Mangled Thoughts

The AFL’s policy of running the footy as another socilaist collective is undermining the very thing it all hinges on, the loyalty of the fans. The rot set in with Justin Madden, who is the `Minister for Sports’ ( and what socialisto bullshit that is, summed up by the great swindle which is the Commonwealth Games. All those `public servants ‘ busy at well, dreaming up expensive to real taxpayers schemes to make it possible for little Johnny and Freddy to kick a bit of leather around, or little Sally and her firends to play hockey. Sport is also a major component of what each tier of govt calls `investment’. The Victorian Stalinists threw $20m. at a new stand for the Geelong Footy Club. The Footy Club, claimed one of its officers , now has an annual `surplus’ (1?) of $1m per annum, thanks ot the `grant’. Good for Geelong fans but, just one item of the Bracks’ Govt’s. spending spree they call `investment’ on `infrastructure’ ( a good word but bastardised in the usage of it by commie bastards - the Coaltion are fond of it to paper over the fact, all govt. expenditure is consumption, there is not one cent a govt. spends which is not but consumption). Very bad for real taxpayers and just one more brick in the street the` Govt.’ is building, destitution. $20m. in the hands of an entrepeneur, now that would see real investment if it were not for Oz’s hideous tax regime, `regulations’ and stasiland police whose job is to kill off any neterprise that escapes the police state net each tier of govt has erected and making bigger. Ah, back to the AFL.

Madden, who played for Carlton, brought on the AFL’s version of the IRClub. Until then, clubs paid `pros’ and made provision for amateurs. that some players were not paid as much as others, so what, papers over, `amatuers’ still did very well. Then along came Madden, setting up a `union’ and calling for minimum pages. Amatuers have been dudded. they are still not paid as much as the `pros’, and there is no puzzle as to why, for now they pay tax when they didn’t pay tax in the past.

The AFL has proceeded further down the road to communisto football, which is a grotesque contradiction. The aim,after all, is to run a professional and thus profitable competition. `Salary’ capping has crippled clubs’ capacity to carry a list of the best players each can obtain. It shows, rather badly and that is turning fans off the game. Cross subsidisation of clubs, saving the beneficviaries to work out their woes or, get out of the games. In doing this, the better clubs have been ranscakced, both in funds from fans and advertising, and the players they need to field strong, comptetitive teams week in , week out, which is why the leading clubs collapse into bpulped heaps some weeks. It looks very bad, it will be worse come the finals season, no guarantee the best two teams will see it through to the Grand Final, and it is likely a weaker team will win the cup and , the G.F. is shaping up to be a boring non-event, which is what many games played each week are.

Rules, they are rule mad, so rule mad that the real players are the umpires. The AFL have mnade that plain by fielding a team of umpires for each game and dressed in loud clours. So loud, players become invisible, as it were, to the viewers. That has been so in every one of few glimpses of broadcasts I’ve watched this year. The umps are an eyesore, they fill the screen and break up the play. Given the sheer number of complaints, are really stuffing things up applying a 3,000 page rule book , and inventing more rules just for the day, just some more blunt reasons why the fans are deciding to occupy their time with more interesting hobbies, even do some house and garden work for a change, than wasting four hours a day on weekends watching hoofy.

They must be, many of the games, boring. Never before, as far as I can remember, have even the addicted telephoned radio stations and declaring , that’s it no more, that they won’t be stumping up for tickets and, when not at matches, are doing other things, watching the highly entertaining Japanerse contest, Iron chef, reading, playing chess, indulging hobbies, going to movies, anything but watch footy at grounds or in the lounging room. Yet, that is what they are doing this year, telephoning dis jocks and shouting over the airwaves, `No more, had it up to the gills, what a waste of time and money, I can’t beleive I even liked the game.’

What’s the repsonse of the commie bozos running the AFL? Their’s is not so much that of ostrich head inspecting sand a few inches underground but, rather, spuds jambed down into deep muddy holes in sodden Ireland, hoping to sprout and produce ,well, little shrivelled things called spuds.

The AFL believes it can demand a price from T.V. stations for broadcasting rights. It is whining owners aren’t doing the right thing, another sociliasto bit of cant. The T.V. stations aren’t doing the thing expected, bidding the price up to new heights. The AFL are plotless on this. The rights are an input cost for the stations, and will only pay according to its contribution margin to, the generation of advertising. I said last year, that value of the rights is decreasing. That was a litote. Given the number of fans complaining and switching off, the value will collapse , if it is not already beginning to collapse. After all, what price can aske advertisers when thereason for the advertisers to pay for ads is disappearing down a toilet bowl. An owner can ask, but never demand, something the owner’s of t.v. netwroks appreciate rather more than do the commie dumbkopfs who are reaping the rewards of their grand collective plan, an unwatchable load of crap and paying bums on seats.

The signs were visible last year, stands were, during the year, lacking pie munchers. T.V. camera shots have followed the Euro trick for soccer broadcasts, panning shots taking in the stands are verboten. How long before, in T.V. boradcasts, canned roaring crowd noise is used to dissemble, times have not been better, and the fans, why, they are even littering the streets and lawn around the stadium.

I’m not a fan, though I’ll listen to the odd broadcast, Rex’s radio broadcast while, say, cleaining the car. He makes it sound far more enjoyable than it actually is but even then, that’s because the lads are making play sound far more thrilling than it is. Even then, there is only so much Rex can do to make one long 4 hour unbroken yawn seem more example than watching 3 mile snail races. Nah, the snails can gallop, by gum, can they run a 3 mile stakes, the little beasties set my ticker going, the palms clutching the betting slip sweaty with excitement.In fact, I’ll sell the t.v. rights for snail racing at half the price the AFL demands and, guaranteed, the viewing audience will treble, the advertising revenues improve as in, shoot the vertical way up.

They, the AFL, desrve everything which will and won’t happen. Brillaint, bloody funny and yet, there is justice after all. One of Melbourne’s commie H.Q.’s reduced to pack of penniless whiners blaming bad old capitalistos for their misfortune. It is hilarious, it does make laugh; what a pack of commie tossers they are.