Bjo187
Premiership Player
- Apr 30, 2020
- 3,819
- 5,416
- AFL Club
- Essendon
Something I have noticed on social media of late, is the increased AFL bashing and running down of the game by a) The Sydney centric media, which unfortunately distributes the national news too and b) The resulting rugby league and soccer fans hatred for our game, displayed online (Facebook, Twitter, comments sections etc) by constantly sh*tting on our sport and lambasting anyone that likes it (imagine being a young kid in Sydney saying you like AFL in front of these idiots, you’d basically get bullied relentlessly till you give it up).
Anyhow, previously I just turned the other cheek, but recently I have been looking into it more and have realised it is really damaging to the brand of Australian football, the growth of the game and it detracts from attracting new fans, particularly in nsw & qld (which is their obvious intention). The problem is, the brainwashing, bullying and negativity is working and AFL fans tend to sit passive and unfortunately don't defend our game.
Anyhow, here are some common criticisms of Australian Football (AFL) you will run into online, or in person and ways to point out how dumb they are:
You get a point for missing – You get a point for getting in the scoring area, but not the main target, no different to other sports where you have to hit a target to score, like archery, darts, shooting, tenpin bowling etc.
Soccer is the world game – It kind of helps that it was invented by the British Empire, who ruled the world at the time and spread it globally, like all their invented sports. Get a history lesson.
If AFL is so good, how come it’s not international – Because Australia had a population of < 5million when these sports were spreading and next to zero pull on the world stage, people didn’t even know the country existed, yet you expect them to spread their sport international... really?
Looking forward to the AFL world cup – The AFL do have a world cup, its not professional though. They could run a world cup like RL does by grabbing Polynesian expats out of western Sydney to fill most of the teams, but that would be embarrassing.
They wear short shorts – Same length of the shorts NRL players wear actually.
Fumbles – It’s pretty easy not to fumble when you have a rubber ball thrown to you underarm, from a meter away, under zero pressure, even a toddler could catch that.
It's only played in Victoria. Over 80 players in the AFL are from NSW & QLD and there are nearly as many club participants for Australian football in NSW & QLD, as rugby league. A higher percentage of teams in the AFL come from outside Victoria (45%), than the percentage of teams in the NRL that come from outside NSW (38%). Also, haven’t the storm only had one player from Victoria in 25 yrs? Lol. The game of RL is virtually non-existent outside of 2 states in Australia, it’s embarrassing.
Aerial pingpong – Yeah the ball moves more than 2 metres at a time and in the forward direction, its hard to keep up with for halfwits, I know.
It's not Australian, it's Victorian – Last time I checked Victoria is in Australia, does that mean vegemite is not Australian too?
It's only played in Australia, domestic sport - yeah same as the biggest sport in the U.S, called the NFL.
Soccer has the most participants - All non-contact sports have higher participation rates, they are safer and easier to play and soccer only requires one round ball to play, anybody can play it, even a 2 year old (see Dana White comments).
What about tv rights, sponsorship, attendance, membership, revenue? (all at least double, some 10x that of Australian soccer). Also fun fact, the AFL makes more money per year than the NRL, Australian Soccer and Rugby Australian combined, its basically a no contest for popularity, in every key metric possible.
If you wanna go the proactive route yourself, some funny digs I've seen online and terms that get under the skin of these numpties:
Rugby league:
‘Rugby league could be replaced by two opposing teams of cavemen, pushing a boulder from one end of a paddock to the other’.
Soccer
It's not their fault their local media have brainwashed them, they see Australian football as a threat, so are making their best attempts to sh*t on our sport and indirectly Australian culture (and I’m not even Australian background myself by the way and use to play soccer for 7 years at a decent level). It’s pathetic really, but good to have some ammunition to put them back in their place as it's wearing pretty thin.
Anyhow, previously I just turned the other cheek, but recently I have been looking into it more and have realised it is really damaging to the brand of Australian football, the growth of the game and it detracts from attracting new fans, particularly in nsw & qld (which is their obvious intention). The problem is, the brainwashing, bullying and negativity is working and AFL fans tend to sit passive and unfortunately don't defend our game.
Anyhow, here are some common criticisms of Australian Football (AFL) you will run into online, or in person and ways to point out how dumb they are:
You get a point for missing – You get a point for getting in the scoring area, but not the main target, no different to other sports where you have to hit a target to score, like archery, darts, shooting, tenpin bowling etc.
Soccer is the world game – It kind of helps that it was invented by the British Empire, who ruled the world at the time and spread it globally, like all their invented sports. Get a history lesson.
If AFL is so good, how come it’s not international – Because Australia had a population of < 5million when these sports were spreading and next to zero pull on the world stage, people didn’t even know the country existed, yet you expect them to spread their sport international... really?
Looking forward to the AFL world cup – The AFL do have a world cup, its not professional though. They could run a world cup like RL does by grabbing Polynesian expats out of western Sydney to fill most of the teams, but that would be embarrassing.
They wear short shorts – Same length of the shorts NRL players wear actually.
Fumbles – It’s pretty easy not to fumble when you have a rubber ball thrown to you underarm, from a meter away, under zero pressure, even a toddler could catch that.
It's only played in Victoria. Over 80 players in the AFL are from NSW & QLD and there are nearly as many club participants for Australian football in NSW & QLD, as rugby league. A higher percentage of teams in the AFL come from outside Victoria (45%), than the percentage of teams in the NRL that come from outside NSW (38%). Also, haven’t the storm only had one player from Victoria in 25 yrs? Lol. The game of RL is virtually non-existent outside of 2 states in Australia, it’s embarrassing.
Aerial pingpong – Yeah the ball moves more than 2 metres at a time and in the forward direction, its hard to keep up with for halfwits, I know.
It's not Australian, it's Victorian – Last time I checked Victoria is in Australia, does that mean vegemite is not Australian too?
It's only played in Australia, domestic sport - yeah same as the biggest sport in the U.S, called the NFL.
Soccer has the most participants - All non-contact sports have higher participation rates, they are safer and easier to play and soccer only requires one round ball to play, anybody can play it, even a 2 year old (see Dana White comments).
What about tv rights, sponsorship, attendance, membership, revenue? (all at least double, some 10x that of Australian soccer). Also fun fact, the AFL makes more money per year than the NRL, Australian Soccer and Rugby Australian combined, its basically a no contest for popularity, in every key metric possible.
If you wanna go the proactive route yourself, some funny digs I've seen online and terms that get under the skin of these numpties:
Rugby league:
- Call it just ‘rugby’
- Alternate name ‘throwball’
- Bum sniffers
- Mungo’s
- 'It’s an imported pommie sport, that isn’t even popular in the country that invented it, that tells you something’.
- ‘The least skilful sport on the planet, throwing an underarm pass 2m sideways and running in a straight line with the ball under your arm, wow’.
- ‘The most repetitive sport in the world’.
- 'The most difficult thing in the sport is being able to run 5 metres in a straight line'.
- ‘It’s so basic, that’s why only halfwits play it and watch it’.
- ‘Rugby league, the sport invented by idiots, for morons’.
- ‘Glorified pass the parcel’.
- ‘How does that sport call itself national, it should be called the North East Corner Rugby League’.
- Regular references to crowd sizes.
- Regular references to players beating their partners.
- Regular references to it not being safe to play because of the big Polynesian kids.
‘Rugby league could be replaced by two opposing teams of cavemen, pushing a boulder from one end of a paddock to the other’.
Soccer
- Call it just ‘soccer’, don’t bend to them trying to steal the word ‘football’ and even worse ‘Australian football’, its cultural theft.
- Alternate name ‘sookball’.
- Regular references to rolling around on the ground crying.
- Regular references to it not being safe to attend soccer matches in this country.
- Regular references to the quality of the A league.
- Asking the question ‘Does the A league still exist’?
- It’s an ‘Imported sport’.
- It’s so boring that’s why the crowds start trouble.
- Nil all draws after 90 minutes, what a waste of time.
- Nobody in Australia cares, see you in another 4 years.
It's not their fault their local media have brainwashed them, they see Australian football as a threat, so are making their best attempts to sh*t on our sport and indirectly Australian culture (and I’m not even Australian background myself by the way and use to play soccer for 7 years at a decent level). It’s pathetic really, but good to have some ammunition to put them back in their place as it's wearing pretty thin.
