| Upside Down People Question 15:01 - Dec 17 with 1333 views | Boston |
Ok, your cup final gets moved to another city, but why are the fans so incensed? |  |
| |  |
| Upside Down People Question on 15:20 - Dec 17 with 1294 views | SheffieldHoop |
Because football without fans is nothing......Until a TV deal comes along anyway. |  |
| "Someone despises me. That's their problem." Marcus Aurelius |
| |
| Upside Down People Question on 23:10 - Dec 17 with 1078 views | ozexile |
That seems to be the issue. Technically it's not a cup final it's a league winners play off. Previously if you came top of the league you became minor premiers and got to host the final in your city. Now even if you come top the final will be in Sydney. This was a financial decision obviously. IMO the fans have gone totally overboard about it. Ridiculous scenes yesterday. | | | |
| Upside Down People Question on 01:09 - Dec 18 with 1003 views | SydneyRs |
Its a long way to travel for non Sydney teams and like playing a grand final away from home if one of the Sydney teams is in the final. Home advantage used to go to the higher placed team to make the grand final which was fairer. There are enough decent stadiums in every state to make it work.
Whether finals and grand finals have a place in football at all is an entirely different matter. Very much an Australian way of doing things where 6th place still has a chance of being that season's premiers.
The events last night were disgraceful and not helped by the keeper throwing a flare back into the crowd. The whole flares thing has all become a bit try hard and done for YouTube and Instagram. You never saw them used by British fans either until this recent trend of copying European ultras. Its becoming rather lame. [Post edited 18 Dec 2022 1:10]
| | | |
| Upside Down People Question on 01:29 - Dec 18 with 980 views | Boston |
Ta for the info. | |
| |
| Upside Down People Question on 09:43 - Dec 18 with 832 views | ozranger |
It got a bit worse at a derby game in Melbourne. The scenes are quite bad.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-18/a-league-melbourne-derby-pitch-invasion-t
There are a few things that people have to realise. First off is the makeup of the crowds and the overarching ethnic basis of football in Australia. Yes, they created the A-League in 2005 to remove the old National Soccer League's ethnicity at football, but the two still go very-much hand in hand in Australia. There has even been a move to return some of the ethnic clubs to the A-League. By ethnicity, I mean the Croatians v Serbs, the Macedonians v Greeks, as the primary not bot complete set of examples. Each have their rather large following and quite often crowd trouble exists. Just recently, the NSW Federation was forced to play a Cup match behind closed doors as it was between Sydney United (Croatian) and White Eagles (Serbian) for fear of crowd trouble. In the past these incidents have been quite something. This, of course, carries through to other sports, including the Australian Open Tennis many years ago. So, that central-European influence has been entrenched into the "ultras" of these A-League clubs that are "supposed" to not have any ethnic basis or links.
Yet, that is just the small highlight of yesterday's problems. The fans were really po'd about the decision to hold the next three Grand Finals in Sydney. The way the comp works has already been explained above. At Newcastle, the fans walked out at 20mins and that was the way many other groups wanted to do it as well. You need to also understand that the clubs outside Sydney lose a lot here. It is not only the fact that they do not get home advantage, but the money that comes with it, the money that is fed into the local economy with visiting supporters staying nights and eating at restaurants but more importantly, the extension of this. What SydneyRs did not explain is the repercussions relating to the qualifying for the Asian Champions League and the money that comes with that. While there are some cases where the team that loses the GF also qualifies for the ACL, in some cases there is not and thus not getting that home advantage may be the difference in the qualification.
Then, to add to this, and here it becomes quite interesting, is that the rather new Australian Premier League (APL), who have taken over the competition only recently from the Australian FA, are made up of a number of team owners, a single rep from the FA and a single person from a third party that has a rather large financial stake in the competition. It has been put forward that those on the board made this decision to favour their own clubs. The Melbourne Victory President who was on the board resigned and there is also talk that some on the board who did agree, did so as they thought the decision was a fait-a-compli. Yet, the board has no representative of the fans and thus the decision is being seen as good for a few and bad for the many, the fans. Also, less than half the clubs are represented on the board and the rest had no say in the decision-making here.
The clubs, the players and the fans all consider this to have been a short-sighted, money-grabbing decision and whether it is or not, the way it was decided has caused the biggest concerns for media and others. Most want the board to be scrapped and an independent board to run the game, which is what was considered prior to the APL existing. Whether that will eventuate or not is the biggest question for the clubs.
As to the incident at AAMI Park in Melbourne as per the link above, the game has been tarnished with this, that is for sure. The media, and especially the anti-football media in Australia will have a field day discussing this in any way to bring down football at the expense of promoting their own aerial ping-pong or rugby codes. What the keeper did in throwing the flare back into the crowd was stupid and he will be sanctioned. What the fans did was just as bad and I am sure many of those who were on the field will also be sanctioned. The size of that sanction will be the big question as a penalty of a five year or life ban from football will not be considered by many as enough. |  | | |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
