Part_Timer
Well-Known Member
FFAs hypocrisy on fan culture
Tuesday 20th July 2010
And so we return to club football, where down under the A-League is gearing up for season six.
New seasons mean new promotion campaigns on TV and the latest Football Federation Australia ad for Australia's domestic competition is a beauty: titled "Fan Made", you can find it on YouTube.
It features a group of black-hooded young men, all menace, all Clockwork Orange machismo, walking into a textiles shop looking like they're casing the joint or about to pull off a robbery.
Instead, they order 680 square metres of material for, bada boom, their "pullover", those enormous rolling unfurled banners we've all become accustomed to seeing at important football games, be it in Asia, Europe, South America - anywhere football is played.
It's a clever ad and a vast improvement on previous A-League campaigns that were all glitz but lacked a clearly defined message.
Fan culture is the heart and soul of football; anything that encourages people to get behind their team in an enthusiastic, positive and respectful way is worth promoting.
Pullovers are one the great spectacles of football matches but Hatamoto, the security company engaged by the FFA to attend matches, monitor crowds and make sure nothing goes awry that is going to end up on the TV news and besmirch football's image, has deemed that they will forthwith be banned for "high risk" matches, the very first being the rematch of grand finalists Sydney and Melbourne in Round 1.
What a load of heavy-handed twaddle.
A hardcore Sydney FC fan, Grant Rieper, emailed me during the week to express his understandable frustration.
"This means that the efforts that my friends and I are putting in, pulling all-nighters in a dance studio in Chippendale and weekend work in office space in Homebush, is all for nothing," he complained. "Not to mention the cost of buying so much material (which comes from our own pockets and from revenue created by our own merchandising) or the added spice it gives to these games.
"I'm pretty sure the FFA, on some basic level, understand what the efforts of organised support does for our game because it's the sole focus of their ad campaign."
You would hope so, Grant, but the problem is the FFA, for all its pretence in being a football organisation, isn't run by football people.
It's a collection of highly remunerated suits that treat football just like any other "product". And it's a product they want to sanitise and make "family friendly", especially so because there's a World Cup bid in train and the FFA doesn't want to take the risk of something violent or controversial happening at A-League games.
Which may be all well and fine, but to promote the game with pullovers on one hand and then ban them on the other is really the height of not just hypocrisy but stupidity.
Fans like Grant who devote their personal time and money into supporting football have every reason to walk away from stadium turnstiles and stay at home. The FFA doesn't deserve their custom.
Without fans, the game is nothing. Unless it overturns Hatamoto's decision, FFA will soon be selling a "product" no one wants to buy.
Let the destruction of fan culture continue.....
Tuesday 20th July 2010
And so we return to club football, where down under the A-League is gearing up for season six.
New seasons mean new promotion campaigns on TV and the latest Football Federation Australia ad for Australia's domestic competition is a beauty: titled "Fan Made", you can find it on YouTube.
It features a group of black-hooded young men, all menace, all Clockwork Orange machismo, walking into a textiles shop looking like they're casing the joint or about to pull off a robbery.
Instead, they order 680 square metres of material for, bada boom, their "pullover", those enormous rolling unfurled banners we've all become accustomed to seeing at important football games, be it in Asia, Europe, South America - anywhere football is played.
It's a clever ad and a vast improvement on previous A-League campaigns that were all glitz but lacked a clearly defined message.
Fan culture is the heart and soul of football; anything that encourages people to get behind their team in an enthusiastic, positive and respectful way is worth promoting.
Pullovers are one the great spectacles of football matches but Hatamoto, the security company engaged by the FFA to attend matches, monitor crowds and make sure nothing goes awry that is going to end up on the TV news and besmirch football's image, has deemed that they will forthwith be banned for "high risk" matches, the very first being the rematch of grand finalists Sydney and Melbourne in Round 1.
What a load of heavy-handed twaddle.
A hardcore Sydney FC fan, Grant Rieper, emailed me during the week to express his understandable frustration.
"This means that the efforts that my friends and I are putting in, pulling all-nighters in a dance studio in Chippendale and weekend work in office space in Homebush, is all for nothing," he complained. "Not to mention the cost of buying so much material (which comes from our own pockets and from revenue created by our own merchandising) or the added spice it gives to these games.
"I'm pretty sure the FFA, on some basic level, understand what the efforts of organised support does for our game because it's the sole focus of their ad campaign."
You would hope so, Grant, but the problem is the FFA, for all its pretence in being a football organisation, isn't run by football people.
It's a collection of highly remunerated suits that treat football just like any other "product". And it's a product they want to sanitise and make "family friendly", especially so because there's a World Cup bid in train and the FFA doesn't want to take the risk of something violent or controversial happening at A-League games.
Which may be all well and fine, but to promote the game with pullovers on one hand and then ban them on the other is really the height of not just hypocrisy but stupidity.
Fans like Grant who devote their personal time and money into supporting football have every reason to walk away from stadium turnstiles and stay at home. The FFA doesn't deserve their custom.
Without fans, the game is nothing. Unless it overturns Hatamoto's decision, FFA will soon be selling a "product" no one wants to buy.
Let the destruction of fan culture continue.....
