AFL - Most popular for 2009
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Canberra has produced a number of Socceroos, A-League players and currently has 4 Canberrans in the
Joeys squad.
So when they announced the first Under 13 boys Australian team ever....thirty spots mind you..I
felt sure with thousands of kids playing football, Coerver Coaching, and various Academy and
Clinics around town surely we'd be able to get one or maybe two players into the squad.
Questions to Aussie media and sports fans: What is South Africa's most popular sport?
Cricket? Wrong
Rugby Union? Wrong
AFL..well some Melbourne guys keep telling me it's huge in South Africa? Wrong.
It's football not that you'd ever see it or know it from the Aussie media over the years.
My headline got changed on The Roar site..personally think mine is way more interesting, and indeed
my ending...now it's more mouse than roar.
EPL clubs to play pre-season matches in Australia.
Are you sick of the A-League pre-season cup? Or even AFL and rugby league sides running out against
each other as you wait for the real deal?
"Who's that," said the young girl watching the team in Australian colours fighting the team in
Chinese colours on the telly.
"That's the Matildas," replied the Mum.
Well I saw my friend Tom Sermanni defending the Young Matildas and I know some of the shenanigans
that have gone on in games against the Chinese and North Koreans in the past but what the team did
in response to a player allegedly being tripped, debatable from the footage in my opinion, what the
player and team did is.
The rumors were true (another one), the North American Soccer League is back...kinda.
I know some of you are putting your faces in your hands and groaning, and if you follow
basketball you have a good reason to. The second coming of the once celebrated American Basketball
Association has been nothing short of a complete and utter disaster, just take a look at the list
of defunct ABA teams.
Love him or hate him, you cannot ignore Jose Mourinho, because he is the proverbial moth drawn to
the media spotlight. This recent FIFA International Break found the Special One in the United
States as he prepared for the World Football Challenge, which will be occurring here this summer.
While paving the way [.
OK so Tim Cahill popped up and scored 2 brilliant goals. But it was Carle who was magnificent and
clearly wasted in the biff of the English championship (although he also showed he has learnt a bit
of that).
And the game was it slow? No way. We need to get over this idea than anything less than end-to-end
is dull.
The Roar is going to become the Brisbane Roar. No point in debating the marketing merits, the FFA
has decided that the change is necessary to move football supporters outside the State capital
behind North Queensland or the Gold Coast. My preference would have been to drop the location and
allow fans from Toowoomba or Rockhampton to continue without concern for a location based tribal
membership.
Philly MLS fans meet your new president. The man certainly has sports experience having worked with
Nick Sakiewicz at the Tampa Bay Mutiny, the XFL's Orlando Rage and the AFL's Tampa Storm. Please
join us in welcoming Tom back to the MLS show.
"For example, in Victoria this year, Football Federation Victoria had to turn away more
than 10,000 people from playing football because of the lack of available facilities."
Taken from the FFA
submission to the Government Sport Panel report
When you look at the Statistics showing which states boys and girls play football in, the numbers
in NSW are huge compared to Victoria.
The weekends AFL crowd violence seemed to have been missed by many sports commentators. Funny they
never seem to miss any football "riots."
Bottles were thrown in Adelaide at the St. Kilda/Adelaide Crows game with at least one twelve year
old boy hit.
A Collingwood Dad bashed in Melbourne by three AFL fans after the game
Of course each report had a little dig at the "soccer violence creeping into our game.
Rugby union in Australia consolidated and then expanded. Mining money from Western Australia,
reputed to be backed by South African expats, formed the Western Force. In doing so, stripped some
of the best players and the young up-and-comers from the other 3 Australian teams. Result,
Australian club teams are not competitive in the Super 14 and there is barely life in the domestic
(local teams only) competition.
Socceroos have qualified for the third time at the biggest tournment in World sport and the Daily
Telegraph's Ben English is criticising the attendance at tonights game.
Now that is a bigger crowd than the League Centenary test, promoted just a tad, bigger than the
Wallabies v Baa Baa's, promoted widely with SBW and co, and bigger than the AFL v Ireland, but the
guy wants to have a go.
Interesting to see the Japanese national newspaper advertising at the ANZ Stadium last
night...guess that doesn't happen in the AFL or Rugby League.
>
What are News Limited afraid of? Some very strange articles are appearing out of that newspaper
regarding football.
They, clearly, are deliberately running the game down, using non-football language and generally
abusing anything non-Australia.
Pim is un-Australian, the Bahrainians players names are mocked.
Great to hear that the first person to ring Frank Lowy to congratulate him on Socceroos qualifying
for the 2010 World Cup was fmr football boss and head of Australian Rugby Union...John O'Neill. We
need more of this.
And even Andrew Dimitriou, (see quote below) AFL Supremo has come out and has said AFL supports the
Aussie World Cup bid.
American readers of The Offside will be well aware of the football vs football, soccer vs NFL
battle. They'll also know that - in the short term at least - it's not a battle that's winnable on
a national level. If there was ever a conflict of interest, the NFL juggernaut would likely crush
MLS [...]
AFL might not exist in Canberra in any real form, but you have to hand it to a code that can
sell-out the MCG for a game between two suburbs on a thursday night and then expect to sell-out the
next night as well.br /br /For the life of me I've no ideabr /br /span id="fullpost"br
/For the life of me I've no idea quite why the game is quite as popular as it is in Melbourne (I've
always lived in Canberra and AFL news is pretty scare here), particular when all other codes in
Australia do well to get a crowd of 30,000 plus for any league/union/football club game.
It's Canberra of course..with the highest percentage of registered players. Surely a base to build
long-term local football support for an A-League side...
but NSW have 232,000 players whereas Victoria has just 37,000 players. Now we know the Vic's won't
allocate pitches to football, away from their beloved AFL but the difference in numbers between the
two states is incredible.
Great story on the front of the Sydney Morning Herald re:the development of football in the
Indigenous Communities of the Northern Territory.
With Borrolloola, 1000km from Darwin, the boys are already competing Internationally in the Arafura
games this week, against East Timor, Macau and Aceh.
It's back, sponsored and organised by Coerver. Adrian Haynes fmr Primary School teacher has taken
up the reigns empty since Chris Conti retired.
But they need more schools! So tell your teacher who may support AFL, Union and League; tell them
that their kids want to represent their school in the sport they play most.
AFL, Rugby Union and the relatively poor Rugby League stars can only dream of the sort of reward
footballers get for playing their game.
Harry Kewell, Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill and Mark Schwarzer, can expect up to $2 million in
sponsorships prior to the World Cup, according to the World Game website today.
These days, the A-League average (salary) is more than $100,000 — a marked increase
in a few short years on the sort of wages that were offered (and often not paid by bankrupt clubs)
in the old National Soccer League.
Michael Lynch writing in The Age looks at where the A-League can source their next players from.
The news that Melbourne Victory are set to bid for a Super 15 Rugby Union licence makes so much
sense to me.
AFL and Football should create two teams, one club in West Sydney, and of course the Brumbies one
of the countries smartest business teams are missing a huge opportunity by not bidding for the
A-League4Canberra licence.
AFL Great Ron Barassi says "By 2025 there will only be three professional football codes in
Australia and when of them will be soccer" ( I think he meant football.)
With all the shenanigan in Union and League; the large increase in Union wages now on offer over
the more established League code at a national level will it be one of these codes that suffer.
Canberra Times was full of stories about how much money we should give the AFL to come to
Canberra.
And as Don Furner the Raiders Coach said Brumbies, Raiders, maybe 6 AFL games if Western Sydney get
in and a A-League team, the city can't sustain 4 codes.
So the logical argument is AFL get stuffed!
AFL the darling of Australian sport, here for 150 years and with my beloved St Kilda leading the
way have only
ONE player, one current professional player Sydney Swans Craig Bolton drafted from Canberra in
their league.
One, according to the Canberra Times.
Can that be right?
Now this is scary. The financials are so bad within the Argentine league that next week's scheduled
kickoff has been delayed indefinitely. You know the recent AFL demise began with a suspension of
one season and it doesn't look set to recover. I'm not saying it's going to happen but I'm just
saying that there is an outside chance it could happen.
Interesting article on The Roar today regarding the viability of having the A-League on Free To Air
(FTA) TV. It has generated a substantial amount of discussion amongst the readers and got me
thinking about where I stand on the topic.
Although author Adrian Musolino makes some good points I cannot help but think he has missed a
critical one.
Above: USL W-League action featuring the Los Angeles Legend vs. the Vancouver Whitecaps The
unpredictability of the USL continues. With the signing of the New York team for the 2010 season,
it pushes forward. Maybe they have a better business plan for pro soccer than the critics give them
credit for.
Barry Hall makes an appeal to tamp down all the ugly rubbish that goes on in Aussie Rules games
because he wants the next generation of kids to keep coming and carry on the footy tradition.
Aussie Rules is still the number one sport but there is concern at the huge inroads that soccer
has made.
There will be 6 teams in the A-League Finals this season. That's 6 from 10.
Many football fans are already crying in there beer, saying the sixth team should not be able to
win, it's unAustralian, unfootball..blah blah blah.
Well check out the AFL and NRL. The eigth team is always dumped early from memory.
So the Northern Territory is all AFL in the Indigenous Communities...well it might be but they
never get to play Internationally do they.
And there is one community in the whole of the NT where football, not AFL, dominates and this week
they are playing in an international Tournament.
The boys from Borroloola will be Australia's Indigenous representatives in the International Arafua
Games taking on teams from the Northern Territory, East Timor, Indonesia and Macau.
39,540 rocked up to celebrate Australia's qualification to the World Cup on the coldest Sydney
night of the year.
Sydney's biggest winter sports crowd of the year once again turned out for football.
Wallabies drew 39,600 to their Baa Baa's clash even with SBW spruiking the interest, and of course
this included the bigger playing squads.
When Matt Giteau signed for the Brumbies their was an outpouring of sorts from the Canberra Rugby
fan base, Ben Cousins in AFL joining Richmond had an impressive turnout but 50,000 turning out to
see Kaka as he arrives at the Bernabau outdid them all.
Well unique at least, and bring colour and atmosphere wherever they go.
31,000 turned up to see Celtic trounce the Brisbane Roar 3-0 today at Suncorp. And a Kiwi Chris
Killen got two for the Celts.
And with Fulham and Wolves pulling in around 20,000 and 11,000 this weekend across the wide brown
land clearly the Scottish Champions have slightly more fan power than the English Premier League
clubs; no surprise there.
Football now spend $8 million per year on junior development/grassroots football. A long way from
the AFL's $45 million but lightyears from the old days, and that figure will surely continue to
grow in coming years.
Cottees announcing school football gala days, up to $20,000 for your club for up to three years
from NAB/FFA and now this.
It isn't on the online version, but in today's Courier Mail there is a report, page 89, that Miron
is boycotting A-League promotions because the opening game of the season was swapped from Gold
Coast home to Brisbane home.
It said he missed the Unicef event for Queensland teams, will miss the Sydney season launch and
won't say anything to promote the opener Brisbane v Gold Coast at Lang Park on August 8.
So the favoured Western Sydney bid has collapsed.
In all probability, this is good news for the A-League. It's surely inconceivable that the FFA will
consider the nebulous bid fronted by a Socceroo captain who can't even find a club of his own at
the moment; Canberra is the only realistic option if they are going to expand to twelve teams in
2010/11.
Preview: Why England Lose by Simon Kuper and Stefan SzymanskiDid you know Arsene Wenger has a master's degree in economics? And what has he learnt from it?
Don't buy old players, buy in them their early 20s and sell them as soon as someone offers more
than you think they are worth.
Another insightfull take from the Australian Financial Review:
'.
