I found this article On the sbs website.
 https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au./australia-can-still-strengthen-fragile-asian-status

Apparently we're not well liked in west asia and after what just happened in new zealand by an australian it actually occured to me that the rise of far right anti islam politics could affect our membership in the AFC. Obviously what happened in christchurch by an australian is not good for our membership in the AFC.

As you know most people in australia especially the anglos on the far right like blair cottrell, pauline hanson, fraser anning couldnt care less about football here. Its not considered australian, AFL is better and its for immigrants blah blah blah.


It just got me thinking, what is it exactly about the link between AFL, bogan,anglo,racist, far right, bigoted that you seem to be able to always notice?

 Im a pure anglo aussie myself but ive always felt im a bit of an odd one out in that I wasnt introduced to football by my family, I dont particuarly like AFL and I love the world game. When I go to watch football at a bar im usually in an area with expat brits or in an area with lots of asians who follow the EPL.

But say Im in a rural anglo country town, just about every bar around will only be interested in AFL or NRL. Ask to watch football and youll probably be met with resistance or dissapointment. Ive actually never even tried to do this in a rural country town.

 Even when you watch the AFL footy show you can tell people like Sam Newman and Dermott Brereton and Gary Lyon are fairly anglo australian centric and anti immigrant, anti foreign, bigoted.

It seems to be improving slowly but this underlying bigoted mentality has always existed in Australia and its usually there amongst anglos who have a rather long history in Australia. There are obviously exceptions to this like myself, (my ancestory on both sides goes back to the 1850s and im ineligable for a european or foreign passport)

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

Heres a link to the article


https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au./australia-can-still-strengthen-fragile-asian-status

Anning went help. This definitely makes sense especially with what happens here after a terrorist attack by a middle eastern person. 

if a non footballing event happened like this terror attack was enough to get us kicked out, then it says more about them than us.

if west asia dont like us, well bugger them. we'll just deal with east asia

If Melbourne was removed from the map, proper football would fare much better in Australia.

If Melbourne wasn’t on the map you wouldn’t have victory or their high attendance 

A small price to pay!

Without Melbourne we wouldn't have the dick  measuring contests.  

Don't really think this has much to do with our low standing. As far as west Asia is concerned we are outsiders, not really part of Asia,  and we are pro US,  pro Israel, our football until recently led by a dynasty that are Jewish and we are thought to think of ourselves as better than the rest of Asia.   We also reduce the chance of their nations qualifying for tournaments and we don't play political ball with them.  Were we the only Asian nation that didn't vote for sepp blater?  Not sure but definitely one of the only ones who opposed the view of the afc. 

Some of these complaints are reasonable,  some not,  but a lot are both true and things we are proud of.   I don't want us to 'play ball' and support whatever sheik or prince Asia gets behind etc.  We should get more involved in Asia but the football politics of west Asia in particular is so dodgy that I genuinely do feel like we are better than it,  even with our huge flaws.  I don't think domestic Aussie politics is irrelevant but it's not the biggest reason in my opinion. 

Why do we care what those countries think? Their in a perpetual state of civil war, indoctrinated to hate everyone who doesn’t wear a towel on their head. Don’t see many Aussies fleeing to the Mid East as refugees, says it all really.

I dont think they’re worried about Blair Cottrell and a few guys wearing southern cross Tatts prancing down the street yelling into a megaphone, they’re more about Islamic terrorists detonating bombs causing their bodies to be blown to bits, or their own or some neighbouring dictator to firing chemical weapons into their hoods.  They’re not worried about Blair.

No one wears towels on their heads culturally or religiously, certain groups do choose to wear cloth or linen head coverings (like certain christian nuns for example). They are not towels. You're thinking of people after they've had showers maybe?.

Also yes you're right we have no refugees fleeing Australia as we have not faced the brunt of interventionist western military, economic and political imperialism in a long time, especially compared to what the Middle-east and North Africa has had to endure over the past 100 or so years. You're right, we should be thankful for this and more sympathetic towards other countries that have not been so lucky as us. Good point. Thank you for your well reasoned input.

Why are social politics even brought up with football at all?

Does the AFC rise up when hundreds of innocents are killed regularly in the middle east? 

Keep that shit away from sport.

The AFC have no leg to stand on - what do they do when innocent people are being killed or locked up in the Middle East by governments? Nothing. This was a lone wolf and not representative of Australia. They can’t play the victim.

interesting post. I would say Football in Australia (or at least modern football) is generally left leaning. we are anti-establishment, and tend to support muticulturalism, refugees, SSM, a lot of that type of stuff. we are the antithesis of bogan culture and looked upon from many cormers as a foreign enemy in a war against the local sporting heroes.

fwiw, i am Anglo as well. 

Our problem in Asia is that the worse we get the less power and influence we have, and we are definitely getting worse.

As for far-right, sure, in Australia and the US football is liberal, multi-cultural, global leaning but in Europe it would be much like AFL and NRL as basically mixed but with a nationalistic tendancy.

I personally think our biggest problem in Australia is the hyper-masculinity of the culture that tends to view football as soft. This is a broader problem for Australia as a whole though.

I thought its a constitutional right to speak on your political views, people can disagree, but you can't have a democracy if you start to silence people because you don't like what they are saying. The consensus of the people will in/validate it eventually.

I agree but if the anti islam brigade get too much power here our game will suffer.

Ive heard people say we should divide asia and just merge east and south east asia with oceania but we're the only ones in the afc who could give a rats ass about doing that.

And ftw, I think muslims can be fucking pain the ass to put up with but if we want a good standing or good relationship in the afc then we pretty much have to learn to get along.

I dont think the far right in australia has any where near the support as it does in europe and theyre not really a threat but I think for us football fans its something to be mindful about

The far left have a much stronger hold, the far right seems to be a minority. Both could be a problem for the Muslim community. 

Ikr

Literally thousands of people have died in terrorist attacks in the AFC region in the last 12 months.

Did the AFC expel Syria after Assad murdered his own citizens with chemical weapons?

Zord

I don't think you are too far off in many ways.... lets call then conservatives around the world struggle with the new world order...

In England the leave block are mostly lead by the conservatives, in the US, Australia, its mostly the conservatives who believe climate change is a left wing conspiracy to take over the world....

They may be a relative small percentage of the population but by and large they have a lot of power and often are the media gatekeepers of whats spoken about and the context it is spoken about..

To me its seems these same people also deny climate change.

Yes you are correct they don't like Football, never have, never will... they are kinda forced to put up with it....

Common among these folk is they want things to remain the same as remaining the same sees them in charge with power and in comfortable positions in life... 

The changing world order, scares them, they might have to compete with others and they don't like it...

The rise of Asia, and social media networks  terrifies them. 

I remember when the Asian Cup was played in Australia the coverage from media outside Football media and the political support was minimal for the event it was...

Whoever finishes up running Football in Australia, needs to handle this and work thu it.... 

Racist and stupid post. 

What is it about racist f*ckwits and the inability to stick to basic grammar rules (they're/their)? 

I agree but syria has more in common with the middle east and belongs in asia more than we do.

We're relative newcomers, culturally different and not liked by the middle east even before what just happened. 
And we also have plenty of people in our backyard who dont like or show any respect towards them either.

Dealing with islam and the middle east peacefully is about the best thing we could do if we want to stay in the afc.

In other words dont vote for far right politicians who i would bet my house on would think football is a foreign inferior sissy wog ball game anyway.

The afl would be rubbing their hands

And also west asia actually brings money into the game for competitions like the asian champions league and asian cup.

How much money would oceania contribute?

Its really not all that an attractive proposition for east asia to discard west asia and join oceania

Far right extremists in Australia count for what a few hundred if that in the country. 

Don't know what your bitching about.

Like i said earlier, somebodies political viewpoint doesn't count for shit when it comes to football. 

We literally invaded AFC member Iraq causing over half a million untimely deaths and were unanimously voted into the AFC less than two years later.

She'll be right.

How is that racist? Attacking a persons grammar really is bottom of the barrel when you have nothing else. Get back in your box. 

Didn't one nation get 200,000 votes? That's 200,000 who are very far to the right. The mainstream politics in Australia are also fairly far right at this stage.

....and yet most Anglo Aussie adults do not play  AFL or Rugby League ...the games are too rough for most to actually play ...so they only watch it... and yet they talk about football being soft ?....oh the irony !

That's a big yeet.

-PB