Sunday, June 14, 2009

 

Who's Afraid? - update #18

The Fairfax press might have its moments, but for real football refuser frothing, you can't beat the Murdoch stable. And this morning, they have been at it full bore.

The touchpaper? An incident involving Tim Cahill, at a Kings Cross nightclub. It's a calamitous day for football in this country, I tells ya:

A blind drunk Tim Cahill has shamed Australian soccer...

Cahill's disgrace soured the most important fortnight for the game in Australia...

The reports are an unwanted blemish on football's reputation in Australia...

In passing, there is a totally gratuitous reference to the club being a "popular hangout" for John Ibrahim. We get to the nub of the matter several paragraphs down, however:

Kings Cross police confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph that they attended an incident at the club and investigators were reviewing Trademark's CCTV footage. But police said there was no official investigation.

David Riccio is a league writer, of course. I trust that, in this spirit of News Ltd. collegiality, John Taylor will be entrusted with coverage of the next NRL embarrassment.

Not content with the above cheeky beat-up, the Tele's Sports Editor, Phil Rothfield, decided to have his say. Mr. Rothfield's general maturity level can be gauged from his exchanges with fans here, in which, in passing, he made a proper idiot of himself:

I noticed last night the Socceroos didn’t even have a sponsor on their jerseys. I wonder why? Major companies are reluctant to put up money in this current climate. When they do put the cash in, they want media exposure which the coach is robbing them of.

Needless to say, he was pulled up on the above absurdity by an alert fan within minutes.

Back to his reaction to the Cahill incident. The misrepresentations of Mr. Riccio's piece are repeated, with some additional NRL whining, but the following is particularly amusing:

The NRL has shown the way when it comes to dealing with player misbehaviour.

As shown, of course, by the immaculate behaviour of their players in the wake of the panicky fines of recent times?

Surreal.

Comments:
Blatant vested media interest trying to blemish the World Cup Bid being launched today, and divert attention away from yet another NRL scandal.

The fact that the telegraph editors RANG Buckley to DEMAND an enquiry is absurd! "We demand you make this a story!"

If the dinosaurs at Murdoch Press don't understand the sport and cannot cover it, their job is threatened and they become irrelevant, so the next best thing they can do is to bring it down. Same old story.

Meanwhile, a successful World Cup bid would bring in multiples more revenue to the country than most major sporting events combined.
 
It`s` about time the FFA and in this case Timmy started taking legal action against these dreadful misrepresentations of the truth
These league dimwits need to be held to account.
Advertisers [stop paying]and get wise to these journo`s who write garbage to gain hits on websites which one of the neanderthals claimed in his feedback reply
 
so nobody is interested in sponsoring the socceroos shirtfronts, eh?

that is the funniest thing i have heard in a while.

in countries where soccer is not the historically dominant football code, it will be treated as an invader by the other football codes. our american friends have similar troubles.

i think the big question is what soccer lovers are gonna do about it? there is a battle for hearts and minds. what is the australian soccer nation doing to win this battle?

clayton
 
...i think the big question is what soccer lovers are gonna do about it? there is a battle for hearts and minds. what is the australian soccer nation doing to win this battle?...

It's already being won, that's the comforting thing. Otherwise these sorts of stories wouldn't be appearing.

The main purpose of pieces like Rothfield's blog rant seems to be, as he himself mentions, to attract attention (and to make the more incoherent football fans look silly, which I must admit the Telecrap league mafia are quite good at).

And they won't change. Ergo, it's probably best to just point it out (without incontinent ranting) when it happens, laugh if appropriate, and not buy the awful Murdoch rags.
 
I think another crime is the headline 'free kick' or 'own goal' everytime the media concocts an anti football story! The sport headline subbies need a bit more imagination.

Anyway from what I heard and read yesterday the launch has completely swamped the Cahill beat up.

But of course News Ltd. will defend its Rugby patch as much as possible.

Another exchange with Rothfield in that article was as follows:

Hey Buzz(Buzz?)

Sounds like you’ve really rattled the cage in the zoo today. What do you think about 20 odd million dollars of Australian Tax Payers money being spent on Australia’s bid to host a World Cup? Seems to me to be a waste of money.
Dave of Bruce (Reply)
Thu 11 Jun 09 (03:18pm)

G’day Dave. It’s a terrible, terrible waste of money. The PM and Kate Ellis keep handing out all this money to SOCCER but brush the real football codes that are far more popular. Frank Lowy has obviously got powerful mates in government.
Phil Rothfield
Thu 11 Jun 09 (04:14pm)


Notice how he caps 'soccer' and talks about the 'real football' codes that he sustain are more popular.

There it is in its blazen glory. We better hold on because it's going to be a rough ride.
 
Love it Mike...
Had to have a go back at the Tele this morning, but doubt they'll publish. Whenever I have a go at them, they conveniently leave my feedback out.
It gets so bad, I refuse to buy their Sunday rag, but my wife did the deed yesterday, only for me to find that Wilson and Rothfield bagging us again, stating we'll never get anywhere so long as Pim's coach. Gee, maybe we should have that ratbag ref abuser from down Cronulla way instead.
Anyaway, maybe Pim grabs some of us the wrong way, but for me, I love nothing less than a straight shooter (no pun...), and I think Pim's a wonderful example of someone that's being paid to do something - and doing it well - but I'm also sure he doesn't have the word "exciting" anywhere in his job description.
 
imagine if.

what if cahill had gotten into the club with his buddies.

what if they then went up to the dj and asked the dj to play a coldplay track.

what if the dj refused, and then timmy and his mates bashed him?

now that would be a story.

and that is the incident that steven gerrard has had hanging over his head for the last couple of months.

clayton

ps. of course, i am sure timmy wouldn`t listen to trash like coldplay, but ...
 
everyone still pays too much attention to this rubbish.

fark em. fark the telly and their 'journalists'.
 
......"everyone still pays too much attention to this rubbish.

fark em. fark the telly and their 'journalists'.".......

Yep, if us football fans ignore these blatant trolls and stop being such easy targets, we'd never see these articles again.....
 
i think we would still see these articles cos they want to save the great unwashed from becoming soccer lovers.

but yeah, ignore the invitation to a mudslinging match, and rather than talk about whats wrong with other codes, talk about what we like about soccer.

a good a-league highlights show on FTA wouldn`t hurt either.

clayton
 
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
Come on, the TFO I remember is to smart to believe that by ignoring it it will go away.

WHy given them the diginity of replying to it thou? Why get into an argument with a prejudiced idiot?

There's more important things in life to worry about.
 
Hilly, I actually agree with you. ;o)
 
Your elipses confused me!
 
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