Football fighting racism

Football is the worlds most popular sport.  With people from many different cultural backgrounds, of many different races and with various religious beliefs playing the sport.  The majority of footballs best players go to play in one of the various European leagues. Unfortunately while playing in Europe many players will have to deal with racism. 

In England since the 1990's racism occurring at a match has been a rare, especially at the top level. A lot of credit for this can be given to the 'kick it out' anti-racism campaign that began in 1993. (it wasn't established only recently like an Australian newspaper stated in the past week)

Although England is an example of what can be achieved with a strong anti-racism campaign, unfortunately most European countries have a much worse record when dealing with racism. UEFA and FIFA are trying to rectify this.  UEFA run the Unite against racism program during the 2008 European Cup and supports the fare - Football Against Racism in Europe program.  Also FIFA  supports various programs and initiatives against racism.

Hopefully in time racism will be given the boot from football.     

     

       

No justice in attacking the Glory

For most of this A-league season Perth Glory have been one of the disappointments, always near the bottom of the table and anything but glorious like they once were.

This has lead to some people involved with football in Australia commenting that to be more competitive the Perth playing squad needs a major overhaul.  Also it has been said if things didn't improve for Perth the FFA should look at replacing them with another team.

Perth's performances this season haven't been helped by some of the decisions they have received. Defender Dino Djulbic got a five match ban for unsporting conduct towards an official, while later in the season Archie Thompson only got two weeks for a similar offence. Also going against Perth is the fact that twice this season penalties have been given against Perth, when they should of been free kicks because they foul was actually committed outside the eighteen yard box.

However recently Perth has been able to improve picking up seven out of a possible twelve points.  With over half the season been played there is only a nine point gap between Perth at the bottom of the table and the top team.  A clear indicator all of the teams have been competitive in the A-league.

In their last match Perth was able to earn a two all draw with Newcastle after been awarded a penalty in the final minutes of the match.  However this has lead to people attacking the character of Adrian Trinidad the Perth Glory player who earned the penalty, by suggesting he's a diver.  

Even though Perth's penalty might not of been the most clean cut, at least the incident occurred in the eighteen yard box unlike two penalties that have been awarded against Perth.  There seems to be little justice in the attacks by various footballing people have made on Perth Glory's competitiveness or the decisions that have gone there way.

                

 

The first post of The Mac Australian Football Blog

Everything has to start somewhere so i might as well begin my blog with this post.

On Saturday night Sydney FC and the Central Coast Mariners played in a quite exciting a-league match. It's not every day that a team comes from 3 goals down like the mariners did on this occasion with the Central Coast mariner striker Matt Simon scoring two including the equaliser.  

On Sunday morning i was watching Offsiders (sports show on ABC). Since the Melbourne Cup is on the upcoming Tuesday it was mostly about the gees gees which i have no great interest in, (don't worry i still do my duty as a proud Australian and have a bet on the big race) however it become a lot more interesting in the wrap up the sporting highlights of the week.  One of the highlights was the a-league match from the night before, part of the summary for the match was "then in the 80th minute the Irish men climbed into his second goal to grab a 3 all result.  Now the interesting part about this is I'm pretty sure Matt Simon is Australian since i saw him play for olyroos (Australian under 23 football team) at the Olympics in August.  Just to make sure i went to the Central Coast team website and on his profile his place of birth is Sydney and i know that isn't an Irish city.  Getting somebodies nationality wrong is a glaring mistake especially when your a sports show.

A less serious error was spotted in the Sunday Age sports section.  In the young achievers section (P 31) Matthew Theodore the captain of the Melbourne Victory youth team got a mention.  Two members of the senior Melbourne Victory team also got a mention Archie Thompson and Fernandez the obviously meant Carlos Hernandez.

And I'll leave you with this line from the article about Elyse Perry a Matilda player (Australian women's football team) in the Saturday Age sports section page 5.  " who is an adept kicker with both feet." 

Grates a bit if your a fan of the world game, doesn't it?