WorldCupDraw2006

All this is not new and not restricted to English or even European football. We had a case in Geelong some years ago, when a supporter, acting independently of his club, tried to bribe an opposition goalkeeper to throw a game. When an official of the goalkeeper’s club encouraged the keeper to persist with the negotiations in order to obtain physical evidence of the transaction, (a cheque was offered!) the tribunal found that official and the keeper guilty of an offence as well as the original briber.

Corruption goes a long way back in football history. My grandfather remains the only football manager to be suspended for life for refusing to apologise, after he accused a director of his club of trying to bribe a referee in 1926. He too claimed to have written evidence, but could not produce it at the tribunal and was told to withdraw the allegation and apologise. The man he accused was not only a club director but had been treasurer of the Scottish Football Association for twenty years. The next year the treasurer was voted out of that position and my grandfather was offered reinstatement. As I say, when you find a trout in the milk, it is circumstantial evidence that someone has been watering the product.

But it is not in sport that the biggest corruption goes on. The Australian Wheat Board is being investigated for indirectly bankrolling the Saddam Hussein regime under the United Nations oil for food program. Internal Memoranda produced to the Cole inquiry show officials were briefed on where the money was going. But how high in the chain did knowledge of this undercover payment go? Were Ministers involved directly or indirectly? The terms of reference were carefully drawn up to prevent scrutiny of government, though the Department of Foreign Affairs has said it will forward all material requested.

Late in 2004, the Australian Ambassador, Michael Thawley, acting on instructions from the government, took steps to head off an inquiry into the matter, because of fears that the US Senate was influenced by American wheat growers who were trying to break into Australian export markets. Now Norm Coleman, the US Senator, is claiming that he has been snowed by the ambassador and current incumbent, Denis Richardson, former head of ASIO, has been asked to ‘Please Explain’.

What is particularly galling is that it is Australia’s reputation which is in tatters as a result of this imbroglio, though the Prime Minister appears to be only concerned with his and the government’s appearance. His reputation is not the same as the country’s despite his claim to speak in the national interest. If he did not know, he should have known and he has let every Australian down. This is particularly sad because he has been trying to take the high ground on a whole series of international and moral issues, contrasting Australia’s conduct with that of other lesser nations who failed to live up to standards of probity and ethical behaviour espoused by the people of this country. So we are exposed to charges of hypocrisy and double standards once again.

Even the Attorney General has said paying ‘modest facilitation’ to sweeten trade deals is permissible. How he regards the Wheat Board’s subventions will be interesting to see given that this was the biggest payment of its kind according to the United Nations.

Where does trade and commerce stop and corruption begin? Is this the tip of the iceberg or the actions of a small minority of rogues? And what of our responses? Are we exhibiting hypocrisy or is this the necessary reining in of the feral elements on the margins of our otherwise functioning economy and society. The private sector has had its Alan Bond, Christopher Skase, Rene Rivkin, Larry Adler and a number of others.

It is easy to get things out of proportion when a particularly heinous case is revealed, yet you always wonder whether the extreme examples are just that: normal practice but pushed a little further than is acceptable at any particular time. I have often suggested, not entirely facetiously, that capitalism only functions because people at the margins are always breaking the rules under which the rest of us are expected and constrained to operate. And it is the same in sport, as Judge Robert Read who was a member of the last bungs inquiry in England put it, ‘It is very difficult to stop an agent from choosing to offer a bribe, very difficult to stop somebody from accepting a bribe. How they then conceal that will cause a few more ruses to be discovered, and new and more exciting methods of doing the dirty will be found’.

(Quote by Judge Robert Reid in the Electronic Telegraph, 2 February 2006. Reid was a member of the last bungs inquiry in England in 1993 after which George Graham was suspended but Brian Clough was not, primarily because of his failing health, according to Reid.)

An edited version of this article appeared in the Geelong Advertiser, Saturday 4 February 2006, p. 31 under the headline: Double Standards: Corruption and Commerce.

My grandfather’s story can be found in Roy Hay, James Dun Hay, 1881-1940: The Story of a Footballer, available from SESA, Griffiths Bookshop, Geelong, or Melbourne Sports Books at RRP of $25.00.

The League has also assumed ownership of the last National Soccer League champion, Perth Glory, after founding owner Nick Tana pulled out following several years of subsidising the club, particularly at a time when the eastern part of the old Soccer Australia was not pulling its weight in terms of promotion of the game. Tana promoted and sponsored the Glory, setting an example which none of the other clubs followed, and obviously he has decided the time has come to hand over to someone else. The League is confident of finding a purchaser for the club, but with the season imminent, it does not have much time.

The New Zealand Knights, which finished last season, tailed off in last place, uncompetitive and playing to derisory crowds, has just lost its manager, John Adshead, and is struggling to be ready for the new season which starts with a pre-season cup in July. Though the financial reports are not in yet, it is widely believed that all clubs lost money on the inaugural season, despite higher than projected crowds, the attraction of some sponsorship, a very positive media reaction and enormous goodwill on the part of the football public.

Melbourne Victory drew impressive support last year, but did not make the finals. While it looks set to regain its star player Archie Thompson, who has been on loan to national coach, Guus Hiddink’s PSV Eindhoven, champion of Holland, the Victory needs to add significantly to its squad if it is to challenge for honours in 2006–07. The Victory has some important sponsorship, but it would be fair to say that it has not cracked the Melbourne commercial scene as yet. Mooted recruitment of Brazilian talent seems to have stalled, though the development of young players like Adrian Leijer, Vince Lia and Kristian Sarkies has been very impressive, with Leijer being called up on stand-by for the Socceroos earlier in the year. But they need backing in depth if the Victory is to challenge for honours this year.

The history of the game in this country is of impressive starts followed by a quick falling off from the initial euphoria, resulting in internal bickering and loss of public support. This time, while the international outlook is very different with the Socceroos qualification for the World Cup finals and the acceptance of Australia into the Asian Football Confederation, the problem of establishing a viable domestic national league remains. With all eyes on the World Cup for the next two months, the domestic game has a period when the spotlight will not be on it. Whether this gives an opportunity for the clubs and the league to capitalise on the focus on the world game, or means that they will struggle to get financial support for their own purposes, remains to be seen. But certainly the second half of 2006 will be a critical period for the A-League in Australia.

(This article appeared on the Football Federation of Victoria website <www.footballfedvic.com.au> on Tuesday, 2 May 2006 and in Australian and British Soccer Weekly, 9 May 2006, p. 8.. An edited version under the headline ‘National league still beset by problems,’ appeared in the Geelong Advertiser, Wednesday 3 May 2006, p. 48.)

I suspect that in that sell-out crowd at the MCG there will be thousands of people who will be barracking for both sides, reflecting the kind of society Australia’s football-loving community has become. The idea of the half and half shirt is not new. When Argentina and Maradona took on the Socceroos in Sydney in a World Cup qualifier in 1993, I saw a young female supporter wearing just such a top. Then at the game against Iran at the MCG in 1997 I saw another with her toe nails painted in Iran colours, but she was in tears when Australia lost on that occasion. The World Game invites people to celebrate more than one loyalty and culture and Australia is one of the best places to recognise that.

Kate Dzidzic and Joey Didulica lead the dance at their wedding reception.

Geelong’s star football (soccer) goalkeeper, Joey Didulica, tied the knot with his bride Kate Dzidzic at St Monica’s Catholic Church in Moonee Ponds on Friday. It was a sparkling ceremony attended by a large circle of the bride’s and groom’s family and friends and members of the Croatian community from Geelong and Melbourne. Even the officiating priest got in the act, insisting on having his photograph taken along with the happy couple with his own camera !

In the evening the reception took place at the Ultima Function Centre in Keilor as the guests gave the young couple a great send off. Among the speakers were Joey’s best man and North Geelong star Mijo Trupkovic and the former principal of Wesley College, David Loader, who encouraged Kate to follow her heart to Europe where Joey is playing with Austria Vienna in the Austrian Bundesliga.

The highlight of the evening, however, was Joey’s response on behalf of himself and his bride, delivered in Croatian and English and bringing the house down. If he ever tires of goalkeeping he has a career as a stand-up comic just waiting for him. After a brief honeymoon the couple will return to Vienna as the football competition is in its winter break, but Joey’s next major event will be with the Croatian national team in a tournament in Hong Kong, where he has been promised a starting role by the coach in the build up to the World Cup in Germany. Coincidentally Croatia is drawn in the same group as Australia and Joey could be in direct opposition to his childhood friend Josip Skoko of the Socceroos.

Mijo Trupkovic should have the last word though. Having praised the bridegroom and saluted his football career, he ended with a rousing ‘Go Aussies’, which brought the house down again.

(An edited version appeared in the Geelong Advertiser, Monday, 9 January 2006, p. 7.)

(An edited version of this article appeared in the Geelong Advertiser on Monday, 12 December 2006, p. 45.)

It is followed by another lengthy piece by a writer from Marseilles who notes that Eric Cantona, he of the kung fu kick at an opposition supporter when playing for Manchester United, and Zidane both hail from that part of France. It is no accident, he says, that they reflect a local tendency to refuse to accept insults and favour instant retribution. Tarring all Marseilliers with the same brush may not be valid. It smacks of the old notion that it was only a hot-blooded latin temperament which explained soccer hooliganism, until the English developed a particularly virulent form in the 1980s. This writer also points out that Zidane delivered a blow to Materazzi’s chest, not a full-blooded ‘Glasgow kiss’ which would have broken the Italian’s nose and left him with a permanent reminder to keep his mouth shut.

Everyone agrees that Zidane’s response was inappropriate on or off the field, but for many it is understandable. Some even believe it can be justified if the insult delivered by Materazzi was intolerable. The argument runs that it is only by responding to such behaviour that it can be sanctioned and outlawed in future. The comparison drawn in Australian terms is with Nicky Winmar and Michael Long standing up against racist insults rather than accepting them as something which stayed on the field as their predecessors had been persuaded to do. Nevertheless it is not clear that resorting to violence on the field is acceptable or even effective as a response.

Futhermore it is bad example to place before impressionable children who like to mimic their heroes. Zidane’s subsequent apology is clear on this point, even if he still argues that Materazzi had to be stopped.

Let’s assume that there was verbal provocation by Materazzi. The recent word is that what he said was more directed towards Zidane’s family, particularly his mother. It is also being said that Zidane only learned that day that his mother was very ill. So while there may have been a racist element, the comment may have been even more personal and hence wounding. Does that make the provocation worse?

This raises the general issue of sledging in sport, at which the Australian cricket team are acknowledged masters. As with children everywhere they seek the shock and the destabilising effect by fringing on taboo areas. Our taboos change over the years. Sometimes this can be explained within sport, as has been suggested in the case of attacks on Aboriginal players in Australian Rules, but more often there is a broader societal change, which the sport does little more than reflect, though it may provide the iconic moments (Nicky Winmar’s shirt raising to Collingwood supporters). After all racism was at the heart of the anti-Apartheid protests of a previous generation in Australasia so it is hard to believe all the propaganda from the Australian Football League about its pioneering anti-racism role.

In any competitive endeavour, those taking part will always seek to gain a psychological advantage and it is difficult to see how universal and permanent rules could be devised to prevent that. As soon as one set is drawn up, inventive minds will be pushing at the boundaries and the process will have to be repeated. So I think we simply have to accept that at any point in sport, the boundaries which are tacitly accepted, will always be challenged resulting in incidents which crystallise debate, sometimes leading to changes in rules, sometimes to more tacit agreements not to go down that road and sometimes to a short-lived cause celebre and then back to the status quo. It will be interesting to see whether the Zidane-Materazzi incident has significant consequences.

Let’s start with the most bizarre sight of all. Surfing in Munich. The city is thousands of kilometres from the sea but there in a twenty-metre wide stretch of the Eisbach, an anabranch of the River Isar which flows through Munich, were a group of youngsters surfing on an artificial wave at the corner of the Englisches Garten (English Garden). You won’t believe it unless I show you a photograph I am sure.

Surfing on the Eisbach in Munich.

 They recommend that you don’t swim in the river because of the pollution, but these guys were hanging ten and more and going for it. Control was vital for you were no sooner in the water than you had to do a 360. Most lasted only a few seconds, but there were one or two stars who probably could have done long, in terms of time not distance, runs.

The New Zealand Knights side was a mixture of regular Knights players, New Zealand internationals and a couple of local Australian-based players, Jeff Fleming and Fernando de Moraes.

This followed the withdrawal of the Knights’ licence earlier in the week and its take-over by the Football Federation of Australia.

Victory welcomed back Scottish midfielder Grant Brebner and skipper Kevin Muscat also took his place alongside him in the engine-room.

In the early exchanges the home team could not find its men with its passes and it was the Knights which was more threatening with Noah Hickey and Alen Marcina having good shots at the end of decent moves.

Adiran Leijer finally forced a corner after 25 minutes which Adrian Caceres dropped on to the head of Rodrigo Vargas at the far post, but the defender put it over the bar.

Then in the next attack Archie Thompson’s cross just eluded the lunging Danny Allsopp.

It had been a very scrappy first half to this point with only the continual chanting of the Victory fans to keep the tempo going, but in 35 minutes Victory got a free kick just outside the box.

Muscat took it quickly while the Knights defence was retreating and Caceres drove the ball across goal where Allsopp was clearly offside.

The big striker was allowed to continue and he planted the ball past Mark Paston for his tenth goal of the season.

Four minutes later Vargas found Caceres with the outside of his foot and the winger ran past two defenders before thundering the ball into the net.

That took the pressure off the home team and the fans unrolled their ‘Premiers’ banner for the first time.

In the last minute of regulation time in the first half, Allsopp took a pass from Thompson, ignored two fellow attackers and drove the ball home at the near post for Victory’s third goal.

In the 48th minute the Victory got another free kick when Allsopp was pulled down.

Muscat lifted the ball over the New Zealand wall to Thompson who only had to roll it into the net to make it four-nil at half-time.

The second half was a stroll in the park for the Victory which gave the fans time to serenade their heroes, with crowd favourite Alessandro performing some of his Brazilian tricks.

The man of the match was Steve Pantelidis who performed three or four roles in midfield and defence in a selfless exercise for the team.

The four-nil win secured the top spot in the league for the Victory and guaranteed entry to Asian competition in 2008.

The crowd of 15, 563 kept Victory well ahead of the rest of the league in attendance.

The aim is to provide high quality football and be the best football competition apart from the national A-League. The status of the existing Premier league is reflected in the fact that the Australian Institute of Sport will participate in 2007.

The V-league will have not more than 12 teams and will require enhanced ground criteria, greater professionalism by clubs, better links with the local community, and greater emphasis on media and marketing. Every club will be required to have a senior team, under-21, under-18, a senior women’s team, four junior teams from under-11 to under-16 and two rooball teams for under-8 to under-10. A salary cap of $200,000 will be enforced to reduce the tendency of clubs to overspend in relation to their revenue. The entry fee for the league which will include referees fees and a promotional component will be $25,000 in 2008. A minimum of 500 seats under cover is mandatory with 1,000 preferred in what should be a spectator-friendly environment.

Promotion and relegation will apply after the first year, though all clubs admitted will have security of tenure for one year. Clubs will be required to have a professional administration with a full time General Manager or Chief Executive Officer. Coaching, finance and media relations will also require professional treatment by aspiring clubs.

Part of the inspiration behind the new league is a desire to prevent the kind of incidents involving club supporters, two of which tarnished the image of the code in 2005. So the emphasis will be on family enjoyment and safety, with quality venues and modern spectator facilities. But it is also driven by the need to participate in the current boom in football in this country, which shows that there is active support for high quality local competitions. The league will help showcase the best of local talent and fill an identified gap in the provision of a career path for players seeking to reach national league standards. One key element which is not clearly addressed in the business plan and the criteria is a single, common registration for professional players which will enable them to move between national and state competitions without administrative complications.

The plan represents a serious attempt by the FFV to bring the local game into line with the changes which have taken place at national level. Though it will cause great angst among existing clubs, most of which will have to improve their facilities drastically to succeed with an application, it is the way forward for football in Victoria.