Which brings me to the AFL, a body that still seems to be stumbling along when it comes to seizing the moment. This week’s lost moment is a very costly one in terms of dollars and public relations.
Quite simply, the AFL should have switched this weekend’s finals matches and had the two South Australian clubs play in Adelaide and the two Victorian clubs play in Melbourne. That way, they would have had a full house at AAMI Stadium to watch Port Adelaide play the Crows and a big audience in Melbourne to see Essendon against the Demons.
Let’s say another 20,000 at each venue paying between $35 and $50 admission. That’s about $2 million. There’s no doubt Adelaide have had a raw deal this week. Despite finishing third they have to come to Melbourne to play the Demons. It’s another flaw in a highly flawed system.
In the home and away season, the 16 clubs don’t play each other twice. Immediately a strong element of fairness disappears from the competition. Then we have the agreement between the Melbourne Cricket Club and the AFL that says a match has to be played at the MCG every weekend of the finals series regardless of what might be happening on the premiership ladder.
That makes a nonsense of teams like Brisbane, Port Adelaide and Adelaide this year, or Sydney, Fremantle and the West Coast in other years, going flat out to make the top four. If you can have a rule that says a team has to play in Melbourne even though they have earned the right to a home final in another city, surely the AFL could make another rule which allowed them to say this weekend the Adelaide teams will play each other and the Melbourne teams will play each other. Imagine all the satisfied customers. The AFL would have made the politicians in South Australia happy.
The AFL would have made the football public in South Australia happy. And happy people are happy customers and happy customers keep coming back, which is what the AFL says it wants to happen. Given the AFL’s focus on revenue these days, it’s a surprise they didn’t make the change just to get the extra dollars from gate receipts and the savings in airfares and accommodation.
Football clubs know that if they aren’t flexible; aren’t able to meet each challenge with a fresh and inspiring new idea, they won’t survive for long. In contrast the AFL lacks that flexibility as well as the ability for creative, inspired thought.
So at the moment it has enemies and critics everywhere. The South Australians, both supporters of Port Adelaide and Adelaide, have a legitimate beef.
Essendon supporters also reckon the AFL is always against us. They are seething this week, wondering why Dustin Fletcher was cited for the incident involving Chris Judd while at the same time, no action was taken against the Port Adelaide captain Matthew Primus for an incident in the game against Collingwood.
There seems to be a lot of inconsistency in all the decision making areas at the AFL. So Port Adelaide will have their inspirational captain while Essendon will be without Fletcher.There will be plenty of people thinking the Bombers have no hope without him and also Matthew Lloyd.They will use as extra evidence for their view the fact we will have to fly to Adelaide to play. Well, I have a simple reply to that. Collingwood went to AAMI Stadium and beat Port Adelaide there. And they didn’t have Lloyd or Fletcher playing for them either. Additionally, while we are without Fletcher, we have James Hird to fill in for him at centre half-back.
You have to be positive in football: ready to see everything as a challenge rather than a problem. And you should always want to meet the challenge by coming up with ideas that question the conventional thinking and confront the pessimists.
The AFL’s credibility faces a lot of challenges at the moment. Not surprisingly, people are seeing it as an organisation that has removed itself from the grass roots.
This week, the AFL could have made a decision for the people. It could have given both Port Adelaide (minor premiers) and Adelaide (third) the home ground advantage they had earned by their consistent performances all year.
It could have stuffed its coffers even further by having Melbourne play Essendon at the MCG. If AFL clubs let opportunities to look after their members and supporters slip the way the AFL does, they’d be out of business pretty quickly. That’s something they might want to reflect on at headquarters. I’ll say a Hail Mary for them at church.
