SHEEDY, FOOT, MOUTH – BUT A TACTICAL BLOW TO THE AFL

PART 1

So, the hot topic of the moment in Australian sporting circles is the relatively high profile coach (Manager) of the AFL’s ‘Greater Western Sydney’ (GWS) making some rather controversial remarks about “Soccer” (or Association Football) having the Immigration Department of Australia to rely on for recruitment.

To put into direct context, the comments were made after the AFL managed to garner a relatively paltry crowd of 5830 – unacceptable by AFL standards – which all too illuminates the AFL’s struggles to attain cut-through in the Western Sydney area.

(http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spor...-1226640563395) -

Thanks to Blackxz on the MVFC forum for the screenshot which allows me and any readers this blog has to understand the context in which the comments were uttered.

Putting aside the rather hilarious irony that the AFL have managed to lobby the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) for $270,000 in 2012, an interesting dimension is that unlike in the past, the AFL aren’t addressing football in terms of its large rates of junior participation in the area, Officials of AFL circles are now being drawn into directly addressing football at its professional level.

This is revealing of their frustration that they perceive themselves as losing ground in a vital area of the so-called “Expansion wars” which is an article for another time.

In effect though, Sheedy’s direct addressing of Western Sydney Wanderers reveals that the AFL concede that they are struggling to attain cut-through in the area. 

This is while Football has managed to effectively start translating the relatively large grassroots participation of the area into interest at the ‘local professional league’ end of the Football spectrum.

After some bungled attempts the FFA have finally started to become successful in the area of club formation.

This author is not so sure they properly understand the formula though. They seem to have finally grasped the importance of allowing the local football fraternity a big say in determining the name, colours etc of the local team. 

This is in contrast to the previous top-down accounting dominated approach of finding a wealthy benefactor and letting them decide everything and hope the local sporting fraternity takes to it exemplified so well in terms of Clive Palmers approach.

The FFA however don’t seem to have grasped the other elements such as the importance of active support and how to facilitate its nurturing as evidenced by their narrow and imbalanced approach to security.

Once again that is also an article for another time, but needless to say the FFA would be getting ahead of themselves if they think they have successfully established an A-League team in western Sydney (and indeed even a professional football competition within Australia). 

The task for Gallop is he needs to learn from previous mistakes made during the Ben Buckley era in more ways then just understanding how to introduce a new football team (establishing interest and maintaining it are entirely two different things).

Back to the AFL, the Melbourne Press has unsurprisingly gone into a form of ‘apologist’ mode and defending him, like Richard Hinds in the Age for example if they mention it at all.

This is all good and well for the AFL media department in its stronghold of Victoria, but unfortunately for them it is the opinions of people in western Sydney that actually matter at the end of the day.

This link to a Rugby League blog article (thanks to ‘Midfielder’) is an example of how it will have gone down in some quarters of Western Sydney which is much more important than how it does in the AFL oriented Melbourne Press. 

For my part, I wonder aloud if people are mis-placing their outrage as perceptions of racism when it is more likely their outrage stems from an underlying sense of xenophobia (rightly or wrongly) and more deeply the notion often bandied about that Football is a 'foreign game' to Australia.

Either way the episode and the stain from it will take the AFL some time to eradicate if at all and the stumble can be seen as a significant tactical blow to their ambitions in the area.

And to think the words "shoot", "self" and "foot" used to be applied to Football in this country.