Tweet
PATRICK SMITH
Dancing with Lions while skirting real issues
April 24, 2004
THE AFL is mulling over a rule change of some sort to stop players faking injury. Maybe even forcing them not to stage for free-kicks. It has enforced its collusion rule and is gearing for a complete review of the tribunal and its trappings. However it will be some time before much comes of it.
The AFL is presently much too busy on more important things. AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou is secretly embedded in the Brisbane Lions administration. He is hidden in a bottle of Gatorade placed on the desk of Lions chief executive Michael Bowers.
So far he has found a litany of breaches that will each draw a $10,000 fine. It makes damning reading and is indicative of an administration overwhelmed by the labours of running a team that has won three premierships in a row and dropped off $9million in the bank.
An outraged Demetriou has discovered Bowers once picked the phone up in his left hand - $10,000. He placed his pen back on the desk without replacing the cap - $10,000. After re-entering the office, Bowers forgot to bless himself when kneeling in front of a mural of AFL chairman Ron Evans. That's a biggie - $20,000. The entire Brisbane staff was charged with bringing the game into disrepute when one member failed to appear at the daily and moving trooping the AFL colours.
Further fines were raised by Demetriou after he discovered the five-metre statue of himself in his North Melbourne gear that bestrides the Gabba entrance was the subject of tasteless graffiti. It read: "It was the postman's fault". Whatever Demetriou misses, AFL general manager, football operations, Adrian Anderson, has under control. He is in a bottle of Fosters on a shelf in the Brisbane board room.
He has logged one fine. During a recent board meeting one Lions director burped after sipping a particularly frisky can of Pepsi. Make that another $10,000.
Indeed, the AFL officials can afford to waste their time on such nonsense, for the solution to the tribunal system that has so irritated everybody this season is easily fixed. It is shameful that it hasn't happened before this.
The coaches, club administrators and players who profess to love and care for the game ought to take responsibility for it.
The tribunal system does not work to its potential because it is constantly undermined by clubs and players. Players give deliberately vague or misleading evidence. It is normally on the advice of officials. Players should not be forced to incriminate themselves but witnesses should not tell lies. It is called the code of silence and it is as childish as it is damaging.
The men who maintain and guard the code are the same men who lament the standard of umpiring, argue that their players are targeted and point to opponents who should be, and berate the tribunal for inconsistency.
The culture of football is to use and abuse the system and never to protect or respect it. If the tribunal is inconsistent, if decisions rile and dumbfound, then it is the fault of the clubs, not the system. Officials say they love the game but they lust after only what it can give to their club.
It is time for the football community to respect what is right and not what is a rotten culture that operates with winks and shrugs and no conscience at all.
It is time to think about the game and not just tomorrow. It is time to acknowledge that a claim that a young man is a goal umpire from hell is not funny or clever. Had a journalist made a similar remark about a rookie in his first game - the recruit from hell - club officials would seethe that a vulnerable person had been so shabbily treated.
Coaches and officials should stop the self-serving cant about bringing only young men of character into the game and then promptly tell them to collude and lie in tribunals. They might be boys of substance when they arrive but they are quickly taught that honesty is a robe to toss aside when the tribunal door squeaks open.
The tribunal is not on television because the players' association knows that its members would be made to look foolish and the officials who instruct them daft.
Anderson, his department and the tribunal members will review the system at season's end. There may well be changes, for Anderson is having his first look at the tribunal and its workings. You fancy he is not impressed.
He should worry more about members of the football community who care about the game only when it matters to them and not at all when it concerns its future.
Dancing with Lions while skirting real issues
April 24, 2004
THE AFL is mulling over a rule change of some sort to stop players faking injury. Maybe even forcing them not to stage for free-kicks. It has enforced its collusion rule and is gearing for a complete review of the tribunal and its trappings. However it will be some time before much comes of it.
The AFL is presently much too busy on more important things. AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou is secretly embedded in the Brisbane Lions administration. He is hidden in a bottle of Gatorade placed on the desk of Lions chief executive Michael Bowers.
So far he has found a litany of breaches that will each draw a $10,000 fine. It makes damning reading and is indicative of an administration overwhelmed by the labours of running a team that has won three premierships in a row and dropped off $9million in the bank.
An outraged Demetriou has discovered Bowers once picked the phone up in his left hand - $10,000. He placed his pen back on the desk without replacing the cap - $10,000. After re-entering the office, Bowers forgot to bless himself when kneeling in front of a mural of AFL chairman Ron Evans. That's a biggie - $20,000. The entire Brisbane staff was charged with bringing the game into disrepute when one member failed to appear at the daily and moving trooping the AFL colours.
Further fines were raised by Demetriou after he discovered the five-metre statue of himself in his North Melbourne gear that bestrides the Gabba entrance was the subject of tasteless graffiti. It read: "It was the postman's fault". Whatever Demetriou misses, AFL general manager, football operations, Adrian Anderson, has under control. He is in a bottle of Fosters on a shelf in the Brisbane board room.
He has logged one fine. During a recent board meeting one Lions director burped after sipping a particularly frisky can of Pepsi. Make that another $10,000.
Indeed, the AFL officials can afford to waste their time on such nonsense, for the solution to the tribunal system that has so irritated everybody this season is easily fixed. It is shameful that it hasn't happened before this.
The coaches, club administrators and players who profess to love and care for the game ought to take responsibility for it.
The tribunal system does not work to its potential because it is constantly undermined by clubs and players. Players give deliberately vague or misleading evidence. It is normally on the advice of officials. Players should not be forced to incriminate themselves but witnesses should not tell lies. It is called the code of silence and it is as childish as it is damaging.
The men who maintain and guard the code are the same men who lament the standard of umpiring, argue that their players are targeted and point to opponents who should be, and berate the tribunal for inconsistency.
The culture of football is to use and abuse the system and never to protect or respect it. If the tribunal is inconsistent, if decisions rile and dumbfound, then it is the fault of the clubs, not the system. Officials say they love the game but they lust after only what it can give to their club.
It is time for the football community to respect what is right and not what is a rotten culture that operates with winks and shrugs and no conscience at all.
It is time to think about the game and not just tomorrow. It is time to acknowledge that a claim that a young man is a goal umpire from hell is not funny or clever. Had a journalist made a similar remark about a rookie in his first game - the recruit from hell - club officials would seethe that a vulnerable person had been so shabbily treated.
Coaches and officials should stop the self-serving cant about bringing only young men of character into the game and then promptly tell them to collude and lie in tribunals. They might be boys of substance when they arrive but they are quickly taught that honesty is a robe to toss aside when the tribunal door squeaks open.
The tribunal is not on television because the players' association knows that its members would be made to look foolish and the officials who instruct them daft.
Anderson, his department and the tribunal members will review the system at season's end. There may well be changes, for Anderson is having his first look at the tribunal and its workings. You fancy he is not impressed.
He should worry more about members of the football community who care about the game only when it matters to them and not at all when it concerns its future.
