Things i’ve grown to dislike…

Richard pointed me in the direction of this article: http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2007/03/13/1173722467215.html which references Akermanis urging the AFL into Asia.

Amongst his ramblings are the following points:

- The AFL needs to push into Asia
- An AFL team needs to be based in Asia
- Starting the Singapore Slingers basketball team in the NBL was a “masterstroke”
- Asians are misunderstood and Asia is a large untapped market
- “Japanese people don’t like failure … that’s why anything like basketball or, say, Aussie rules can’t fail,”
- and the last couple of paragraphs

“I think our game has evolved that well and that quickly that let’s look at taking it to the world,” he said. “It’ll come when a lot of sports look at Asia, let’s get over there and properly first.

“In three to four years who knows where it could be and how big it can be. To me Asia is a logical and practical choice.”

Now, starting at the top of his ridiculous diatribe.

- Does the AFL need to push into Asia, would it be of anymore benefit if it did? Apart from the accumulation of more money I doubt it would in any way benefit Aussie Rules. On a player front, Asians are hardly reknowned for being of big builds, so it’s not like there is going to be a huge influx of players. Football was able to be firmly entrenched around the world because of the Europeans and in particular, the English and their empirical ambitions. The Americans are the only country in modern history who have such a far reaching influence over the world and even they have struggled to push Gridiron, Baseball (apart from Japan) and Basketball to great heights outside of their own country.

- The AFL does not need a team in Asia, If a team is based there in the next 50 years I would be more than surprised. Where is this fan base going to come from?

- The Singapore Slingers have an average crowd of 1-2000 people, hardly a masterstroke as he so claims, especially when you consider that the city has a population of 4.5 million people.

- Asians are misunderstood… yes them Asians. I wonder if he refers to the Western countries as those Westerners or by their actual country names. Every Asian is quite unique and would take much offence to being termed Asians. There is a big difference between Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese… etc we’d never refer to countries like Sweeden, Germany, England and France as being the same just because on the most part they all look similar. So yes, Asians are misunderstood but by saying so you’ve added nothing to breaking down that misunderstanding. As for being an untapped market, well thats a friggin ridiculous statement, what do you think “Asians” do? Sit around all day picking rice?? You inbred uneducated ignorant dickhead! In case you hadn’t noticed there are an Asian games held every 4 years in a number of sports, Football is by far and away the most popular sport across the whole of Asia including in countries like India where football is considered modern and cricket a sport of an bygone era and of the upper class. They have an asian champions league every year (in which 2 australian teams are competing right now) and an asian cup every 4 years (which we will compete in for the first time this year). That aside countries like Japan have a huge following for baseball and without a doubt, with Yao Ming playing in the NBA, there are quite a few people in China who follow Basketball. Untapped my arse!

- “Japanese dont like failure”.. nice way to stereo type Japanese people and break down those misunderstandings. “that’s why anything like basketball or, say, Aussie rules can’t fail” it appears that Akermanis likes to make a few leaps of logic when he attempts to get that brain thing of his working. Basketball is hardly a success and you’ve linked a stereo typical Japenese trait with your assumed success of Singaporean basketball, i’ll make an analogy so that you’ll understand how stupid it is. Rugby is really popular in New Zealand so Cricket should be popular in the United States!!! WTF!

- The time when you could take the game to the world is long gone, the world has its own game, Football! The sport on its own is as big as the Olympics and depending on which figures you read, has a larger audience. Just as an aside, from its 15 sponsors of the world cup, FIFA raised as much money as the Olympics gets from its 120 sponsors (from Time magazine).

As for getting over there first and properly well yeah, again, that boat has been missed.

- Asia is not logican and neither is it practical

Akermanis, you’re a dickhead. I don’t even hate AFL, its quite a good sport, I just hate this need for them to try and conquer the world with a sport that struggles to win over most Aussies. Despite what the media show you, Rugby Union and Rugby League are still the biggest sports in Queensland and NSW and Soccer is still the most played sport by youngsters in the whole of Australia AND is the biggest growing womens sport in Australia. UNTIL the AFL conquer Australia they shouldn’t even consider trying to Conquer the world let alone Asia. And by that time, it will be too late.