The English Football Pyramid And The American Dream

In an unrelated forum that has nothing to do with sports, I was chatting with an American who thought “Soccer” was an un-American and socialist game

However I will state the opposite to be true and in fact the way the English structure the football leagues does more to represent the American dream more than any American sports

The idea that opportunity for prosperity, success and social mobility and the idea that ""life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth." is a fundamental part of how Football is run in England. Football in England is an allegory to free enterprise, individualism and a "can do" spirit.

So how does the pyramidal system of football work in England?

There are 22 levels of football in England that contains 140 leagues and more than 7000 clubs. At the top of the pyramid is the spectacular rich grandeur of the English Premier League (EPL), the richest and most glamorous Football league in Europe. At the bottom of the pyramids are local park amateur teams of essentially bunch of friends getting together of having a game of football on the weekend. Every level of football in this pyramid are connected by promotion and relegation where the team that wins the league (sometimes 2nd and 3rd place team) gets promoted to the next level of the pyramid while the team that finish bottom (sometimes 2nd bottom and 3rd bottom) gets relegated to the level below the pyramid. So essentially the top of the English Premier League is connected via promotion and relegation straight down to the grass roots.

So what's so great about this system and how does it connect to the American Dream?

1. If you work hard, you can make it to the top

By connecting the grassroots with the superstardom of the EPL . Every single club in the pyramid, if they have the ability and work hard enough, they can reach the top. Every single club can dream of playing against Manchester United, Liverpool to win the English Premier League. This is because there is a clear progression from the bottom of the pyramid to the top of the pyramid and has a clear set path of social mobility allowing newly form club opportunity to strike it rich.

This pyramid is clearly a representation of the dream that many American wish for of starting a small business and making it big.

2. The barriers of entry is low

The barrier of entry to the Football pyramid is low. Any person who has access to a park to play football and have a bunch of mates can create a club and join the football league. Of course, the more money and the more fanbase and the better football ground the higher the level they let you join the league and clubs that stat of as amateurs, semi-professional and fully professional joins at different stages. However even a person with modest resources can form a football club and participate in the pyramid. This easily represents the ideal vibrant competitive marketplace where the barrier of entry is low that allows anyone with entrepreneur ambition to easily join.

3. No restriction of ambitions

There is no salary cap there is no wealth distribution and there is no draft. It is merely up to each individual club to sign whatever players and staff they can afford and the sky is the limit and there is only small limitation (due to the recent un-American Financial Fair Play) to what resources clubs are allowed to use. This freedom ensures that football is played to the maximum of their ability and to ensure the "pursuit of excellence" in sports is maximised. If you are successful, you aren't punish for the success by having your wealth redistributed to other teams nor will you lose players that help you succeed by unable to pay them the increase in salary they deserve due to salary cap constraints. Clearly this is reflective of the free enterprise that defined America.

4. No incentives for failure

It is open secret that with leagues where there are drafts that "rewards" teams that fail that tanking is prevalent. NBA in the United States have been bogged by tanking allegations with team deliberately not trying hard to maximises the chance of gaining a good draft pick allocated by the governing body.

Is there anything more un-American than that? This is essentially the equivalent of welfare cheat slacking off to get welfare payments from the government and leeching of the success of other people.

Even for sports where there is no draft. The worst thing that could happen in finishing last is that you get to try again the year later.

However in this football pyramid there is absolutely no incentive to play poorly and the consequences is dire. You finish bottom and you get relegated to the next division where you are exposed to much less revenue. Not only is this entertaining for fans where relegation battles are just as entertaining and tension filled as the battle for first place. The pyramid creates a culture of ruthless competition and accountability. Bad management will not be covered up by wealth redistribution and draft picks. The consequences of failure ensure the highly competitive nature that ensures the high standard of football being played in the country.

5. No regards to class, history, circumstances of birth

Imagine if major sporting clubs with a rich history such as Boston Celtics or the New York Yankees have a poor season due to poor management. Due to that poor season, they get relegated and the NBA and MLB have a season where they aren't present at all as they are stuck playing in lower divisions.

It's unthinkable isn't it but that's the reality that football in England face. Sheffield FC the oldest Football club in the world is playing in the 8th division of the football pyramid. Nottingham Forest the first English club to win back-to-back European cups has been playing in the 2nd and 3rd division in England. Leeds United one of the biggest clubs in England have been playing in the 2nd and 3rd division.  In the past Manchester united was relegated in the 1973/74 seasons.

This is sport at it's purist to adopt the "let the scoreboard decide" mentality that is very much a reflection of "let the market decides' attitude that traditional American culture celebrates.

Of course everything doesn’t last for ever and just as modern American society are lamenting the death of the American dream, there are threats to the English Football pyramid with the un-American “Financial Fair Play” that threatens to limit the ambitions of football clubs in Europe.  Nevertheless Football in England reflects the American dream more than any other sport.

So when you think of what is quintessentially American. Don't think about apple pie, hot dogs, Chevrolet, baseball. Think of Soccer in England

The Psychology Of The Code Wars

Once in a while a Code War article pops up on The Roar and they are generally the most commented article of the day. It is obvious why the code war exist for the CEO of the sporting organization as there are limited resources and the different sports are competing with each other for the share of the market. However, this blog post is trying to analyse why the code war exist for the supporters of the sport who often don’t care much about the economic machination of the people in suits upstairs.

1.      The ties that bind us is the ties that divide us

It is often say that sport is entertainment but although that is an aspect of professional sport, it is a limited definition as video game, movies, TV shows, theatre, music are also entertainment. It could also be argued that sport is any activity that displays any degree of athletic ability but even if that is a component of sport, however people don’t always consider working out in the gym as “sport”. What binds all sports fan together is the love of competition. There have to be individual or teams competing with other individuals and teams. Generally there is a side that represents you and you are supporting that side to defeat the opposition. It is the sense of competition that unites all sports fan together to follow the game but divide us as we are competing with each other. The fact that the codes are all considered to be called a variation of “football” and have historical linkage, it makes the football codes natural competitors.

Also in sports the fans who attend the match often are active participants of the match and often the fans feel they have a role in making their side “win” with their support (such as the home ground advantage phenomenon). It’s not far fetch that people will bring that competitive active support mentality over the internet where they can do battle with the opposition with written words.

Of course this explains why fans of one particular club do battle with a fan of another particular club. However you may ask why they will battle with a completely different sport?

2. The Code War is the internet fandom equivalent of representative football.

The bread and butter of most of the football codes are club football. However once in a while players from two different clubs that could actually be bitter historical rivals suddenly are united  and become brothers in arm to represent their country or state. 

The Code Wars have fans of competing clubs suddenly become brothers in arm arguing against supporters of different codes of football. The code war has a role in developing a sense of unity within the football community when normally they are divided amongst club lines. As a coincidence a code war article general pops up in a similar infrequent but regular occurrence as an international fixture in association football.

This is in combination with the nature of the internet that also adds to the unity where instead of relying on some degree of luck with meeting someone out there with similar interest, the internet allows people to seek out community with similar interest. The resultant is that the internet represents the most hardcore fans of the sporting community where in the general community; people generally have broader taste and have a higher proportion of crosscoders. However in the internet, where you are surrounded by people who are interested in the same sport as you, bring out the club mentality. That this is Club Association Football, Club Australian Rules Football, Club Rugby League, Club Rugby Union. When this club is form, you are going to look out for another club to compete against and the code war article are a lightning rod to demonstrate your loyalty to that club.

Of course, if there is a code war, surely there must be a winner and a loser of the war. Then why does code wars article keep on popping up?

3. Person A: Hey, look at the scoreboard. Person B: Which scoreboard?

Often players on the pitch in response to a sledge will respond in look at the scoreboard if their side is winning.  The same is with fans of two different clubs. Look at the scoreboard. Or look at the ladder or look at the name engraved on the trophy. Sure people may argue about the referee or whether one side cheated but in the end what matters in the end is who is leading in the scoreboard and everything else is academic. Two side debate and the debate is resolve when the match is played or when the season is finish before the cycle is repeated next season.

However what is the scoreboard used to determine who is winning the code war?

Is it crowd attendance aggregate? Is it crowd attendance average? Is it revenue the league makes? Is it the value of the TV rights? Is it the value of the TV rights per game? Is it participation rate? Is it international appeal?

The answer to that question is whatever scoreboard shows your side to be winning. The Code War is essentially a sporting match where there are 20 different scoreboards and each one showing a completely different side is winning and people are arguing which scoreboard they should use.

So people may ask, why do people keep on arguing when there is absolutely no way to definitively determine who is winning the Code War?

4. Everyone is a Winner

The Code War is one of the very few wars where there is no loser. In fact it’s impossible to lose a Code War because there is always a scoreboard out there that shows your side is winning.

Of course I previously mention about measures of the success of a code such as crowd figures or revenue or participation rate which have some degree of objectivity even whether its importance and value can be subjective. Often code war debates revolve around even more  subjective matters such as which game is more entertaining to watch? This type of debate again is something that is impossible to lose. For example to used Association Football and it’s low scoring nature of the game, from one perspective that low scoring makes the game tense as any goal can prove decisive and it makes any attacking move to be a nail biting affair. Or alternatively the lack of goals could make the game really boring as there is a lack of end product to a lot of the play of the game. Which one is right? The answer is both of them are right… from a certain point of view.

Hence two sides will argue against each other and both of them can make perfectly logical arguments without any logical fallacy and then walk away thinking they won the war. You know what they say, everyone loves being a winner. So whenever another code war article pops up, it’s a moth to the flame for any code loyalist whose competitive nature will always be fulfilled as they will always win.

To summarise, the competitive nature of the sporting fan + unity and loyalty to the sports + no objective method to resolve conflict + everyone is a winner will results in a perpetual code war that will never end.

Should the DRS system use sound to dismiss batsman?

This article has been publish on “The Roar” as well

This has been a controversial issue throughout the Ashes. There is a caught behind decision that is referred to the DRS system. Hotspot shows nothing, but there is audio and the batsman are given out. Every time this has occurred there has been controversy with many people arguing that if hotspot shows nothing then the batsman shouldn’t be given out.

However, I disagree with that argument and I support the use of audio in the DRS system.

The reason is that throughout the history of Test cricket, on-field umpires have used a combination of sound and watching any deviation as a guide to dismissed batsman for caught behind decisions. There are many times throughout history where we see batsman being dismissed by on-field umpires based on sound alone for thin edges without any controversy.  Long before hotspot was invented, commentators would often judge the accuracy of the umpire’s decision on whether they can hear a sound during the replay.  

Considering that hotspot is known to have ‘false negatives’, audio should be used to assess whether the batsman has edge or not.  If we used the argument that decision needs a mark to show on hotspot to dismissed the batsman, then we might as well tell the on-field umpire not to used sound of an edge to dismiss batsman as well.  That they should only give a batsman out if they see deviation caused by an edge and therefore only thick edges would ever be given out in cricket.  I doubt many people would accept that umpiring standard in cricket especially when people argue that cricket is too batsman friendly already. It’s a bit hypocritical to demand on-field umpires to hear edges when making a decision whilst at the same time demanding third umpires to ignore sound.

There are a few people who argued that audio can be unreliable as it can hear sound unrelated to the edge like the squeaking of the glove.  However, I’ll argue that same standard could be applied to ignore any sound of the edge by the on-field umpire and hence ignore any audible edge as the audio in the DRS just shows what the umpire hears in the stump microphone. The stump microphones picks up what is going on the field and the chance that out of all the time the glove squeaks just at the moment the ball passes the bat is unlikely. We have to say that on the basis on probability it is far more likely the sound is caused by an edge if the bat is far away from the pad or the ground.  Also umpires can listen to the audio and make the judgment call on whether the audio sounds like a nick.

Now people may wonder that if audio of a nick is given a greater weighting than a blank hotspot then what’s the point of hotspot?

The issue with audio is that it has ‘false positives’ especially when there are issue of bat on pad or ball on pad or bat on ground and it’s difficult to determine what is the source of the sound in the audio.  Hotspot can be used to help determine whether there was a ball on bat impact in those scenarios where audio is unreliable.

I’m hoping that snickometer will eventually be incorporated into DRS. The reason why snickometer is not used in DRS is not necessarily due to inaccuracy but the slowness of the process of getting snicko available to the umpire in a timely manner. Right now snickometer requires a technician to manually sync up the audio from the stump microphone with the video footage and this can take minutes to prepare and since the synchronisation is done manually by a technician it is possible that human error and inconsistency could occur if the technician makes a mistake.

A timely review system requires information in a few seconds and also requires consistent synchronization of audio and video and that isn’t good enough.  However reports are that Alan Plaskett has developed a system called ‘Real Time Snicko’ or RTS, which is an automated system that could produce a snicko-type result within 5-10 seconds which will solve that issue.

There have been calls to introduce RTS to be incorporated in the DRS system and hopefully it will be ready for the Ashes in the Australian summer.  The combination of RTS and Hotspot will assist the umpire in making the correct decision for thin edges and in my opinion would improve the game.

Solid evidence that there’s no media conspiracy against Football

The mainstream media treatment of Football has always been a problem amongst supporters. It always seems like the media is out there looking for and sometimes creating negative story on the game to bring down the game as Football is a main competitor of AFL and NRL. It doesn’t help allay fears of conspiracy when it was demonstrated that Channel 7 in the past tried to bury this game.

Now people may be sick of the whole Ljubo Milicevic controversy and so I’m not going to rehash whether his comments were right and wrong. However, even if you agree with Ljubo, you got to admit that those comments were controversial.

One of my first reactions to watching this interview was that this is going to cause a shitstorm. Sure Ljubo Milicevic is hardly a household name and most Australia doesn’t know who he is but I was sure that wouldn’t have stopped the mainstream media to put the boot in the game. After all if an AFL or NRL captain of a club and said similar comments in the middle of an interview and that interview was publish online for everyone to see than I’m quite sure that would have caused a major controversy. Ljubo may not be famous but the media could have made him famous solely due to this comment.

For the game to be derogatively known as “Wog Ball”, it was a perfect opportunity for the media to reinforce that stereotype that football is only played by “Wogs” and encourage ethnic division. I could imagine headlines such as “Ljubo Racist Row”, I could imagine Rebecca Wilson writing an article about how this is returning to the bad old ethnic division days of the NSL. Cue reports about Soccer shooting itself in the foot. I could imagine Today Tonight doing a hatchet job story and show footage of Ljubo describing the Union Jack as a flag of rapist and pillagers and then asked some war veteran what they think of that comments and then have random people complaining about “Reverse Racism”. Then conservative shock jocks would bag the comment and have viewers calling in the show to express their disgust at him and the game.

What ended up happening was nothing. No articles from any professional journalist. No Today Tonight putting fuel to the fire. No controversy at all.

I’m not too sure whether I should be relieved or offended. On one hand I do feel relieved that this game avoided a massive controversy and that there was no big PR blow for the game. However, I’m also offended that Football is considered such a small fish to fry that they are not going to even bother raking in a controversy.

The lack of controversy hit me in the core of my belief about a conspiracy against Football. That perhaps the newspapers don’t have groups of people searching for negative stories on Football. That Channel 7 no longer determines to wreck Football in Australia. That perhaps Rebecca Wilson doesn’t look for any opportunity to put the game down at any moment. That perhaps the AFL and NRL aren’t out to get us. That maybe there is no media conspiracy against football in this country.

__________

Nah, the media just happened to missed this opportunity this time  :)

Ljubo Milicevic leaves Australia in disgrace

I was watching Ljubo farewell interview in SBS and was finding it mostly entertaining, with his forthright opinions. However, towards the end of the interview, Ljubo pulled out the stunner: “I’m Croatian, I’m not Australian. You guys don’t want me here.”

He justifies this by saying he doesn’t feel any loyalty to the Union Jack as he believes that the flag represents rapists and pillagers; that his backyard has fruit in the trees (like the rest of Australian doesn’t have fruit in their trees); that his father has Croatian music in his CD player and that he was raised as a Croat; that he’s emotional and passionate and relates more with Goran Ivanisevic than Australian sports stars as he finds them dull and boring; that Australians can’t pronounce his name right; and that he is embarrassed about Australia Day, where people use the day as an excuse to get drunk. He also criticises Australia for picking and choosing when migrants are considered to be Australian.

Now, whether you agree or disagree with what he says is kind of irrelevant. In fact, a lot of his supporting statements make a lot of sense to me, but there’s a big leap with agreeing with his supporting statement and then saying, “I’m not Australian.”

You see, the problem with Milicevic is that he has confused negative stereotypes of being Australian. The fact is Australia is a liberal democracy and there’s no precondition in personality or political belief to be Australian.

All you have to be is an Australian citizen to be Australian (to be a good person on the other hand has a lot of conditions, but unfortunately people have a tendency to mix being a good person and Australian up).

About 45 per cent of the population voted yes for the Republic, which shows that a lot of people don’t have loyalty to the Union Jack. However, those people aren’t less Australian than people who voted no. We have a former Prime Minister in Paul Keating who wanted to change the flag to remove the Union Jack. Whether you agree with Keating or not, you can’t say that he isn’t Australian.

There is a lot of Australians who bemoans the fact that sports stars are boring and there are a lot of people who find the frankness of some foreign sports stars to be refreshing as well. I seriously doubt that most people weren’t embarrassed by the Cronulla riots or some of the past treatments of Aborigines as well.

His statements about the Union Jack being a flag of rapist and pillagers are just outright offensive and racist due to its gross generalisation. There isn’t a single country in the world that doesn’t have rapist and pillagers and there is no evidence that the United Kingdom and their respective colonies are pillaging any more than any other country in the world. I’m quite sure most countries’ flag would become symbols of atrocity if we go through past histories, and I’m not too sure why the Union Jack has to be singled out for that.

There are also Australians who don’t support Australia Day and cringe at the excessive alcohol that is drunk on that day. In fact, there are certain groups on the left who believe that Australia Day should be changed to another day in respect for Aborigines as we shouldn’t be celebrating the day England colonised Australia. Other countries with Indigenous cultures don’t do that. Now whether you agree with those views or not, it doesn’t make you any less Australian.

He says that he was raised as a Croat. Well Australia is a multicultural country that doesn’t discourage people from expressing their cultural identity and doesn’t overtly discourage people behaving differently to the mainstream. Therefore, contrary to his statement, that is a very Australian upbringing. I also find it strange that he justifies his status as a Croatian because he listens to Croatian music, has a cellar and has fruit in the trees in his garden. It seems an overly simplistic summary of Croatian culture.

I do agree with him that Australia does have double standards in terms of how they treat migrants. If migrants are successful, they are Australian. If the migrants commit crime or fail, they are ethnic, when, in reality, the success and failure of migrant communities are a reflection of Australian culture just as much as the success and failure of the wider community are reflection of Australian culture. After all, Martin Bryant is just as Australian as Don Bradman. This type of double standards encourages nationalistic thinking that Australia equals good values and foreigner equals bad values. However, having problems and criticising Australian culture doesn’t stop you from being Australian as Australia is a liberal democracy.

I also believe that he is being overly sensitive on Australians being unable to pronounce his name. The Chinese have been in Australia since the gold rush in the 19th century, however I doubt Milicevic will be able to pronounce the names of most traditional Chinese names as he doesn’t know the Chinese language.

If you don’t know the language of a particular country, then it is expected that people will find it difficult to pronounce names of people coming from those countries. It is expected that the European countries have a far more developed language education due to the closed borders with countries that speak a completely different language, and therefore it makes sense that people in Europe are more likely to be able to pronounce his name more accurately than people in Australia. Nevertheless, I’m quite sure if you become friends with people, eventually they will get your name right.

It’s a shame that Ljubo could only make friends within his own ethnic culture as he boast that there are “no Anglos” at his BBQ. It’s a shame that he couldn’t find someone of an Anglo background with similar political and social values that he can relate with, but I’m quite sure his negative assumptions of Anglo culture prevents him from doing that.

I felt sad watching the interview with Ljubo as we see a person rejecting a country where he has lived for most of his life. Australia gave him his education and a football education.

I do believe that Ljubo got it completely wrong in his announcement that he isn’t Australian. I also believe that Ljubo revealed his racism by picking and choosing negative attributes to summarise the entire Australian culture.

However, I don’t completely blame Ljubo because the worst feeling I have watching the video is the realisation that perhaps the nationalists have won; that perhaps the idea that being Australian, you have to have a narrow specific personality and political values is so widespread, that people outside the mainstream such as Ljubo end up agreeing with the nationalists that to be Australian you have to have these certain values.

Therefore, he and other like minded individuals agree with the nationalists that they aren’t Australian and therefore fuel criticism of migration and how they don’t integrate within Australian society.

Hopefully Ljubo’s attitude to what it means to be Australian is not widespread across the community.

_______

Note: Ljubo Milicevic himself has responded to this article

How we could have made our 2022 bid video a winner

Obviously there was more to winning the 2022 World Cup bid than the bid video, but Australia surely didn’t leave a good final impression with their presentation and were rightly criticised for it. Here are some of my suggestions on how Australia could improve the final presentation.

1. More Australianisms
Okay, so they got the jumping kangaroo and Uluru but what about other classic Australian icons? We should also have seen other classic Australianisms such as “shrimp on the barbie”. As shown by this ad   “We love football, meat pies, kangaroo and Holden car” and this is the direction the bid video should be focusing on (of course referring to Association Football instead of AFL).

How can we not show classic Australian legends such as Don Bradman and Phar Lap? They certainly should have shown those two during the montage about how we Australians love sports.
What about classic Australian sayings such as “fair suck of the sav”, how we are a “lucky country”, and that we will put in the “hard yakka” to make this World Cup well organised and promise that we will display our “Aussie spirit” if it comes down under?
We also should have had the song “A Land Down Under” playing in the background throughout the bid video.

2. Replace Skippy with a Crocodile
Although we should definitely have a kangaroo throughout the montage, I felt a better character to steal the World Cup would be a crocodile.
Why you ask? Well we have Paul Hogan chasing the thief, haven’t we?
Instead of having Paul Hogan disguised with a helmet, he should have dressed in his traditional Crocodile Dundee outfit “hunting” down the crocodile who stole the World Cup. Imagine the hilarity of having Crocodile Dundee hunting the crocodile across the Australian outback.
At the end we can have Paul Hogan finishing the cartoon crocodile off like we see in the movies. After all, a bit of action never hurts any movie.

3. Sex sells

According to undercover reporter’s footage of former FIFA secretary-general Michel Zen-Ruffinen, he claimed that some Executive committee members can be bought off with money and woman with him quoted of saying “X is nice, he's a nice guy, but X is money.”, “He's the guy you can have with the ladies and not with money."

It’s quite obvious that Australia couldn’t compete with Qatar with money so therefore Australia has to target the FIFA Executive Committee members who are influence by woman and not money to stand a chance of winning the bid

So in the bid video we should demonstrate to the world that us Aussie have the hottest ladies in the world and having woman in bikini playing Football on the beach.

Julia Gillard should announce in her cameo with a promise that the oldest occupation in the world – prostitution – would be legal in Australia in all states by 2022.

Also mention that we were previous successful host of Miss Nude Universe Pageant. Instead of sending Executive Committee members with bottle of wine, we should have used have used some of the $43 million tax payers funded money in hiring “escort services”.

4. Make better use of Elle McPherson
Related to point three, it was obvious that Elle McPherson was there was to add a bit of sexiness and glamour to the proceeding. So they should have just show select footage of her “acting” in the movie “Sirens”. That would sure get the attention of the quite elderly Executive committee members.

5. Make sure everyone knows how great Frank Lowy is
There was a segment where Frank Lowy tells his rag to riches story and where Elle McPherson keeps on telling the audience how great Frank Lowy is and how he is a hero and how much he has done for the game.
Well during that speech we should have a halo appearing above Frank’s head and have him entering the stage under a bright white light just to emphasise her point.
Hell, he would certainly do a better job than Morgan Freeman at playing god.

6. We don’t like the English as well
It’s quite obvious that the English aren’t particularly well liked throughout FIFA. We should have used that to our advantage to show them that the English aren’t particularly well liked throughout Australia as well. You can’t show Australian culture without us cursing the “whingeing pom”.
We should have Craig Foster telling us his history of Australian Football where the English mafia has held back the game with their archaic style of football and that’s why Australia is a third world Football nation.
It was only the influence of ethnic clubs from continental Europe and us hiring foreign coaches (such as Rale Rasic and Guus Hiddink), as well as SBS influencing the population by promoting “joga bonito” which was played by South Americans, and our entrance in Asia that made Australia competitive in Football.
Craig should tell the world that it was our abandonment of Anglo culture that made us qualify for three World Cups. We blame England for why we aren’t superpowers of the game.
This will surely get us onside with the other 21 Executive Committee members.

7. Show us the legacy of the World Cup in Australia
We have to show the world what the World Cup would achieve in Australia. Therefore there should be footage of AFL and Cricket matches being played in front of full crowds in even larger stadiums then what they currently have.

8. Johnny Warren’s legacy
It was a disgrace that our greatest Football hero wasn’t mention in the bid video. Therefore at the end of the video presentation there should show Australia winning the World Cup at home, holding the World cup trophy with Johnny Warren face appearing from the sky watching down on us saying, “I Told You So”.

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Epilogue
I know that we didn’t lost the bid due to the video but at least if we got the bid video right we would have been eliminated with our dignity still intact.

I honesty think the bid video was a disaster and made us a laughing stock. It's like Australia was stuck with 80's Australian cliche and the video had very little to do with Football. There was also overly gratuitous used of celebrities that had no connection with Football. When the motorcycle driver caught up with "Skippy" and started to take off his helmut, I actually thought it was going to be Cahill or another Australian Footballer who will return the World Cup back to FIFA and I was gobsmacked when it turned out to be Paul Hogan and comfirmed that this video was almost embarrass in showing any of the members of the Socceroos. It made us look like a footballing backwater nations. The whole presentation was so bad that it was more a parody of Australia rather then advertising this country to host the World Cup.

Frank Lowy commented that the people at FIFA thought it was funny but I have a feeling that they were laughing at us rather then with us.

One of the thing overlook in the common criticism of the video presentations was the narcicism displayed by Frank Lowy. I think Lowy is a hero of Australian football and it’s true that he did so much for the game in Australia. However this wasn’t the moment to be showing the world that as the bid is not about Frank Lowy but Australia as a football nation. Having Elle Mcpherson started going off about how much of a hero Frank Lowy was just astoundingly bad and it seems like it was presenting to the world that the World Cup bid was a platform to glorify Frank Lowy rather then for the benefit of Australian Football.

Also on The Roar (edited) http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/12/15/how-2022-bid-presentation-could-have-looked/

‘A Day In The Life’ Of The Code Wars On The Roar

Note: This was submitted for The Roar but was rejected due to inflammatory nature of it. It was an understandable decision even though I tried to make fun of both sides equally.

This is a summary of the World Cup bid controversy over the last year. No more need to read the comments section of The Roar’s World Cup article ever again.

Association Football Fan: If we win the World Cup, this will be a big boost to the game. Football will finally dominate the sporting landscape and challenge the AFL in terms of popularity. It will be the day when Australia will become a Football nation and we will be telling you “I told you so” to all the people who doubted us. All the other handball codes will slide into obscurity as we will join the rest of the world in becoming a football nation. After all football is popular therefore it must be the best game in the world. Only Football can bring the world together united by one game. It’s a great way to learn about other cultures and have a broader perspective on the world. After all, there’s so much we can learn about a culture just by watching their Football team play.

Aussie Rules Fan 1: Yeah right, soccer is a minority sport in this country only played by immigrants and kids with overprotective mothers and will remain this way irrespective if the World Cup bid was won. When the kid grows up and stops clinging to their teats of their mother they will grow out of soccer and play real manly games like Australian Football. Once the World Cup circus is over, people will go back and follow their code of football. It’s simply not part of Australian culture. Using taxpayer’s money to assist a foreign game in these World Cup bids who are competitor of local products like Aussie Rules is simply unAustralian.  So stop your cultural cringe by following the McDonalds of sport and support the superior local products. After all, the game is Australian and therefore must be the best game in the world.

Association Football Fan: Haha typical racist myopic insular response from an AFL fan. I can “smell the fear” from them as when the World Cup arrives in Australia they will see how the importance and popularity of the World Game will dwarf over the insignificant sport only played by one country. Why else would AFL fans comment on a Football bid, unless they fear the imminent demise of their game due to the threat of the World Cup bid. Is AFL so boring and produce so little excitement and issue that you rather comment on a Football thread then discuss your own game that you claim to like?

(Meanwhile in an Aussie Rules thread)

Association Football Fan: AFL is a joke because of grand final replay/poaching players from Rugby League/three strikes policy/scandals/allegation of tanking etc

(Back to the World Cup bid)

Association Football Fan: Even though AFL is an insignificant sport, if we lose the bid it is because the AFL has sabotage it

Aussie Rules Fan 1: How has it sabotage it? AFL had contractual leases to the MCG and Etihad Stadium. If FFA wanted to use those stadiums in the World Cup then surely AFL should be able to name their price to allow FFA and FIFA to have access to it. Why should we give away our assets to our competitors without compensation?

Rugby League Fan: Hey, this World Cup bid is going to affect us too.

(Both sets of fan ignores the Rugby League Fan)

Association Football Fan: Because it’s for the good of this country. This World Cup bid will bring out numerous economic benefits to Australia in terms to boost of infrastructure and influx of tourism. It’s a goldmine for our economy and our future prosperity. It should be expected to sacrifice yourself for the greater good of this country. After all that’s what Chinese government would expect if they were hosting the World Cup.

Aussie Rules Fan 1: The proposed economic effect is incredibly dubious

(This is followed by lengthy debates about the economic benefits of the World Cup with both sides posting up economic reports to support their stance and debates over the independence of the report)

Aussie Rules Fan 1: Really they should call this the Soccer World Cup if it’s hosted here in Australia. After all the rest of the world should call the name Soccer in Australia to respect our culture as to describe Association Football as Football is very offensive to us Aussies.

Association Football Fan: Don’t be daft, the game is called Football and not soccer. After all the rest of the world calls the game Football and we used our foot more in this game whilst other codes used their hands more. Only we can call the game Football, the other codes should call it Handball.

Aussie Rules Fan 1: This is Australia not the rest of the World. In Australia, majority of the population call the game soccer and when they say football they are referring to either Aussie rules or Rugby codes depending on what state you are from. By calling Association Football, Football you’re adding confusion to the Australian language. After all, once I accidentally went to watch an A-league game because I thought it was an Aussie Rules game. If Soccer Australian didn’t change their name and start branding the game Football, I would have never have had that confusion.

(This starts a lengthy debate about the origins of the word Soccer, the prevalence of soccer in English speaking nations, how goals can only be scored of the foot in AFL etc)

Aussie Rules Fan 2: Hey I don’t support this World Cup bid as well as it is a waste of money.

Association Football Fan: Shut up Aussie Rules Fan 1. Why are you changing your avatar? After all it’s impossible for you to be another person as there’s only one person in this world who oppose the World Cup bid.

Naïve Person: Hey stop fighting guys. All codes can coexist and live together in harmony. We all want the same thing which is to promote physical activity and reduce obesity and it’s health related problems in Australia. If we work together then we can finally win the war against obesity and physical inactivity. Sherrin and Jabulani can go together in harmony

Both Sets Of Fan: Shut up!