Football code wars are silly, let the fans speak with their feet

2012

An Adelaide United fan was banned for two years after racially abusing the Wellington Phoenix player Paul Ifill (English with Barbados ancestry) at Hindmarsh Stadium.

2014

Ali Abbas Al-Hilfi (Sydney FC) alleged that Western Sydney Wanderers FC striker Brendon Santalab racially vilified him during a match at Allianz Stadium, although a disciplinary committee dropped the charges when citing a lack of evidence and the possibility that Abbas may have misheard the comments made.

Most recently attention was given to a minority of Sydney United fans at the Australia Cup Final soccer match at Commbank Stadium in Sydney which drowned out the Welcome to Country, hailed Croatian Nazi salutes, and sung Croatian fascist Ustasha songs from World War II.

Given the Ustasha atrocities against Jews, Roma, Croatians, Serbians, Albanians and others, not to mention the disrespect shown towards indigenous Australians, you would be hard pressed to find a more horrible example of racism in recent times involving Australian sport.

In all likelihood, although it is always difficult to quantify social attitudes, most spectators today (any football) code would feel the same empathy for Indigenous AFL legends like Eddie Betts when they appear on television in tears after another incident reporting racism.

As for the hope that Australian soccer can become even bigger, building upon its high number of participants and national team interest, I also reject simplistic digs at the media.

A biased media of the past did not prevent soccer from becoming bigger from the 1950s, largely fuelled by European migration after the Second World War, nor has it prevented soccer from hosting some of the most viewed Australian sporting events in recent decades.

Many Australians, beyond those who once remained loyal to the game of their parents where soccer was most popular, now want to play the biggest international game.

As far as I know, there has never been any systematic push to keep soccer down, as was the case in France when the Vichy government of the Second World War organised the complete abolition of rugby league at a time when professional rugby league maintained a strong and vibrant club competition across large parts of France.

With the Vichy government stripping French rugby league’s considerable pre-war assets and its Sports Council giving it to rugby union, rugby league also suffered after World War Two through a  government decree which proclaimed that rugby league could not be played in schools while professional rugby league was limited in terms of players and teams.