On the same day Melbourne Victory released this statement on hooliganism by their club associates at an NPL game (should be gameS, but let's sweep that under the carpet for the moment) it was interesting to hear club CEO Ian Robson laughing about West Ham United fans attacking the Manchester United bus on Radio 1116SEN.
At 5:20 you can hear Robson stifle a laugh as Kevin Bartlett brings up the subject of West Ham fans attacking the bus, before joking "that's called a London greeting".
Is it as funny as when South Melbourne fans attacked the Adelaide City bus? I'm not sure anyone laughed about that, not just because of the injury sustained by Ange Costanzo. It is one of the most cited incidents when condemning the NSL and it's clubs of ethnic origin as a blight on the game in this country.
If South Melbourne are condemned for such an incident, but it is laughed off when done by West Ham, is it outrageous to point out a possible racist double standard that is at the forefront of the Old Soccer/New Football divide?
Rather than calling for a league to be disbanded, and clubs expelled could someone not just have said "that's called a Greek greeting!" and we could have all had a chuckle and moved on?
What we also know from the Victory statement is that the hooliganism in Epping after the game against Melbourne Knights was far enough removed from the stadium/game to be able to be brushed aside by the authorities. Brand protection comes ahead of protecting opposition supporters and their vehicles, it would seem.
Maybe we are meant to believe nothing happened in Epping? Just like we are supposed to believe that when Robson was CEO of the Essendon Football Club he had no idea his football department were running a supplements program that would eventually see 34 players banned for breaching anti-doping rules.
Robson sometimes talks a hard-line on hooliganism, but his laughter gives him away. Talk is all it is.
Showing posts with label SEN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SEN. Show all posts
Wednesday, 11 May 2016
Tuesday, 27 May 2014
An Evening With Finey
Thought it was as good a time as any to review The World of Football show on SEN radio's Evenings With Mark Fine program.
A big gripe I have with the football/soccer coverage on SEN is the reluctance of most presenters to stick with either one term for the game or the other. Fearing backlashes from both sides of the Code Wars, they often use "the world game" or "world football" in a way which just seems unnatural. Sometimes it is "the round ball" game, anything to skirt around using either just football or soccer. If they start calling golf "the little dimply ball game" or cricket "the ball and stick game of the old British Empire countries" I can wear it, otherwise show some courage in your convictions and pick either soccer or football and stop talking like there's an elephant in the room who you dare not speak of. Though this show's name is in line with that principle, Fine doesn't seem to jar me with "the world/round" as much as he used to.
Socceroos talk was up first. It was a lot better than the drivel served up by Andrew Gaze and Andy Maher in the morning. Dave Davutovic and Michael Zappone didn't seem to have imbibed of the same happy juice as Andy Harper was drunk on, both during his call of the game on Fox Sports and his appearance on Kevin Bartlett's Hungry For Sport show earlier in the day.
Actually, the national team talk was quite refreshing. Perhaps I shouldn't watch games whilst following twitter so much, as that can often distract you from the real issues. Social media flared up over trivialities (Samantha Jade's World Cup anthem) as well as flogging dead horses to a pulp (state of the pitch) which perhaps only deserved a cursory mention.
Listening to Zappone reading out NPLV results reminded me of glorious radio days gone by. During the interview with Goran Lozanovski he even mentioned the great man Peter Kotsiris. Again, it was very refreshing to hear a football expert on the station with some knowledge of anything outside the select few top European leagues and our domestic A-League.
Despite the show tweeting that the focus would be on the Socceroos (and with a game last night and a World Cup a couple of weeks away that's the way it should be) Davutovic did touch on the subject of recent FFV Board matters. An interview with a NPVL coach, though, was probably not the best way to broach the subject. Lozanovski was understandably reticent to delve too deeply into the matter which is not really his domain and a question more pertinent to a club official or administrator.
Overall it was a solid hour of football talk. In most weeks when there's not a local Cup tie on or an AFC Champions League game on Fox I will keep listening.
A big gripe I have with the football/soccer coverage on SEN is the reluctance of most presenters to stick with either one term for the game or the other. Fearing backlashes from both sides of the Code Wars, they often use "the world game" or "world football" in a way which just seems unnatural. Sometimes it is "the round ball" game, anything to skirt around using either just football or soccer. If they start calling golf "the little dimply ball game" or cricket "the ball and stick game of the old British Empire countries" I can wear it, otherwise show some courage in your convictions and pick either soccer or football and stop talking like there's an elephant in the room who you dare not speak of. Though this show's name is in line with that principle, Fine doesn't seem to jar me with "the world/round" as much as he used to.
Socceroos talk was up first. It was a lot better than the drivel served up by Andrew Gaze and Andy Maher in the morning. Dave Davutovic and Michael Zappone didn't seem to have imbibed of the same happy juice as Andy Harper was drunk on, both during his call of the game on Fox Sports and his appearance on Kevin Bartlett's Hungry For Sport show earlier in the day.
Actually, the national team talk was quite refreshing. Perhaps I shouldn't watch games whilst following twitter so much, as that can often distract you from the real issues. Social media flared up over trivialities (Samantha Jade's World Cup anthem) as well as flogging dead horses to a pulp (state of the pitch) which perhaps only deserved a cursory mention.
Listening to Zappone reading out NPLV results reminded me of glorious radio days gone by. During the interview with Goran Lozanovski he even mentioned the great man Peter Kotsiris. Again, it was very refreshing to hear a football expert on the station with some knowledge of anything outside the select few top European leagues and our domestic A-League.
Despite the show tweeting that the focus would be on the Socceroos (and with a game last night and a World Cup a couple of weeks away that's the way it should be) Davutovic did touch on the subject of recent FFV Board matters. An interview with a NPVL coach, though, was probably not the best way to broach the subject. Lozanovski was understandably reticent to delve too deeply into the matter which is not really his domain and a question more pertinent to a club official or administrator.
Overall it was a solid hour of football talk. In most weeks when there's not a local Cup tie on or an AFC Champions League game on Fox I will keep listening.
Monday, 10 March 2014
Still a Big Swindle
Last week the FFV announced an alteration to the 2014 Fee Schedule, reducing team entry fees across the State League board. What do these reductions mean to the figures discussed in The Great Football Swindle post of February 23rd? It means that instead of taking an extra $1,046,300 from clubs this year compared to last, it will only be $863,900 more.
One hopes the extra cash would see the game managed better, but there is little improvement on that front. Already the early Dockerty Cup games have descended into farce, with forfeits once again to the fore. The FFV blames the clubs, the clubs blame the FFV. The buck (no pun pardoned) has to rest with the FFV. Just weeks after the FFA triumphantly launched the FFA Cup as the chance for grassroots clubs to take on teams at the highest level and perhaps live the dream of fairy tale upsets, what is the entry point to that competition remains a debacle.
When Fee Schedules and Rules of Competition are still being adjusted this late in the piece, it is little wonder small, amateur clubs are struggling to meet requirements. Even if it is the clubs at fault, the onus should be on the FFV to find a solution as they are the ones who suffer in comparison to bodies in other states when the situation becomes shambolic.
The question still remains, will the services to clubs improve in line with the additional revenue to the FFV coffers? Over the weekend on Twitter I noticed @FootballChaos and @Socceraust were churning out results tweets and news at a high rate.The FFV account only seems to be activated when there's a link to a new article on their website to be promoted. I dare say Football Chaos (now there's a domain name more apt for the FFV) will once again produce better video coverage (in terms of quality, frequency and variety) than what the FFV comes up with for the NPL Victoria.
One can only imagine the folks at South Melbourne and Melbourne Knights struggling to contain their sniggering when being instructed on utilising social media by the FFV recently. Either the FFV are following the strategy of spreading the release of information out over several days (and haven't started yet), or they have very little to announce. At this stage it seems there will be radio commentary of some games via the internet, with further details still to emerge. The FFV has advertised for match reporters, and will need to increase their pool from last year when they barely had enough to cover a 6 game VPL round to be able to cover two divisions of the NPLV.
It was interesting listening on radio station SEN the day after the launch of the FFA Cup. Talkback callers quickly changed the subject to that of junior fees at NPLV clubs and their tendency towards being exorbitant. When hearing a justification of the fees/national curriculum, journalist Patrick Smith asked "are these clubs, or are they academies?". Coupled with a rare piece from Craig Foster that I actually agree with, it is clear we are entering dangerous territory. The NPLV is proving very expensive to implement, exhausting all resources to do so and then getting it wrong would prove to be a disaster that would top all those that have come before it.
One hopes the extra cash would see the game managed better, but there is little improvement on that front. Already the early Dockerty Cup games have descended into farce, with forfeits once again to the fore. The FFV blames the clubs, the clubs blame the FFV. The buck (no pun pardoned) has to rest with the FFV. Just weeks after the FFA triumphantly launched the FFA Cup as the chance for grassroots clubs to take on teams at the highest level and perhaps live the dream of fairy tale upsets, what is the entry point to that competition remains a debacle.
When Fee Schedules and Rules of Competition are still being adjusted this late in the piece, it is little wonder small, amateur clubs are struggling to meet requirements. Even if it is the clubs at fault, the onus should be on the FFV to find a solution as they are the ones who suffer in comparison to bodies in other states when the situation becomes shambolic.
The question still remains, will the services to clubs improve in line with the additional revenue to the FFV coffers? Over the weekend on Twitter I noticed @FootballChaos and @Socceraust were churning out results tweets and news at a high rate.The FFV account only seems to be activated when there's a link to a new article on their website to be promoted. I dare say Football Chaos (now there's a domain name more apt for the FFV) will once again produce better video coverage (in terms of quality, frequency and variety) than what the FFV comes up with for the NPL Victoria.
One can only imagine the folks at South Melbourne and Melbourne Knights struggling to contain their sniggering when being instructed on utilising social media by the FFV recently. Either the FFV are following the strategy of spreading the release of information out over several days (and haven't started yet), or they have very little to announce. At this stage it seems there will be radio commentary of some games via the internet, with further details still to emerge. The FFV has advertised for match reporters, and will need to increase their pool from last year when they barely had enough to cover a 6 game VPL round to be able to cover two divisions of the NPLV.
It was interesting listening on radio station SEN the day after the launch of the FFA Cup. Talkback callers quickly changed the subject to that of junior fees at NPLV clubs and their tendency towards being exorbitant. When hearing a justification of the fees/national curriculum, journalist Patrick Smith asked "are these clubs, or are they academies?". Coupled with a rare piece from Craig Foster that I actually agree with, it is clear we are entering dangerous territory. The NPLV is proving very expensive to implement, exhausting all resources to do so and then getting it wrong would prove to be a disaster that would top all those that have come before it.
Monday, 16 September 2013
Well, What Can You Say?
Seriously, what can you say after another black day in one of the blackest years in Victorian football history?
It's not everyday someone you know is arrested for alleged match fixing. It's not every day Kevin Bartlett Reserve gets mentioned in the mainstream media, including making the SEN promos all day as Robert Walls recycles the old comb-over grass gag.
On SEN, issues like these do show up how little their supposed experts know about the game beyond what is shown on Foxtel or ESPN.
Seeing as I was there, and this is the one article to focus on the game, I'll take a closer look:
http://www.theage.com.au/sport/football/how-friday-nights-fixed-match-unfolded-20130915-2tswp.html
It's not everyday someone you know is arrested for alleged match fixing. It's not every day Kevin Bartlett Reserve gets mentioned in the mainstream media, including making the SEN promos all day as Robert Walls recycles the old comb-over grass gag.
On SEN, issues like these do show up how little their supposed experts know about the game beyond what is shown on Foxtel or ESPN.
Seeing as I was there, and this is the one article to focus on the game, I'll take a closer look:
http://www.theage.com.au/sport/football/how-friday-nights-fixed-match-unfolded-20130915-2tswp.html
As the final whistle sounded over a patchy pitch in a unregarded corner of outer suburban Melbourne, a nil-all draw seemed a fitting result.If Burnley is outer suburban Melbourne I wonder what Nino would call Dandenong or Epping?
The game on Friday night was unlikely to linger in the memory, a scrappy match between two sides seemingly so hopeless they were no longer even capable of losing.Can't dispute that.
But thousands of kilometres away, an international criminal syndicate was counting its winnings after betting up to half a million dollars on the hapless Southern Stars drawing with Richmond in the Victorian Premier League.
And as the players who allegedly fixed the match were getting changed, they had no idea plain-clothed police, sitting alone in cars parked behind the city-end goals, were plotting their arrest.In the GE Carpark at the Heyington Bridge End, site of many a wrong-doing I would suspect.
There was little in the game that roused the small crowd. Apart from the occasional shout of ''c'mon Southern'' and Richmond's reserves heckling behind the Stars' goal, the small crowd stayed silent. Passing traffic on the Monash Freeway drowned out the occasional shouts of players. An elderly woman with a Richmond scarf sold $2 raffle tickets, and the canteen had a well-stocked bain-marie.
Nice to see Annie get a mention, hopefully he bought a ticket. The loudest calls on the night, in a bit of an indictment really, came from some workmates of Andrew Viola who provided more vocal support for him than anyone else did for either of the two teams combined.
want to win the league, although I'd love to win the league.'' On Sunday, he, too, was arrested.
It's interesting that the police would have the media on hand to record the build-up to the bust. What I recall was the man identified in other reports as Reiss Noel was very vocal on the sidelines. For a team with no chance of avoiding relegation, he was taking it very seriously and encouraged every Stars tackle and appealed for every decision from the referee. It was something that stood out even before the subsequent stunning revelations.
Already the debates are raging. There is the line that the club should have suspected something was up when players were offered with only accommodation and local transport costs expected to be covered. If that's the case, surely the FFV should be considered slack in allowing a broke club to sign so many imports (reasonably well-credentialled for "amateurs") during the mid-season transfer window. Even Tom Waterhouse copped a whack, though it is bookmakers in far away lands on internet sites that will be impossible to ever regulate that would be at the heart of this scandal.
How these football journeymen lost their way remains unknown.Less than 48 hours after the final whistle, police swooped. Those arrested include players who may have once held aspirations to play first-class football in Europe but whose last match may have been on Kevin Bartlett Reserve.
A the start of the season, Southern Stars coach Zaya Younan was upbeat: ''It would be silly of me to say weLast year, Nicholas McKoy debuted in England for Tamworth in a third-round FA Cup match against English Premier League side Everton at the famous Goodison Park. Even though his club lost, he and his teammates were met with a standing ovation from the Everton fans as they walked from the pitch.Another Stars' player, suspected of involvement in the match fixing but overseas when arrests were made on Sunday, had previously trialled for Arsenal.
want to win the league, although I'd love to win the league.'' On Sunday, he, too, was arrested.
It's interesting that the police would have the media on hand to record the build-up to the bust. What I recall was the man identified in other reports as Reiss Noel was very vocal on the sidelines. For a team with no chance of avoiding relegation, he was taking it very seriously and encouraged every Stars tackle and appealed for every decision from the referee. It was something that stood out even before the subsequent stunning revelations.
Already the debates are raging. There is the line that the club should have suspected something was up when players were offered with only accommodation and local transport costs expected to be covered. If that's the case, surely the FFV should be considered slack in allowing a broke club to sign so many imports (reasonably well-credentialled for "amateurs") during the mid-season transfer window. Even Tom Waterhouse copped a whack, though it is bookmakers in far away lands on internet sites that will be impossible to ever regulate that would be at the heart of this scandal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)