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The phoney battle of the codes
Australia’s bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup will be an unprecedented test case for the undeclared, so called ‘war of the codes’ in this country.
For the first time in the history of football’s long struggle to gain a foothold as a relevant sport in Australian society, football actually needs the help and co-operation of its so-called rival codes to take a giant step forward.
The country’s two most powerful winter sports competitions, the AFL and the NRL would either have to interrupt their campaigns for perhaps two months in mid-season or undergo massive dislocation by losing their biggest and most popular venues.
The World Cup finals will run from the second week in June to the second week in July. Add another two weeks at either end for venue preparation, reparation, various contingencies and the like and the venues are likely to be required for the FIFA event for eight weeks.
With venues like the MCG, Telstra Dome, ANZ Stadium, the SFS and Suncorp Stadium poised as World Cup stadia, the AFL and NRL competitions will either have to go into a two-month mid-season sabbatical or transfer their games to more modest, suburban grounds.
The former is more likely than the latter, but in either case the World Cup organising hosts, the FFA, will rely on the generous co-operation of two large, powerful but increasingly insecure sports living in fear of football’s rampaging progress.
Given the might of the World Cup’s appeal in Australia, as shown by the way the country was galvanised by the 2006 event, and what a home-hosted World Cup would do to advance the esteem of football, such co-operation from the two giants, to give football a leg up, is just about unthinkable.
But should it be? Do Aussie rules and rugby league have so much to fear from football that they should go so devilishly against the national interest and refuse co-operation?
In my view, no.
The war between football and the other ‘codes’ has always been a phoney one and remains that more than ever today.
Football presents no threat to AFL and the NRL and never has, at least not to their traditional popularity and place. There’s no better evidence for this than what has gone on in the past three years.
In that period the A-League’s attendances have grown at a healthy pace. But ironically so have the crowds of AFL and the NRL. Similar can be said of television audiences. In other words football, for all its growth in appeal, is not eating into the markets of Aussie rules and rugby league.
As Frank Lowy, football’s chief, told SBS recently: “We don’t want to threaten anybody. We just want to be successful in our own right.”
Which is perfectly possible if it is conceded that there need not be a turf war. There is enough turf for everybody, even in a country with 21 million people.
The most likely quarter from which a stumbling block will be put before the World Cup bid is the AFL. This is the body which, according to folklore, had its hierarchy opening bottles of champagne every time soccer, in the bad old soccer days, shot itself in the foot. They, at AFL headquarters, apparently still tremble in fear of football’s potential and what its global might do to their sport.
The right advice to them is that they should relax and get a life.
There is no evidence that football is a threat to Aussie rules or is ever likely to be, especially as a deep-rooted institution in its traditional regions. ‘Australian football’, and the obsession it enjoys in Melbourne and across the south of the continent, is just about unshakeable and one doubts if anything will ever change it.
Where the AFL feels more realistically threatened is in its ambition to expand and go beyond its traditional realm. In this it has some time ago declared war not just on football but also on rugby league.
It desperately wants to nationalise its game and lift it to the status of being Australia’s one true national sport, spending massive volumes of money on junior recruitment and expanding its league.
In this it will fail.
For one, rugby league will present insurmountable resistance, so deeply entrenched that sport is in the sporting traditions of the eastern states. I mean, imagine a fixture like rugby league’s State of Origin dying in Sydney or Brisbane, wimply acquiescing to the superior appeal of Aussie rules games between, say, Collingwood and the Swans.
But the major road block will come from football. The game’s global appeal, in a globalised world, is so broad and powerful, no amount of money the AFL derives from television rights will be enough to persuade the grassroots millions to defy its conquering magnetism.
The wisest thing for the AFL to do, and the NRL with it, is to collaborate, stand aside, protect what it has, and support Australia’s World Cup bid in the broad national interest.
But saying that is easy. Convincing the AFL and NRL of it will be the hard part.
------------------
Les Murray speaks the truth.
Soccer is no threat to Aussie Rules.
There is enough turf for everyone. No need to fight each other for it
Australia’s bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup will be an unprecedented test case for the undeclared, so called ‘war of the codes’ in this country.
For the first time in the history of football’s long struggle to gain a foothold as a relevant sport in Australian society, football actually needs the help and co-operation of its so-called rival codes to take a giant step forward.
The country’s two most powerful winter sports competitions, the AFL and the NRL would either have to interrupt their campaigns for perhaps two months in mid-season or undergo massive dislocation by losing their biggest and most popular venues.
The World Cup finals will run from the second week in June to the second week in July. Add another two weeks at either end for venue preparation, reparation, various contingencies and the like and the venues are likely to be required for the FIFA event for eight weeks.
With venues like the MCG, Telstra Dome, ANZ Stadium, the SFS and Suncorp Stadium poised as World Cup stadia, the AFL and NRL competitions will either have to go into a two-month mid-season sabbatical or transfer their games to more modest, suburban grounds.
The former is more likely than the latter, but in either case the World Cup organising hosts, the FFA, will rely on the generous co-operation of two large, powerful but increasingly insecure sports living in fear of football’s rampaging progress.
Given the might of the World Cup’s appeal in Australia, as shown by the way the country was galvanised by the 2006 event, and what a home-hosted World Cup would do to advance the esteem of football, such co-operation from the two giants, to give football a leg up, is just about unthinkable.
But should it be? Do Aussie rules and rugby league have so much to fear from football that they should go so devilishly against the national interest and refuse co-operation?
In my view, no.
The war between football and the other ‘codes’ has always been a phoney one and remains that more than ever today.
Football presents no threat to AFL and the NRL and never has, at least not to their traditional popularity and place. There’s no better evidence for this than what has gone on in the past three years.
In that period the A-League’s attendances have grown at a healthy pace. But ironically so have the crowds of AFL and the NRL. Similar can be said of television audiences. In other words football, for all its growth in appeal, is not eating into the markets of Aussie rules and rugby league.
As Frank Lowy, football’s chief, told SBS recently: “We don’t want to threaten anybody. We just want to be successful in our own right.”
Which is perfectly possible if it is conceded that there need not be a turf war. There is enough turf for everybody, even in a country with 21 million people.
The most likely quarter from which a stumbling block will be put before the World Cup bid is the AFL. This is the body which, according to folklore, had its hierarchy opening bottles of champagne every time soccer, in the bad old soccer days, shot itself in the foot. They, at AFL headquarters, apparently still tremble in fear of football’s potential and what its global might do to their sport.
The right advice to them is that they should relax and get a life.
There is no evidence that football is a threat to Aussie rules or is ever likely to be, especially as a deep-rooted institution in its traditional regions. ‘Australian football’, and the obsession it enjoys in Melbourne and across the south of the continent, is just about unshakeable and one doubts if anything will ever change it.
Where the AFL feels more realistically threatened is in its ambition to expand and go beyond its traditional realm. In this it has some time ago declared war not just on football but also on rugby league.
It desperately wants to nationalise its game and lift it to the status of being Australia’s one true national sport, spending massive volumes of money on junior recruitment and expanding its league.
In this it will fail.
For one, rugby league will present insurmountable resistance, so deeply entrenched that sport is in the sporting traditions of the eastern states. I mean, imagine a fixture like rugby league’s State of Origin dying in Sydney or Brisbane, wimply acquiescing to the superior appeal of Aussie rules games between, say, Collingwood and the Swans.
But the major road block will come from football. The game’s global appeal, in a globalised world, is so broad and powerful, no amount of money the AFL derives from television rights will be enough to persuade the grassroots millions to defy its conquering magnetism.
The wisest thing for the AFL to do, and the NRL with it, is to collaborate, stand aside, protect what it has, and support Australia’s World Cup bid in the broad national interest.
But saying that is easy. Convincing the AFL and NRL of it will be the hard part.
------------------
Les Murray speaks the truth.
Soccer is no threat to Aussie Rules.
There is enough turf for everyone. No need to fight each other for it
