS, serving the biggest A-League and sports market of Melbourne. Instead of recognising their otherwise superb coverage of the game, we continue to malign them, and push a lie. When SBS was an outcast from A-League coverage because they snubbed the inaugural rights and almost weekly either by Les Murray, Craig Foster or Jess Fink via their TV shows and website undertook hit-pieces against the A-League, who’s been responsible for the huge resurgence and growth and knowledge of the domestic game? News Ltd – via Fox Sports and their newspapers, with Fairfax also superb. They rescued the domestic game of which now SBS can capitalise upon. Without these mainstream organisations exposing the sport to the mainstream, the sport would barely register beyond that of the NSL days. A reader’s comment in Micallef’s article said he’s never read HS, yet here that person goes making judgements – judgements based on total ignorance and the football community’s agenda of bias and deceit alleging an anti-football media. While SBS is still doing hit pieces on News Ltd, isn’t it any wonder that people like Rebecca Wilson will still reciprocate against us?

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt as a reader of all media, and with subscriptions to News Ltd and Fairfax, is that those claiming bias are the most biased people themselves. Politicians and their sympathetic stooges are notorious for it. We, football, are even worst, being the most precious and insecure lot in history, and with still so much growing up to do. We’re the ones painting football in a bad light. We defend loutish behaviour at A-League games by condemning any media that dares report it. We now refuse to question our concerns raised by a satirical cartoon about Arab money flowing into the game. Of course, it’s Arab money that owns an English football club as well. Oops, that’s another concern. Anything British influencing the game in this country is supposed to be extirpated; what happened to that crusade? Yep, washed away once Arab mega dollars are thrown into our face.

The defintion of bigotry: “Intolerance towards those that hold different opinions from oneself.” Are we that? We’re even worse. We’re intolerant towards those that hold the same opinion as ourselves and when those very people are outsiders to us. Shame, shame, shame.

Source: http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/philip-micallef/blog/1179682/Bigotry-rears-its-ugly-head-again

More: socceroorealm.com

Media bias against football? Gee we’re a precious bunch

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Australia produces a rubbish World Cup bid, Melbourne Heart fans destroy 170 seats at Docklands Stadium, flares are constantly lit at A-League grounds: guess the problem? The media! Time and time again when reading football blogs and feedback, this constant theme arises. There’s even calls for the media to “educate” talkback radio callers. It’s nonsense. The big problem with media bias is that those claiming media bias are actually the most biased people themselves. Politics is the worst example. Football is not far behind. Those events described at the top, they all happened. The reporting is not a fabrication. They happened. Yet, suddenly that’s media bias.

Looking at those events, the World Cup bid failed because there were too many oval stadiums and it left no legacy left for the sport. Geelong, Adelaide, Perth and Gold Coast would all get new or improved stadiums and it was all for AFL to benefit. Then there was the final presentation that proved a total farce. FFA played the game of sleaze to win the bid and when that failed, they blamed the game of sleaze. Fans in return blamed the AFL, then the media. The media did nothing other than report the facts. The AFL made it difficult, reported. The stadia a problem, reported. The presentation a joke, reported. With the constant problems at A-League matches, fans destroy 170 seats, reported. Fans whinging about the media, reported. Socceroos qualify for World Cups, reported. Classic A-League Grand Finals, reported. Superb 2013 A-League season with crowds and viewers up, reported. Gee, we don’t mind the good stuff reported, right? If we don’t like the bad stuff reported then it’s up to us not to provide the material to report. We need to move on from this juvenile level of self-victimisation.

Ironically, when it’s our own mob slamming the sport, there’s no claims of bias there. SBS and TWG and Pim Verbeek were running down the A-League for years. During Central Coast’s recent ACL game, TWG’s Philip Micallef criticised the poor crowds and questioned whether Australia deserve the two spots that they want. None of this was in any mainstream paper. Had Micallef published there, no doubt we’d be slamming it as biased and hateful. As for the World Cup bid, it was the most inept and wasteful endeavour committed by this Frank Lowy regime. If anything, the media went too easy. TWG’s best attempt to “investigate” was Les Murray’s lap-dog interview with his sleazy mate and chief bid consultant, Peter Hargaty. Even the federal government did nothing to account for the wasted millions. The World Cup bid should never have proceeded with the stadium troubles and without unity of other sports. That’s FFA’s gross dereliction of duty, not the AFL. Instead of upgrading AFL grounds like Adelaide Oval, Gold Coast, Subiaco and Geelong, FFA should have upgraded Hindmarsh, Robina, built a new rectangular stadium in Perth, and upgrade Melbourne’s Bubble (AAMI) rather than the AFL ground in Geelong. Then you stuff the AFL and actually leave a legacy for football.

Nor is it the media’s job to educate anyone. That’s our job. It’s our sport that drives the narrative. If we don’t like the reports emanating from it, we change the narrative. With football’s steeped history in hooliganism and flares and vandalism, when it occurs at A-League matches it’s just natural to be reported, and it should be reported. Being in Melbourne and reader of the HeraldSun daily – a paper under the News Corp banner like Sydney’s Daily Telegraph that is often cited for bias – I see no bias. The only “crime” that could be cited is the sensationalist headlines. Since the newspaper does that on every topic, it’s not bias, just their style. Any opinion pieces that emerge, more typically in the DT, they are exactly that – opinion pieces. That’s freedom of speech. Often these are on topics that irk us anyway, like diving and poor refereeing. We just want such right to criticise to be restricted to our own realm. That’s ridiculous.

Again, it’s OUR job to educate. That should be first among ourselves, to stop the problems, rather than whinging on talkback radio and trying to condone the behaviour as that of a rowdy few. In fact, if it is just a rowdy few, then it should be easy to stop, as these people are typically active members of the club in the cheer squad. So far the only response by fans to halt this poor behaviour is Melbourne Victory’s and Western Sydney Wanderers’ churlish protests at their most recent respective home games trying to defend these cretins and blaming the clubs and FFA for not sticking up for them. Only when we stop being so precious and start being accountable for our own actions then we won’t see such stuff in the media. Because there’ll be nothing to report.