Uneven playing field

[st.byron]

We know the comp has become 'unbalanced' by being skewed towards the new teams.

Here's an article summarising an interview with Mike Fitzpatrick that sums it up.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-10/m ... tion=sport


He openly says he wants GWS to be a really big club. He wants the game to be the most popular on the east coast. Sub text - " we need Sydney and GWS to be very successful".

NSW is the biggest market in the country. No wonder they want the game to be successful there. FItzpatrick and his ilk are all about making the most money possible. Sacrificing a fair competition at the altar of commercial success is writ large in Sydney and GWS.

How many top ten draft picks do GWS have running around today? Yet they have more high picks this year? The AFL have created a monster, intentionally. And the loyal, long time supporters of teams like ours just have to suck it up because we love our club and the game.

Fitzpatrick and his mates don't give a stuff, all they can see is $$$$$.

[Bluthy]

According to a phantom draft GWS who finished top 4, will have two top 10 picks to our zero. Sydney have the best young rising midfielder in the comp and others through their academy.

It what bizzare parallel universe is that considered anyway fair or the basis for a sporting competition. Its is the biggest crock of s***. Whatever you want to say about Eddie McGuire, at least he had the balls to come out and say these academies are giving the Northern teams a ridiculous advantage. But no one else really backed him up which is to our shame. How long will this go on for with these acamedies - forever? Oh we get access to the leftovers from the draft and rookie draft for our multi-cultural academy. Whoopy.

And the AFL leverage their power to get great stadium deals and sponsors for the Northern clubs. But because of the incestuous links between the AFL and Ethihad management ie Ian Collins we have one of the worse stadium deals in world sport. It is a joke and sickening. We built this game as a foundation club for 100 years. And our reward? To be treated like rusted on supporters who the AFL is confident we can suffer every sort of injustice and heartbreak without being able to give up our addiction.

What do you do - walk away from footy? Part of me wants to. The AFL won't rest until GW and GC have premierships. Brisbane will probably get a priority pick just because they want Brisbane to bounce back up despite winning three premierships recently. It's depressing is what it is. Its why I think we need to build a list of incredible quality as its going to be so hard to win a flag now with 18 teams and with AFL giving such advantages to the Northern state teams. God have mercy on our souls.

[saintspremiers]

Fitzpatrick can go f*** himself as far as I care.

And so can the channel 7 compliant commentary team. The young Giants. f****** spare me you retards. They have been gifted flags.

Go Cats or Hawks or even Adelaide

I hope Fitzpatrick and the whole AFL commission drown in their own festering Sydney centric gism

[HarryM]

Its is the biggest crock of s***. Whatever you want to say about Eddie McGuire, at least he had the balls to come out and say these academies are giving the Northern teams a ridiculous advantage. But no one else really backed him up which is to our shame. How long will this go on for with these acamedies - forever? Oh we get access to the leftovers from the draft and rookie draft for our multi-cultural academy. Whoopy.

Nobody will ever back Eddie up because we along with other Melbourne Clubs are being drip fed by the AFL and this is the only way we can survive to compete.

Clubs voted for all of this, and our Club did too, didn't notice any news reports of us saying how unfair it was.

[Enrico_Misso]

Tremendous reward for the long suffering old time GWS brigade.
They will be happy beyond belief tonight that there is finally light at the end of the tunnel after their eons in the wilderness.

They'll be eating Falafels till the early hours tonight!

[SuperDuper]

The start of teh GWS rein has begun.

Should win this years GF in a canter.
Going to be VERY difficult to beat for a decade.

AFL needs to make their zone smaller... now,, right now
If there is a kik from western sydney that plays AFL due to the presence of teh GWS, ok let them have him

If it every kid from the Riverina and surrounds... that is handing them premierships on a platter

[Bluthy]

Its is the biggest crock of s***. Whatever you want to say about Eddie McGuire, at least he had the balls to come out and say these academies are giving the Northern teams a ridiculous advantage. But no one else really backed him up which is to our shame. How long will this go on for with these acamedies - forever? Oh we get access to the leftovers from the draft and rookie draft for our multi-cultural academy. Whoopy.

Nobody will ever back Eddie up because we along with other Melbourne Clubs are being drip fed by the AFL and this is the only way we can survive to compete.

Clubs voted for all of this, and our Club did too, didn't notice any news reports of us saying how unfair it was.

So we can't have a voice? What a load of s***. Thats a complete cop out. They only reason we are "drip fed" is because we are paying off the Ethihad stadium for the AFL. Any decent stadium deal would see us making profits especially when we were up and firing.

If its creating a super power then of course you can revisit what the rules are - look at Swans cola disappearing after their success. If the rusted on Vic supporters start to drop off you have disastwer on your hands because as we've seen with Brisbane the northern state supporters are fickle as f***.

[Jacks Back]

Someone in Victoria needs to start a petition about all this crap!

[Playon]

Someone in Victoria needs to start a petition about all this crap!

OK but who do petition to? The afl?

[Jacks Back]

Someone in Victoria needs to start a petition about all this crap!

OK but who do petition to? The afl?

The Victorian football supporting public against the AFL.

[st.byron]

Tremendous reward for the long suffering old time GWS brigade.
They will be happy beyond belief tonight that there is finally light at the end of the tunnel after their eons in the wilderness.

They'll be eating Falafels till the early hours tonight!

Nice Enrico.....exactly. The long suffering loyal GWS fans who have stuck with their club through thick and thin. Listening to the commentators bleating on about how much they endured whilst building the club......." at least 10 x 100 point beltings".....try finishing bottom four years in a row.
Still the commentators are AFL apologists as well. To be expected.

[Waltzing St Kilda]

The AFL could be killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Foundation clubs Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Melbourne and St Kilda (along
with Richmond) all stagnating outside the eight. Think of the excitement in the
heartland if these teams were battling it out in the finals.

Nope. The AFL is off chasing windmills in the northern states.

[WellardSaint]

Tremendous reward for the long suffering old time GWS brigade.
They will be happy beyond belief tonight that there is finally light at the end of the tunnel after their eons in the wilderness.

They'll be eating Falafels till the early hours tonight!

Nice Enrico.....exactly. The long suffering loyal GWS fans who have stuck with their club through thick and thin. Listening to the commentators bleating on about how much they endured whilst building the club......." at least 10 x 100 point beltings".....try finishing bottom four years in a row.
Still the commentators are AFL apologists as well. To be expected.

Commentators are paid by Channel 7, who are in bed with Kim Jong-un...I mean Gil McL.
In North Korea, you get a choice of only 7 haircuts (that number again) and if you rail against the dictatorship, they rescind your ability to breathe.
Ch 7 will just give you the marching orders

[Playon]

Someone in Victoria needs to start a petition about all this crap!

OK but who do petition to? The afl?

The Victorian football supporting public against the AFL.

Well a petition can be started, but who are they? And what weight do they carry, I'd be more inclined to petition the Government
http://www.australia.gov.au/information ... lth/sports
Or the sports minister, dont we have one?

But the afl is a rule unto themselves, unless it could be proved that the comp had been fixed or an unfair advantage can be proven.
I'd have to leave it to those more in the know that what I am. I'm just extremely pissed off

[skeptic]

The problem for me is that whilst I understand the logic you're detracting from the integrity of the competition and hence your product...

I am proud to support one of the historically most hopeless clubs in the AFL if their success or lack thereof is due to their own mismanagement.

Likewise I respect a club like Geelong that has a good system in place that allows them to be financially successful and challenge every few years.

However, if you're telling me that by it's very existence, St. Kilda starts further behind the pack than about 8 other teams that will be gifted advantages to guarantee success for the "good of the competition" then why the hell should I care?

It's like playing the pokies... why should I bother with a game that's rigged against me

[saintsRrising]

The rest of the AFL gets to play off to see who else can make the GF each year....and maybe win it when GWS has an off day.

[Sainternist]

Thanks for validating this, St. Byron. I posted the exact same sentiments on a footy related Facebook group just before. I was mostly scoffed at by supporters of clubs who'd seen their clubs win premierships in the not so distant past, or greeted with responses like "but it's good to see the Swans lose!"

Good to see the Swans lose, but at what cost for us supporters of success starved clubs?

[st.byron]

Someone in Victoria needs to start a petition about all this crap!

OK but who do petition to? The afl?

The Victorian football supporting public against the AFL.

Well a petition can be started, but who are they? And what weight do they carry, I'd be more inclined to petition the Government
http://www.australia.gov.au/information ... lth/sports
Or the sports minister, dont we have one?

But the afl is a rule unto themselves, unless it could be proved that the comp had been fixed or an unfair advantage can be proven.
I'd have to leave it to those more in the know that what I am. I'm just extremely pissed off

Even if you can "prove" - although how much more proof do you need - that the comp is fixed, it means nothing. It has transformed into a huge business and nothing will stop those in charge following the scent of more revenue.

[Darth Vader]

And yet we've done far better in the dodgy AFL drafting and salary cap era than we did in the last 15 years of the VFL.

[saint6709]

Yes something needs to get done to keep things fair ... I've been living in Sydney about 5 years and unfortunately for us the Afl probably think they are doing everything right - the swans v G WS was massive news this week - biggest thing in nsw afl history they were saying."...........apart from lobbying for policy change the only other thing we can do is somewhat along the lines of 'if you can't beat them join them" - more like " " if you can't beat them - get them to join you " - they clearly have the biggest pool of top end young talent unable to get a game and looking for new opportunity -- LETS RECRUIT THEM!!! Steele, Marchbank, Ahern, Tomlinson - someone else ?! Les go !! !!!!

[st.byron]

The problem for me is that whilst I understand the logic you're detracting from the integrity of the competition and hence your product...

I am proud to support one of the historically most hopeless clubs in the AFL if their success or lack thereof is due to their own mismanagement.

Likewise I respect a club like Geelong that has a good system in place that allows them to be financially successful and challenge every few years.

However, if you're telling me that by it's very existence, St. Kilda starts further behind the pack than about 8 other teams that will be gifted advantages to guarantee success for the "good of the competition" then why the hell should I care?

It's like playing the pokies... why should I bother with a game that's rigged against me

I'm not intending to bleat about our historical lack of success.

My reference to our own long suffering, success starved history was intended in the context of commentators (paid AFL apologists) banging on about the how hard it was for GWS when they started and how they've suffered. A club that's been gifted the best list in the comp and still has top ten picks and it's own academy to cherry pick.

The success of the NSW clubs has been intentionally engineered in the interest of "market share" whilst loyal, lifetime members of traditional clubs have no choice but to watch and suck it up. Either that or walk away from the game completely. I can't do that. I had a RWB jumper before I could talk. It's not an option. But it makes me angry that my long time loyalty to the Saints and love of the game is being firmly given the middle finger by the likes of Fitzpatrick for, as they see it, "the good of the game". It's only about money. Loyalty, tradition and grass roots supporters can go and *** f***** as far as they are concerned. We keep tipping our money in because we love the club and the game, whilst the merry emperors conspire against us.

[skeptic]

The problem for me is that whilst I understand the logic you're detracting from the integrity of the competition and hence your product...

I am proud to support one of the historically most hopeless clubs in the AFL if their success or lack thereof is due to their own mismanagement.

Likewise I respect a club like Geelong that has a good system in place that allows them to be financially successful and challenge every few years.

However, if you're telling me that by it's very existence, St. Kilda starts further behind the pack than about 8 other teams that will be gifted advantages to guarantee success for the "good of the competition" then why the hell should I care?

It's like playing the pokies... why should I bother with a game that's rigged against me

I'm not intending to bleat about our historical lack of success.

My reference to our own long suffering, success starved history was intended in the context of commentators (paid AFL apologists) banging on about the how hard it was for GWS when they started and how they've suffered. A club that's been gifted the best list in the comp and still has top ten picks and it's own academy to cherry pick.

The success of the NSW clubs has been intentionally engineered in the interest of "market share" whilst loyal, lifetime members of traditional clubs have no choice but to watch and suck it up. Either that or walk away from the game completely. I can't do that. I had a RWB jumper before I could talk. It's not an option. But it makes me angry that my long time loyalty to the Saints and love of the game is being firmly given the middle finger by the likes of Fitzpatrick for, as they see it, "the good of the game". It's only about money. Loyalty, tradition and grass roots supporters can go and *** f***** as far as they are concerned. We keep tipping our money in because we love the club and the game, whilst the merry emperors conspire against us.

I agree. Apologies if I wasn't clear. My point overall was that pumping resources into clubs like GWS, Goldcoast etc may bring more money into the game in the short term but it comes so at the expense of the quality of the product which IMO long term is a step towards failure.

In terms of historical lack of success, I just meant that I'm comfortable accepting our failings if we are the ones in control of our destiny... ala being out coached in 09 or recruiting/developing poorly over that era
But if we were to go into a Grandfinal vs GWS in 2018, and Roo is suspended because of incidental contact in a marking contest but Patton got to play despite shirt fronting an opponent in the head because it was "in play" and they kept being gifted players up to then...
Well then what's the point!

[BigMart]

Academies were not the problem

Very few academy stars today but there were a plethora of high draft picks gifted to ensure premiership success

The number of first round draft picks on their list is mind boggling

They can now trade the other first rounders that can't get a game for younger first rounders... To ensure 10 years of contending

IMO they win 4-6 premierships

[Con Gorozidis]

It is terrifying when you sit down and think about it.

Let's say on average you finish bottom 9 or 10 every second year. Most clubs should have five top ten picks on their list at any one time. With trading or whatever and some variation the range should be 3 to 7. That is how the system is set up for 17 clubs.

We have five top tenners on our list - Roo Paddy JB Longer and Freeman. One of those has never played a game.
We have only ever had three on the park at the same time.

Gws had ten just playing today. They have another five or so not even playing. They must have 15 top ten picks on their list. Three times more than us and anyone else.

How can anyone expect to compete?

They really a vanity project and love child of Mike Fitzpatrick. It is high farce. We might as wll live in Russia.
We certainly cant look down on them because we are just as much a corrupt oligarchy as they are.

[BigMart]

The clubs agreed to this... Rather than risk losing a player

Short sighted and created a huge rod for their...

Blind freddy could forecast this monster