Media controversy ignites unique display of passion for football in Australia

A League Champions! (Photo credit: Tiger Benji)

About two weeks ago I attended my first ever A-League game, the derby between Adelaide United and Melbourne Victory. It was an exciting game with lots of goals and a buzzing crowd that impressed me as a fan of world football.

However, after the game I still felt like football was far from catching on in Australia. There was something about the atmosphere that felt a bit forced. My biggest concern was the regular use of flares in the stands. Not because I think they are dangerous, but because they were viewed by many fans as the ultimate display of passion for the game. That may be the case in South America and parts of Europe but only because flares have become ingrained in those cultures, after decades of people living and breathing football.

I felt that A-League fans needed to stop relying on cliché ways to support their team and be patient in developing real passion for the league and the game. Australian football needed a unique way to show its love for the Beautiful Game, something genuinely passionate, with genuine, Australian personality. (Read about my first A-League experience here.)

The A-League wasn’t quite there yet and I didn’t think flares were quite going to be the spark that would ignite the country’s love affair with the game.

As it turns out I could be wrong.

After a series of outrageously biased reports by Channel 9 on the Sydney derby last week, which stereotyped fans as flare wielding hooligans, Australian football has decided it has had enough of being pointlessly criticised and belittled in the media.

The hash tag #PassionIsNotACrime has roused a nation of football lovers on Twitter into voicing their support for the game in any way they can. As the campaign builds momentum this weekend’s games, in particular the Melbourne derby, have become crucial to defending the image of the Beautiful Game in Australia.

Dialogue is heating up between football fans and Channel 9 and both parties will be watching each other very closely this Saturday. Channel 9 has been given a chance to re-assess its warped views on football, one that they are unlikely to take. A-League fans have a chance to put down their flares and adopt a new way to show their support, which I hope for the good of the game they are wise enough to take.

The recent controversy created by the media has brought Australian football fans together to support each other, their teams and their sport, in a display of passion more powerful than the flares themselves could ever create. This unique passion is just the kind of character and personality that the A-League needs in order to be viewed, by the rest of Australia, as a league with genuine fans and genuine potential. They need to continue to display their passion in this way.

I hope that this weekend A-League fans will leave their flares at home and embrace the Passion Is Not A Crime mantra that has united them all on social media this week. Chanting and singing the message, displaying it on banners and printing it on the backs of shirts are all displays of support for the entire sport that will be too strong for the rest of the country to ignore, however Channel 9 choose to report it.

I have a, somewhat farfetched, Martin Luther King style, dream of every fan at every game singing ‘Passion Is Not A Crime’ for an entire 90 minutes so, no matter what match highlights sports stations are forced to air, the message can’t be avoided.

The reality is that one flare, lit by one fan at this weekend’s Melbourne derby will be pounced upon by the media. However, it says something about football fans in Australia that less than two weeks after I decided that the sport was far from catching on in the country, it is clear that it already has. Less than two weeks after I questioned the passion of Adelaide United fans at Hindmarsh, a whole nation of football fans has shown they have a genuine and unfaltering passion for their teams, their league and above all their sport.

Related articles

• This Week in World Football: Portrayals of footballing passion (thefansbase.wordpress.com)
• Football has not gone back to the dark ages … the police are better at spotting the cavemen (standard.co.uk)

This Week in World Football: Portrayals of footballing passion

Football is the world’s most popular sport. The game has fans in all corners of the globe who follow their teams with their own unique traditions, values and displays of support and passion. This week in world football there were a few stories that highlighted just how differently fans across the plant show their love for our beautiful game.

WHO CARES ABOUT THE FIFA CLUB WORLD CUP (CWC)?

Apparently, Corinthians fans do. The CWC should be one of the most prestigious competitions in all of football. Any competition that crowns it’s winner Champion of the World at very least sounds important. However, with the competition taking place over the last week it was clear to see that in different parts of the world the CWC is judged in very different ways.

Stories have emerged this week of Corinthians fans selling their homes, quitting their jobs and borrowing money from anyone willing, showing just how passionate Brazil is about the CWC. Especially when compared to most Premier League fans, who were more likely just confused Chelsea didn’t feature in this weekend’s matches. I’d actually have felt bad for the 30,000 Brazilian fans in Japan if Chelsea had returned to London with the cup, where it would probably just gather dust on the shelves of Roman Abramovich’s second favourite yacht. Congratulations Corinthians, Brazil, South America.

A-LEAGUE FLARES UP

Displays of passion are also making news in Australia at the moment. The A-League are getting bigger crowds than ever before and the league looks like it is on the up, particularly with the introduction of new team Western Sydney Wanderers creating a Sydney Derby to go with the Melbourne Derby and already established Adelaide – Melbourne rivalry. Unfortunately the media constantly focus on so called ‘crowd trouble’ supposedly caused by these games and fans who use flares. Overlooked are the far more regular ejections of drunken fans at AFL, NRL and cricket games across the country.

Naughty little Adelaide Utd fans set off a flare during the game against the Melbourne Victory

Most people support the flares claiming they show the fans’ passion for the team. Why? Because fans in South America are famously passionate and they use flares? Using flares at an A-League game is a cheap way to create an atmosphere and is just how fans, new to game, think they should act. Most of the fans who had flares at my first A-League game this week were kids, more intent on trying to push one another on the pitch than watch the game. Are these fans really the standard bearers of Australian football fans, leading the crowd in chants with flares held aloft? If Australians are really passionate about their football teams they wouldn’t need flares to prove it.

SUNDERLAND FANS GIVEN LITTLE TO SING ABOUT, SING ANYWAY.

In the Premier League, Sunderland fans showed us all how it’s done and were praised by many for cheering on their

Sunderland Fans 2 (Photo credit: Ronnie Macdonald)

hopeless team right to the end of the game against Man United, despite watching a standard of football that probably would look poor even in the A-League. Despite this they out-sung United throughout, particularly in the last 20 minutes, when all was definitely already lost, and even I had come close to fast forwarding the recorded coverage of the game I was watching. Sunderland have always been inspirational in the stands, less so on the pitch.

FRENCH FANS STARVED OF HOME GAMES

In France, Ligue 1 side Bastia will be unable to feel the passion of their loyal fans after being banned from playing at home because of some violent incidents before and during their matches. “It’s great to say we can’t play at Bastia, but the gentlemen on the Disciplinary Commission need to tell me where we can play and how we get there” said the club’s President. His questions are all the more pressing after the club’s logistics official, Jo Bonavita, reacted to the ban by going on hunger strike.

SNOW TROUBLE FOR VENLO

Fans of Dutch team VVV-Venlo showed their commitment to the team in a unique way this week by helping the club shovel show prior to kick-off. The club are struggling in the top flight of Dutch football and were in desperate need of a win. Their latest fixture came extremely close to postponement because of snow and ice covering the pitch but fans picked up shovels and got to work. The game was played and Venlo repaid their supporters with a 3-1 win and this creative celebration. I wonder if someone got yellow carded for it?

Football makes fans do funny things for their love of the game and their team. It might not be easy to understand for fans of other teams, other sports or in other countries. But to some people, somewhere it all makes perfect sense.

Related articles

• Changes needed to earn FIFA Club World Cup the respect it deserves (thefansbase.wordpress.com)
• Who cares about the A-League (thefansbase.wordpress.com
• Corinthians: World’s craziest fans? (edition.cnn.com)
• Do fans need to suffer to appreciate football? (footballfancast.com)
• Bastia official starts hunger strike after club’s stadium ban (guardian.co.uk)