Normally I would not comment on topics outside football and Australian soccer in general. Since it's OK for Les Murray, then it's OK for me. At least in a corrective sense to restore some balance and sanity.
Reference: http://www.theworldgame.com.au/blogs/lesmurray/why-football-needs-the-boat-people-247646
With the recent influx of immigrants trying to smuggle their way into Australia via illegal small boat operations and people smugglers, Murray turned the whole-hearted notion of the benefit of refugees to the nation to a bigoted attack on former Prime Minister John Howard and, by extension, the Australian public itself, while portraying a total ignorant and extremist view on the problem. In Howard's stance to halt such illegal entry, Murray described it as "generating fear of refugees and fanning hate towards non-Christian intruders" and for "vote-grabbing" motives. While the "vote grabbing" claim is can be see as valid, and quite legitmately so given that Australia is a democracy, as Howard was reacting to popular opinion, just as now popular opinion is for Kevin Rudd to be stronger, the insinuation that such Australian sentiment is born from Howard stoking hidden racism and that Howard is racist himself, when the truth is most Australians simply want the borders protected and are pro-immigration as long as its through the legal channels. To resort to such a vile and insulting claim, it reeks of Murray's own bigotry and myopic political partisanship. It's growing so tiresome when the only argument in a public debate is for political bigots to resort to slander and hate rather than address the issue in a civil manner.
If Murray could lift himself from his partisan and blinkered views for even a brief moment, he would understand that "the boat people, all few thousand of them" are not the issue. The Australian public would find it totally acceptable if it were only a few boats per year that landed. The issue is that without some controls, the risk is that the system could not cope, more and more of those those waiting legitimately would miss out, and smugglers would become more audacious. What is Murray's limit on boats that could land each year - 1000, 10,000? Obviously Murray would find some figure unacceptable. That makes him the racist that he's trying to brand others.
Then there's the danger involved for these people that try and arrive by boat. Many die in transit, as their rickety boats fall apart in anything that begins to resemble a rough sea. The more people that try, the more people that die. How many deaths is too many before Murray's conscience sees the welfare of people take precedence over nestling with the latte-sipping band of elitist ideologues.
The slurs continued, this time on the "not too bright" former immigration minister Kevin Andrew for stating on reducing immigration from Africa: "Some groups don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope". That's actually a statement of fact. Instead of insulting people and siding with similar ideologue, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who's more likely out to gain political points than have a vested interest, Murray could quite easily have responded with another fact that integration is historically troublesome for immigrants, and that history also shows, that given time, by the late second generation and the third generation, they fully adopt their new nation as their own.
Right now, the Australian national is the only team in the nation that stands for being Australian. It's a feature that all fans show great pride and can use as leverage on other codes to show the game that truly is representative of the nation. I made such comments in my intro blog when this site first started. To this day, my pride in the team and the sport still reigns for its ability to capture the heart of all Australians. Murray's ridiculous outburst that some control on illegal immigration could erode the fabric of the national team is preposterous. All fans would rejoice that several Africans have already broken into various levels of the national teams. If there's one issue that really should be addressed, it's that very few, if any, of our Asian communities have become involved.
A-League crowds have dropped this year, especially highlighted with the recent crazy decision for Gold Coast to cap crowds at 5000. The concern is premature. Let's remember the league is still new, some teams are doing quite well and, most of all, the decay and disrepute of the former NSL that was a total basket case to the sport. It could barely average 3000 in its final years. How soon we forget the bad old times and the constant demand for reform that we how have. On virtually every measure, the A-League is light years in front. I doubt anyone would want a return to the old days. That includes the usual anti-A-League protagonists that can't help other than stir the pot.
It sounds so in principle. Needing to be remembered is that under the system, the top 2 are heavily favoured, while teams 3 to 6 are forced through a sudden-death, single-game playoff to progress past the first week. It's effectively a top-two finals with 4 wildcards. The top 2 get a week off, while they wait for the winners of the sudden death playoffs. Teams 3 & 4 have home advantage for this sudden playoff, and play teams 6 & 5 respectively. The system forces teams to really strive to finish as high on the ladder as possible. If there's one error with the system, the A-League should actually have promoted it as a top-2 system with 4 wildcards.
Australia's bid for 2018 or 2022 World Cup is shaky. Unbelievably, the issue that many would assumed to be our great strength is proving to be our real weakness. That is stadiums. Fifa are reluctant to use ovals. They will accept one. Maybe two. They won't accept any more. Adelaide and Perth are problems if plans to expand AFL ovals are part of the World Cup bid proposal. Despite original requests, Melbourne's new rectangular stadium can't be increased in capacity to the minimum 40,000. The complex roof structure prevents that. A rebuild would be cheaper. That leaves Docklands and probable clashes with the AFL. Sydney could cope given the smaller crowds to NRL could be handled at suburban grounds. Brisbane has alternate stadiums to cope. Adelaide and Perth are in trouble if dedicated rectangular stadiums are not used. Then there's the issue of whether Fifa allows major sport during its competition. Fifa would hardly classify AFL and NRL as major sport, seeing it more as domestic sport and therefore allowed to continue. The question is of whether they should continue in any capacity through May and June that Fifa require stadiums, or halt their seasons. They'd need to stop for at least one month, and forego some of their stadiums for 2 months. The forgotten question in all this uncertainty is why not host the World Cup in March? The weather's better. The stadium are all free. Let football make a few compromises.