So Rebecca Wilson is at it again, this time with her good mate Alan Jones, who decided it was a good idea to throw some more dirt on the football fraternity. Its been a while since the last muckraking article, so it was time to throw another hand grenade on the barbie. Only this time it seems to have backfired spectacularly.
Firstly, Wilson decided it was a great idea to write an article that was front page on The Sunday Telegraph 22nd Nov edition, with pictures of 140 of 198 football supporters being branded as “louts” and “footballs shame”. While we dont disagree that there are people on that banned list that deserve to be there, the major issue was the outing of people who have never been charged with a crime, have had no avenue (until today apparently) to appeal, and some are even under 18 years of age – which is actually a criminal offence.
Then to rub salt into the wound, Rebecca Wilson (who has been a noted anti-football voice in the media for years) then went onto Alan Jones 2GB program to pump up the article and get her congratulatory slap on the back from Alan who then, incredulously likened the FFA’s handling of “football violence” to (Alan’s right wing assessment of) French authorities dealing with the terrorist attacks in Paris. A reprehensible statement to make, and one that is absolutely offensive to anyone in the football family. We have been putting up with various instances of offensive media stories over the years from the Anti-Football Mafia (Rebecca Wilson, Channel 7 and the Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun being the main protagonists), and it appears that people have finally had enough.
A number of other supporters groups around the league intend to stage boycotts or walkouts during the A-League round this weekend, but we feel that this course of action is playing directly into the Anti-Football Mafia’s hands and only disadvantages the clubs we love to support. So what we plan to do instead is to call on all football supporters to hit these bastards where it hurts – in the hip pocket.
What we are proposing is to mount a football wide mass email campaign to flood these organisations with feedback from as many football fans across Australia and New Zealand as possible to call for the removal of Rebecca Wilson from the NewsCorp organisation and any media outlet that hosts her, as well as a front page apology from the Daily Telegraph for the wrongful publishing of peoples details and branding all football supporters in the same light as a extremely small minority. You can also tweet or FB message these media outlets and other shows (like Offsiders, Sports Night on Sky News Channel, SEN, etc)
We are also calling for an immediate boycott of all NewsCorp publications both in print and online versions, dont buy their papers, do not give your clicks any of their articles as these generate revenue and website traffic.
Except for FoxSports Football – they’re alright those guys.
We will also be calling for same response for Alan Jones by emailing 2GB and most importantly all of 2GB’s sponsors for them to pull their financial support or lobby the station for Alan to retract his comments and give an on-air apology on his radio show, and that he also be removed from the board of the SCG Trust.
We will be announcing commencement of the email campaign shortly – we are attempting to streamline the process for supporters to eliminate the need to send separate emails to multiple addresses. We will announce when its ready to go. Feel free however to begin tweeting and messaging these outlets via Facebook to get the ball rolling.
While Squadron Novocastria will not be engaging in a silent protest, walk out or boycott, we will make our feelings on the matter known at the home game against Brisbane this Saturday. We join in the disgust we are all feeling that all supporters of our world game have been tarred with the same brush thanks to a few morons who have been rightly dealt with.
The FFA will not get away scot-free from this debacle either, as their banning process leaves much to be desired (despite their protestations to the contrary) and until this whole mess hit the headlines there was no confirmed avenue of appeal for those who had previously been banned. Most supporters have been rightly removed from the game due to criminal or violent activity, there is no dispute that a banning process is required. However what we also have are some supporters who have been wrongly banned who have had no right of appeal, or access to the evidence that was used to ban them.
Representatives from Squadron Novocastria are working behind the scenes with other football groups from across the A-League to actively & directly lobby the FFA to improve and formalise the banning system on behalf of all football supporters and actually make it a transparent process, rather than the secret structure with no publicised guidelines as it exists now.
They will Never Tear Us Apart
Squadron Novocastria
