It Must Be The Ethnics Fault

I find it strange that professional sports journalists in my state feel the need to continually put down football and find fault at every opportunity. These are people who are paid to write for a living, yet they seem determined to alienate a significant portion of their readership with obviously personal bias towards one sport. Now you can understand this of ex-players who have fallen into a journalistic career after their time on the field of their chosen sport has come to an end but do we really have to put up with it from supposedly career journalists.

The most recent example, would be this opinion piece written by Greg Baum from the Age Newspaper. The article itself is presenting an important theme. Too often in sport these days the win at all costs attitude has soured the experience not just for the players involved but the spectators as well. The issue I have with the article is that Mr Baum felt it necessary to drag football as a sport into his argument as an example of poor sportsmanship.

”..Last Sunday, at Albert Park, I saw a spirited tussle in soccer's Provisional League. Near the end, a visiting player suddenly went to ground, writhing and clutching his stomach. He had been punched. Suddenly, a brawl erupted, involving players and spectators. One visiting player ripped up a corner flag, brandishing its spiked end as a weapon. Others made to attack with chairs. One produced a knife.

The referee abandoned the match, police arrived and outward calm was restored. No one was hurt, but, ever so slightly, sport was. Here was the opposite face to Ellensburg.

Yes, there was an ethnic element. I won't identify it here, for fear of escalating whatever prompted the violence. Suffice to say that it was not one of the groups that typically and historically feature in these type of incidents. But it is and remains soccer's cross to bear. When first called, police asked about ethnicity..”

Now that this incident occurred is unfortunate and I hope the FFV throw the book at the two teams involved. Nor do I find exception to Mr Baum using this incident to demonstrate poor sportsmanship as clearly the players on both teams should be ashamed that they allowed a sporting contest degenerate into nothing more than a street brawl.

However it is totally inappropriate for Mr Baum to take this incident and surmise that it is indicative of the sport as whole. I dug around a little on the Australian football forums and it appears that the match was actually amateur match, the two teams are based around ethnic backgrounds but the violence had nothing to do with the ethnic nature of the teams. It is laughable that Mr Baum feels the need use ethnic backgrounds to provide a reason for violence.

Further in his article Mr Baum provides an example of an AFL Match where thuggery also raised its ugly head. ”..But violence is not soccer's cross alone. Too often, AFL descends to this level, too. A workmate is nursing an arm badly broken in a practice match weeks ago, by a criminal act, also at Albert Park. To say so is not to contradict what I have previously argued in this column, that the proper court for Barry Hall's thuggery was the tribunal. This was at another level again..” Is this not indicative of the sport as well ? Why not call into question the ethnic nature of the contest here as well. Maybe the villain was of Irish descent and the victim of English, a clear case of ethnic conflict !

It is time the media gets past the idea that ethnic conflict is an issue within football. Of course it is in some instances but these are in the minority and getting smaller every year. Focusing on the few occasions where it does result in violence is not good journalism. I enjoyed reading Mr Baum’s article it was just a pity he soured it by a personal attack on a sport.

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