Touchy Afl Out Of Line In League Row
The Age
Wednesday April 16, 1997
Suddenly the AFL is getting touchy.
AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson says he is "a bit concerned when people are queuing up outside the SCG to watch a game of Australian football and then they get offered free tickets (to the rugby league). I think that is a bit below the belt."
Is Jackson suggesting that red and white-adorned Sydneysiders who battled their way through last Friday night's Paddington peak-hour traffic snarls, queued for parking and tickets would have been lured away en masse to the rugby league match next door?
Annoyed Super League officials who staged their series opening match between NSW and Queensland at the Sydney Football Stadium were quick to respond in kind.
"People who attended our game were offered Swans tickets and we have not pointed the finger at them (the AFL)," Super League spokeswoman Rebecca Wilson said yesterday.
"And as for Super League staff or anyone associated with the promotion of the game handing out tickets to people queuing at Swans games, not guilty."
Unfortunately what the AFL has bought into is not a classic code rivalry, or a my-crowd-is-bigger-than-your-crowd oneupmanship, but the nasty politics that have embraced rugby league since the Australian Rugby League-Super League split.
The AFL, intentionally or not, has swallowed the propaganda that has been fed to the Sydney rugby league market for the past two years.
Of course it was in the interests of Super League's competitor, the ARL, to discredit its rival's match, to claim the crowd was bolstered by give-aways around the ground and elsewhere.
Politically it wasn't smart of Jackson to follow suit.
The AFL and the soon-to-be amalgamated Super League-ARL competitions will both be tenants at the Docklands Stadium.
The Age was at both matches on Friday and there was no evidence of turncoat Swans supporters in the rugby league crowd, or vice-versa.
If the AFL wanted to compare crowd figures and determine the status of Australian football in Sydney by scheduling the Swans' opening home-ground match against a premier rugby league game, then so be it.
But they should not be suggesting that the Swans crowd was in any way disappointing or less than expected, or that their supporters and those of the rugby league are less than genuine.
Jackson should be acutely aware that Sydney league fans are in turmoil and will continue to be so until the competitions are merged.
Any picture that the AFL paints about the Swans' momentum at the expense of rugby league is not a true reflection - yet.
© 1997 The Age
