'Footy, not soccer' - kids urged

[Riggy1]

Judd @ Carlton earns more than Aloisi @ Sydney

 

[Rutherford Hayes]

But if you're an elite soccer player and an elite football player, you've got a better chance of making a decent living (i.e $200k a year plus) playing in the AFL than sticking with soccer.

It's pretty easy to go to China or Turkey from the A-League and make a mint these days.

 

[Munga]

You hear people say both games can co-exist, and I'm one of those. However it seems it's the AFL heads who are saying "choose a side", and forcing kids to play footy. It's moronic.

 

[Rutherford Hayes]

Judd @ Carlton earns more than Aloisi @ Sydney

Only if you count the shifty stuff that goes on outside of the club. Aloisi gets $1.4m a year as Sydney marquee.

 

[Zvim]

I really like international soccer, I can watch pretty much any meaningful international game (some qualifiers are not so great). World Cup is probably the best sporting event in sports. Olympics is just tripe now.

EPL is a fantastic standard of Soccer to watch, you have the best players in the world in that league. Some other Euro comps have some great teams but don't have as much depth in talent across the board.

EPL is probably the best soccer quality league and I don't mind watching those games.

Our D-League is just laughably pathetic, any decent player we have is not playing here. We import no-name hacks from countries and as soon as they become any good they piss off to a half decent league.

Soccer will never be a threat here while our league is the toilet of international soccer.

 

[Rob]

It's pretty easy to go to China or Turkey from the A-League and make a mint these days.

You still have to be a decent player to get picked up. An fringe A-League player isn't going to be wanted by many overseas clubs, and certainly won't get paid 'a mint'.

 

[vinnie]

AFL has higher average salaries - agree.

Soccer (A-league) has the highest salary of all (Jason Culina). You could probably also add in Soccer's Chipperfiled if he joins Townsville.

But in the end, you have to admit for all the might, chest beating of the AFL and its supposed position as the leading dominant footy code in Australia, it doesn't even pay the highest salaries?

Judd's salary, for all his media coverage and media portrayal as the golden boy of Aussie rules, get's less than an unknown Jason Culina in a second rate, boring 4-year old comp called the A-league.

Is that not slightly odd? Shouldn't the dominating code pay the highest for its most elite? Very embarressing.

 

[Beckers]

The AFL's fear of Soccer is really begining to annoy me. Also what they fail to realise is that by softening the game up all they are doing is making the game similar to soccer and thus alienating the existing fans. They are not getting any more fans with these stupid rule changes.

Edited for accuracy!!!

What you say is the general opinion of the die hard AFL fans!!! If they soften it up any further, we may as well follow Soccer instead or watch NRL/Storm for our weekend footy fix!

 

[Rob]

AFL has higher average salaries - agree.

Soccer (A-league) has the highest salary of all (Jason Culina). You could probably also add in Soccer's Chipperfiled if he joins Townsville.

But in the end, you have to admit for all the might, chest beating of the AFL and its supposed position as the leading dominant footy code in Australia, it doesn't even pay the highest salaries?

Judd's salary, for all his media coverage and media portrayal as the golden boy of Aussie rules, get's less than an unknown Jason Culina in a second rate, boring 4-year old comp called the A-league.

Is that not slightly odd? Shouldn't the dominating code pay the highest for its most elite? Very embarressing.

No. Because it's to do with the set up of the salary caps in each respective league. A-League clubs can pay a player outside the cap, AFL clubs can't. Judd would be on over $2 million a year if they could.

The fact that an AFL club's salary cap is around 4 times that of an A-League club should be a better indicator of salaries than just 1 or 2 players, especially when those example players are earning many times as much as the next best paid player in the team.

 

[vinnie]

Semantics, excuses, what if's again. By the same Judd token, if A-league didn't have a salary cap how can you argue Archie Thompson wouldn't get offered more than $2 million to join Clive palmer's Gold Coast (as a cap player alongside Ciulina)?

Nobody knows so lets not pander to excuses and stick to the facts.

This is the fact - the highest payed footballers are soccer players.

Yes, the highest average belongs to AFL.

You have forgotten that AFL claims to be the dominant code, but it doesn't pay the highest salary. So its a complete joke.

 

[kaypee]

Semantics, excuses, what if's again. By the same Judd token, if A-league didn't have a salary cap how can you argue Archie Thompson wouldn't get offered more than $2 million to join Clive palmer's Gold Coast?

Nobody knows so lets not pander to excuses and stick to the facts.

This is the fact - the highest payed footballers are soccer players.

Yes, the highest average belongs to AFL.

You have forgotten that AFL claims to be the dominant code, but it doesn't pay the highest salary.

ultimately who cares what they get paid? pay aloisi a billion dollars if you want - the a-league is still a lacklustre outpost of a sport that really only shines in europe and south america. afl players are paid what the market has judged them to be worth. soccer players in oz are still caught up in this nether world of spivs and speculation. aloisi isn't worth a tenth of judd or andrew johns or buddy franklin or andrew gaze in terms of bums he puts on seats or what he's done to lift the sport's profile.
frankly, even if soccer did claim the mantle of oz's number sport - which it won't - i'd still rather stand in the outer at the local suburban footy league.

 

[Madtiger2006]

The reason why parents make their kids play soccer is because they think footy it too rough. There's no tackling in footy until they're about 12 years old. The parents have gotta stop being the soft ones

 

[vinnie]

ultimately who cares what they get paid? pay aloisi a billion dollars if you want - the a-league is still a lacklustre outpost of a sport that really only shines in europe and south america. afl players are paid what the market has judged them to be worth. soccer players in oz are still caught up in this nether world of spivs and speculation. aloisi isn't worth a tenth of judd or andrew johns or buddy franklin or andrew gaze in terms of bums he puts on seats or what he's done to lift the sport's profile.
frankly, even if soccer did claim the mantle of oz's number sport - which it won't - i'd still rather stand in the outer at the local suburban footy league.

Yes, that's the kind of response that would eventually come up - matches the intellect of the article at the start of theis thread.

You don't care about soccer, that's fine, its not for everyone. But please realise that it doesn't matter because there are enough other people who do like the game and care about its players. The sell-out soccer crowd at Canberra last night was outstanding - and it was a crap game.

 

[kaypee]

The reason why parents make their kids play soccer is because they think footy it too rough. There's no tackling in footy until they're about 12 years old. The parents have gotta stop being the soft ones

actually, one of the key benefits of my kids playing soccer is that its held at the same field every week. the afl kids (and more imprtantly their parents) have to travel to grounds ranging from yarrabah to port douglas, meaning you wind up driving for hours every weekend.
i assume its different in melbourne etc

 

[Rudi Gilham]

This is the way I like to look at it:

Within Australia we have:

Kangaroo -> AFL

Australia's own, a sporting symbol of Australia. Strong, elegant, iconic.

Rabbit -> NRL

Introduced from England, but has become very popular in certain areas of Australia. The fact is it's a complete rabble, it's feral and most Australians want to get rid of it

Cane Toad -> Soccer

Just like a bloody disease, it seems to spread everywhere, but it's ugly as death and tries to kill the local wildlife.


AFL has every right to fend off other sports. AFL has been a major lifeblood of Melbourne (for example) for a long time and helped build this city into arguably the world's sporting capital. If soccer thinks it can take a piece of that pie, that AFL has worked so hard to maintain, they have another thing coming.

Thank god there are people like you still around who will stick up for our great code Nev.

 

[Rob]

Semantics, excuses, what if's again. By the same Judd token, if A-league didn't have a salary cap how can you argue Archie Thompson wouldn't get offered more than $2 million to join Clive palmer's Gold Coast (as a cap player alongside Ciulina)?

Nobody knows so lets not pander to excuses and stick to the facts.

This is the fact - the highest payed footballers are soccer players.

Yes, the highest average belongs to AFL.

You have forgotten that AFL claims to be the dominant code, but it doesn't pay the highest salary. So its a complete joke.

Speaking of complete jokes, players from which league just lost to Kuwait?

You might have a bit more to worry about than whether a couple of players get paid 20 times more than the league average.

 

[kaypee]

Yes, that's the kind of response that would eventually come up - matches the intellect of the article at the start of theis thread.

You don't care about soccer, that's fine, its not for everyone. But please realise that it doesn't matter because there are enough other people who do like the game and care about its players. The sell-out soccer crowd at Canberra last night was outstanding - and it was a crap game.

it's usually a crap game, but i digress

 

[Rutherford Hayes]

it's usually a crap game, but i digress

So, who's in the Australian squad for the next AFL World Cup? Which AFL club is owned by a billionaire Arab oil baron? Which clubs will be competing the AFL Champions League next season?

Boy, for a crap game, they're sure doing something right.

 

[kaypee]

So, who's in the Australian squad for the next AFL World Cup? Which AFL club is owned by a billionaire Arab oil baron? Which clubs will be competing the AFL Champions League next season?

er, rutherford, is this meant to be a piss take?

 

[Giants FC]

BigFooty needs a "Battle of the Codes" board, where we can all come on and rubbish other games.

 

[jackmac7]

Was amazed to hear that the soccer club up the road has a hundred junior teams, with several hundred kids on the waiting list. What they see in the sport (with the exception that it's played worldwide) still eludes me, but they're queuing up to play it.

Soccer has always had huge participant's in terms of kids and always will. Same with Basketball. I played both when i was a kid. They're perfect sports to teach kids about teamwork, passing etc........ most of those kids are probably Auskick kids too.

It's more of an introduction to sport and having fun with friends.

It's usually around 10 or 12 years old that they get into a contact sport. Kids love the physical side of sport i notice, they just wanna get their knees dirty and get amongst it.

 

[PortAdelaide]

AFL will always be #1

 

[COOOONEY]

Look its pretty simple.....As long as you live in Australia OUR NO.1 CODE IS AFL, if you cant hack it that soccer aint no.1 then head to south america or europe

Both codes can and will co exist, theirs nothing to be scared about soccer or afl....soccer will never catch up on 150 yrs of australian football in Oz and afl will never be as popular world wide as soccer

All the stats and facts still piont towards afl being no.1 not rugby, soccer or league...lets not forget soccer aint even no.2 yet...league still rules most of nsw and qld, they love their league up there

btw I'm a melb victory member

 

[Beckers]

AFL will always be #1

Thanks Nostradamus

 

[Rutherford Hayes]

Look its pretty simple.....As long as you live in Australia OUR NO.1 CODE IS AFL, if you cant hack it that soccer aint no.1 then head to south america or europe

Or, you know... north, to New South Wales and Queensland. Or are they not part of Australia any more?