177: The number of evictions across the first two days and also Australia's winning margin. Fans were evicted for a range of offences, including being drunk and disorderly, sneaking alcohol into the ground, throwing missiles, possessing drugs and general misbehaviour. Police downplayed the number of evictions, saying they were taking a preventative approach to remove misbehaving patrons before incidents occur.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 30th Dec 2015.
I'm confused.
Back in November, the Daily Telegraph, Herald-Sun and Courier-Mail kicked up nineteen different kinds of stink when collectively they obtained "secret documents" which listed the names of 180 fans which had been banned from attending A-League matches.
Football has always been something of a strange thing for News Corporation. The media group is perfectly happy to buy up everything and hide it safely behind a paywall to spin a profit out of it and then it's also perfectly happy to vilify the very people who buy its product.
Think about this, if 177 spectators were thrown out of the Sydney Football Stadium during an A-League match, it would be front page news, get three pages of analysis and the usual array of spruikers trumpeting that same nineteen different kinds of stink.
In November, the Daily Telegraph touted that:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/red-card-the-banned-football-fans-from-10-a-league-clubs/story-fni0cx12-1227618277879
While the FFA claims cricket and rugby league contain just as many bad eggs, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that league has only 19 banned fans and cricket fewer than that.
- Daily Telegraph, 22nd Nov 2015
I don't really have a problem with Football Australia banning people for life if it deems that their behaviour has caused injury to other people. Football Australia has a duty of care to the people who attend sporting fixtures, to provide a safe environment; that's fair and reasonable. Mind you, Football Australia has never had to contend with the sort of crumbling hundred year-old stadia that existed in Europe in the 1980s either.
The Daily Telegraph article did inadvertently show up something dreadfully amiss with other sporting codes in Australia though. If the Australian Rugby Football League has only 19 banned fans and Cricket Australia fewer than that, then they must be hideously failing at their duty of care responsibilities. The Daily Telegraph won't report that though.
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/another-safe-week-in-the-aleague-but-cricket-fans-run-amok-at-boxing-day-test-20151228-glvvs9.html
While cricket fans caused problems, the FFA did not receive one report of any incident from police or security across all five A-League games this weekend. Before this weekend, 103 people were removed from stadiums during the 58 previous games of the competition.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 28th Dec 2015.
I like comparing and contrasting things. Here we go:
103: people evicted from 63 A-League games.
177: evicted from two days of Boxing Day cricket.The eviction of 177 people from two days of cricket gained a grand total of zero column inches in the Daily Telegraph and across News' daily newspapers. Yet on Boxing Day, what did Daily Telegraph readers get? This:
Rebecca Wilson from her time whilst working at the ABC would at least be familiar with the ABC's Charter and the requirements therein to remain impartial and report news in a balanced fashion. The Daily Telegraph carries no such charter and nor does it hide the fact that it doesn't even seek to do so.
Apparently though this means that people who write for the Daily Telegraph, are required to fall in line with News Corp's editorial lines. When Ms Wilson spoke to Alan Jones, she made allegations that a nail bomb had been smuggled into Allianz Stadium but this can't be corroborated with any other news source. Such a thing should be made into front page headlines and yet the media is eerily silent.
Also, given that this was still less than a fortnight after the terrorist attacks in Paris, no attempt is made to oppose Alan Jones' suggestion but rather, it is endorsed.
http://www.4bc.com.au/news/alan-jones-aleague-fan-shame-file-20151122-gl5cbx.html
Alan Jones: Is this like terrorism in Paris; the leaders have no guts?
Rebecca Wilson: That exactly right Alan, this culture must be fixed from within. You can have so many arrests and that sort of thing but it must be fixed from within.
- Alan Jones and Rebecca Wilson, on 4BC and 2GB, 22nd Nov 2015.
I'm confused. 177 people are evicted from two days of Boxing Day cricket and the Daily Telegraph says nothing. Nail bombs are apparently smuggled into a stadium and yet there's no evidence for this at all but this goes unchallenged.
I don't understand News Corp and The Daily Telegraph's continuing war against football but I do know that they're perfectly happy to take football fans' money. Football fans in Australia should kick up nineteen different kinds of stink. This culture must be fixed from within, the leaders have no guts; the best place to start, is to look at the reportage.
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