... Then You Win

Phill Chadwick reports, the battle plans have been drawn up but can the AFL and NRL keep their code at the forefront in this country?

It was Ghandi who said: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

In the Indian struggle for independence from the British Empire, that is precisely how it turned out.

Football in Australia, in its own struggle to achieve the status of a major football power, has already been ignored and laughed at. And now it is beginning to be fought.

The AFL's recent pay deal, doling out some more of their enormous television bounty to the players, was couched very deliberately in terms of this deal being designed to attract young players towards AFL football and away from “other codes” for which read football.

There is no doubt that the administrations of both AFL and NRL are developing battle plans to try to keep their sports at the forefront of professional football in this country.

In Ghandi's case, the progression from “they fight you” to “you win” may have been inevitable due to the overwhelming mass of the Indian population, but it was not painless.

In the battle for the hearts and minds of the Australian sporting public, the overwhelming numerical superiority of football is somewhat balanced by the financial strength of the AFL and NRL organisations. The battle may be long and hard. But I believe it will eventually be won.

Some of the seeds of the possible decline of AFL football can be seen within the game itself, so they must battle internal forces as well.

A game day playing roster of 22 requires a squad of 40 senior players as well as additional rookie list players. This sheer number of players imposes a heavy burden on the clubs, both financially and logistically.

The best and most spectacular aspects of the game of AFL football are at the same time the most dangerous. The heavy bumping, strong tackling and high marking are what all AFL lovers want to see. Adelaide Crow Nathan Bassett last week took a record number of marks for a single player in AFL history. But the fact that all but one were uncontested, devalued them in the eyes of most commentators. It is as if only those feats that most place the player in harm's way are valued.

By contrast Argentina's 20-plus string of uninterrupted passing to score that marvellous World Cup goal is the epitome of good football.

The difference is stark. AFL games in which uncontested passes are strung together, a feat requiring great skill and team work, are “boring” and there is talk of changing the rules to stop it. Football games in which possession is maintained by passing the ball are very far from boring and are encouraged.

In usually legal, and greatly admired passages of AFL play this year, we have witnessed concussions, a fractured skull, broken legs, spinal damage, as well as innumerable knee and shoulder injuries. These examples of violent play are not seen as a blight on the game, rather they are admired as examples of courage, commitment and passion.

We have recently seen a new organisation of former VFL/AFL players formed to try to gain some financial recompense to ease the suffering of these men in their later years. Many former AFL players are near cripples at the age of 40.

Concerned parents cannot fail to absorb these messages. AFL football, glorious, athletic, and full of courage has to be one of the most physically damaging forms of sport ever devised.

It is precisely these aspects of the game: tackling; bumping; and the like that have to be removed from the sport to make it suitable for young players. The Laws of Football, on the other hand are virtually unchanged from the games played by the youngest of schoolchildren to the pinnacle of the World Cup Final.

AFL football is the dominant sport in just three Australian States. Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia. With a combined total population of just over 8.5 million people they supply the vast bulk of that game's players and fans.

In contrast, football can draw on talent from a world population that now exceeds 6.6 billion.

This year the A-League will display the talents of players from Australia, Brazil, China, UK, Holland, USA, Cyprus, Germany, Scotland, Belgium, Argentina, Portugal, New Zealand, Kosovo, Switzerland, Ghana, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Ireland, Serbia, Korea, Croatia, Canada and, of course, Tobago.

Together with a mixture of foreign and Australian coaches, they present a vibrant melting pot of world football culture.

In an Australian culture that readily accepts products, ideas and talent from around the globe, a couple of AFL players dragged over from Ireland hardly whets the appetite for exotic sportsmen.

So maybe there is something in the claims of those who foresee the dominance of football over the other codes. Certainly, the battle that has begun may be long and hard, but there are elements intrinsic in the AFL game itself that may be its undoing.

AFL football will always have a place in the hearts of those of us from the southern states, just as NRL will for our more northern countrymen.

But football is the only code that has the potential to appeal to all of the country and eventually supplant the oval ball games.

Football, the one that is played with a globe, has enchanted the Globe and maybe in our lifetime we will see it ascend to its place as the premier football code in this country.

Those in the media that say that such a thing could never happen suffer, I think, from a lack of imagination. It could happen, and probably will.

But not without a fight.

And the opposing forces are deeply entrenched, well resourced and highly committed. It won't be easy, but as Ghandi also said ...

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”

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