Below is my submission to the Australian Government's 'Sport on Television - Review of the anti-siphoning scheme'. My submission deals with the continual neglect that Australian national football teams have been treated with by this scheme in the face of record interest in football.
I strongly encourage fellow Australian football fans wishing to either see the Socceroos on the anti-siphoning list or debate the appropriateness of the scheme to make their own submissions to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy via this link before 16 October 2009.
"The discussion paper clearly states that the main rationale of the anti-siphoning list is to ensure that 'sporting events of cultural significance and national importance can be made freely available to the Australian public.' I put it to the government that this rationale is not applied fairly to association football in Australia.
How, in any way, are matches involving our national association football teams not of cultural significance or national importance? One may find that of all football 'codes' in our nation, association football is best placed to offer a truly national footprint of interest. As shown in the discussion paper, Australia's World Cup qualifying matches against Qatar and Iraq, were two of the most watched Pay TV programs in 2008. Australia's defeat of Japan in June 2009 set a new record for Pay TV viewing numbers. And yet this is not good enough for the Socceroos to be taken seriously as perhaps our most prominent national sporting team?
In light of this, it is simply baffling that games involving our national association football teams are not included on the anti-siphoning list. One must wonder if it is a manifestation of the anachronistic attitude that association football is a foreign game and has no place on the Australian sporting landscape. This attitude is quite frankly out of touch. The decision to include the English FA Cup final on the list is puzzling on two fronts: the importance of this competition has arguably diminished in recent years, and I would argue that the match itself is not as culturally significant or nationally important in comparison to the Socceroos.
I strongly urge the government to reconsider the omission of our national association football teams from the anti-siphoning list. In regards to the Socceroos, this would ideally include placing all friendlies and Asian Cup and FIFA World Cup qualifiers on the anti-siphoning list.
When one considers the stunning viewer numbers of Socceroos matches on Pay TV, the Socceroos historic participation in a second straight FIFA World Cup, and to a lesser extent the growth of the A-League, the neglect shown towards association football in the anti-siphoning list clearly does not reflect that the game is bigger than ever in Australia and is indeed an integral part of our sporting landscape."
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