Can the Matildas waltz onto the world stage in terms of sport diplomacy??

In May this year, UTS hosted a Cricket Collaboration and Commonwealth conference in New Delhi. It took place at the pointy end of the Indian Premier League (IPL) finals on the Thursday between the semi-final and the final on the weekend. Accordingly, we invited Aussie cricket legends Matthew Hayden and Lisa Sthlaker who also commentate on the IPL to be the guest speakers.

So, what happened? Of course, we got a full house in cricket-mad India who wanted to meet the Aussie pair and amazing media coverage. As a result, interest in UTS courses have been flooding in from prospective Indian students who met our academics at the New Delhi conference. We also had a sports research angle in New Delhi with the UTS Cricket Lab-Cricket NSW partnership and their investment in the Delhi Capitals IPL team. The Delhi Capitals physio, Patrick Farhart, a PhD student in Sports Science at UTS and a former physio for the Indian and Australian cricket teams also spoke at the conference.

This got me thinking. If Matthew Hayden and Lisa Sthalekar can be Ambassadors for Australia education in cricket-mad India, why not have the Matildas do the same thing in our many trading partners that follow ‘association football’ or ‘soccer’ as the world game? I am sure Sam Kerr, Steph Catley and the whole team would be a big hit in Asia, Latin America, Europe and the rest of the world in fact. Mary Fowler’s Papua New Guinea origins have already been popular in PNG and given the expansion of the FIFA Women's World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™ to 32 teams and the amazing broadcast ratings, the Matildas would be well received virtually everywhere.

How have sporting figures worked as education Ambassadors before? Or for trade, tourism and investment or ‘Brand Australia’ if you like? We did have some experience art this when I was chief economist at Austrade. For the Rugby World Cup in Australia in 2003. We employed Rod McQueen after he had retired as Wallabies coach as head of Rugby Business Club Australia (RBCA) to facilitate introductions for exporters and investors wanting to do business whilst attending the rugby.

RBCA was based on Business Club Australia (BCA) at the Sydney Olympics 2000, a business-networking club established for trade and business delegations visiting Australia during the Olympic Games. Many exporters, like architect John Bilmon of PTW were introduced to business prospects. Bilmon was seating next Olympic officials from Beijing for the famous Cathy Freeman race so as a result when he later went to China to pitch to design the swimming facility for Beijing 2008 Olympics they had already bonded over Cathy freeman. As a result, Bilmon won the bid, designed the fantastic ‘Water Cube’ for Beijing and the rest is history. Between Sydney 2000 and London 2012, BCA facilitated about $1.7 billion in trade and investment deals. The ‘power of schmooze’ in action!

When the Socceroos finally qualified for the FIFA Men’s World Cup in 2006, the Lowy Institute itself ran a Football Diplomacy conference, where I proposed a Football/Soccer BCA networking event along the same lines as the Rugby World Cup, the Olympics and Commonwealth Games. The late Les Murray and I hosted some events in South Africa in 2010, but otherwise the BCA concept had gone a bit quiet which is a shame as there’s great potential for sports diplomacy with the world game.

Now with the Matildas success, why don’t we revive the BCA concept and sport diplomacy with the Matildas as Ambassadors now and after they retire? Naturally, many will be brand ambassadors for private sector companies but being part of the nation’s soft diplomacy may be appealing. It is a good time to do it with the Albanese Government’s emphasis on gender equity in foreign policy with women’s sport an important part of their international development policy. 

In addition, given how sport crazy Australia is, we could target our sport diplomacy by region. It would be a ‘horses for courses’ approach emphasising Cricket in India, Rugby Union in the Pacific, Rugby League in Papua New Guinea and the Matildas in a number of countries. This would be good for building Australia’s brand, good for diplomacy, good for gender equity and would allow the Matildas to wear the green and gold both now and long after the glory of their playing days is over.

In the meantime, good luck Matildas!

*Tim Harcourt is Industry Professor and Chief Economist at IPPG at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and host of Footynomics – The Economics of Sport www.footynomics.com.au

Do you want to study Sports Management at UTS? Check it out at:

https://www.uts.edu.au/study/business/i-want-study/management/postgraduate-options/why-sport-management

Matildanomics: the Economics of the the FIFA Women's World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™

The FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 is now at the pointy end at the semi-finals stage and crikey hasn’t it exceeded expectations!

On the field the Australian Matildas have just eliminated the talented France in a dramatic penalty shootout and have progressed deep into the tournament with its star shooter Sam Kerr, arguably the best women’s player in the world, mostly on the bench nursing an injured calf.

Off the field, too the expectations have been exceeded with record upon record broken as the nation stops to follow the Matilda’s waltz to the final at the ground, at large screens, and in their lounge rooms. And it’s not just Australia, the other nations have had mass fan moments too – with teams like Colombia drawing on their large community in Australia to provide lively and colourful support for their team.

The crowd numbers have been amazing. Almost 6 years ago, in 2017, I wrote a piece about the Matildas attracting just over 15,000 for a friendly against a fancied Brazil (Lisa de Vanna and Sam Kerr scored in a 2-1 win) but this pales into insignificance against the 75,000 plus crowds the team has been attracting in a tournament when all games have been well attended.

Even before the quarter finals were played, Mandala CEO Amit Singh pointed out:

“Previous tournaments such as Germany 2011 and France 2019 managed to fill relatively small venues but no World Cup until AU-NZ 2023 packed out large stadiums consistently. AU-NZ 2023 has hosted over 1.6 million spectators in stadiums so far, which is already 19% more than Canada 2015’s previous highwater mark of 1.4 million spectators.
Television audiences are similarly huge, with broadcasters reporting that Australia’s Round of 16 win over Denmark drew larger audiences than recent grand finals of the NRL and AFL.” It’s not surprising as this is the biggest event Australia has hosted since the COVID19 Pandemic and one of the biggest hosted since the Sydney 2000 Olympics. And hosting it with our Trans-Tasman cousins in New Zealand makes it extra special.

Football Australia (FA) was excited about its economic impact before the kick-off. They anticipated $400 million plus in total benefits, including 3,000 full-time jobs and 60,000 visiting the country. And beyond tourism and broadcast rights, they were expecting a legacy of long term economic and social impact. According to Sarah Walsh, the FA’s Head of Women's Football, Women's World Cup Legacy & Inclusion even before the cup began they were” looking at 407,000 new participants coming into the game who are women and girls” and the need for providing adequate infrastructure, including soccer pitches, training facilities and change rooms. Whilst the Matildas have a new state of the art training facility in Melbourne, Walsh explained that ‘Legacy23’ attempts to balance this out, by emphasising facilities at the grass roots level as well for both girls and boys.

This why UTS, at the Centre for Sport, Business and Society, is investigating how greater participation in soccer, or any other active sport for that matter, helps to improve productivity and drive down health costs and related social expenditure. There has to be lasting economic and social benefits shared across the community for the long term if a major event is to be deemed successful beyond the big splash this year after all, whilst we all love a Cathy Freeman, Sam Kerr or Steve Smith, we can’t have all our sports resources invested in the top 1 per cent of our talent.

There is no trickle down in sports economics, nor does it work in the wider economy. Hence the policy framework that Legacy23 provides to boost the economic and social benefits of the World Cup across the community for decades to come. As Sarah Walsh says: “an event without a legacy, is just an event. We need to leverage the momentum to make the World Cup last beyond just a few weeks in 2023.”

*Tim Harcourt is Industry Professor and Chief Economist at IPPG at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and host of Footynomics – The Economics of Sport www.footynomics.com.au

Do you want to study Sports Management at UTS? Check it out at:

https://www.uts.edu.au/study/business/i-want-study/management/postgraduate-options/why-sport-management 

The Economics of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.

The Socceroos have made it to the World Cup! For the fifth time in a row since Germany in 2006. Thanks to the antics of substitute goal keeper Andrew ‘The Grey Wiggle’ Redmayne Australia defeated the more fancied South American team Peru to book a place in the finals

in Qatar in November. Redmayne’s unorthodox technique of dancing on the goal line reminded his daughter and many other Australian children of the popular entertainment group ‘The Wiggles’. Whilst for European, South American and African nations, soccer or

Association football is the sport, in Australia, soccer is only one of 4 codes of football vigorously competing for players, fans and sponsors. So making the World Cup for the fifth time in a row, after winning respect from the Peruvian press for qualifying across continents, is no mean feat. Apart from Australia, only in USA, Canada, New Zealand and perhaps India does the national soccer team play second or third fiddle to other national teams, so the Socceroos deserve some respect for qualifying. After all, in Australia, we expect the Matildas, women’s soccer team to be one of the top teams in any tournament, but for the men’s team, the Socceroos, it’s a much tougher road.

Now all eyes are on Qatar, as they were in 2010, when the tiny but gas-rich Gulf nation out- bid more fancied bids, including the game’s inventors, England, to win the right to host the World Cup. It only has a population of 2 million, has had to build 7 out of 8 stadiums from scratch in order to host the finals, and itself has never qualified for the World Cup. It seems like an enormous economic undertaking just in infrastructure alone.

So why did Qatar want to host the World Cup? It’s partly about prestige. Qatar will be the first Arabic nation to host the World Cup (as well as being the first host country since Italy in 1934 to host the tournament without having played in it). But what about the economics? The Qatar authorities predict a contribution to the national economy of around $20 billion (A$28.9 billion) with 1.5 million new jobs created in construction, real estate and hospitality. The IMF predicts Qatar’s economy to grow by 3.4 per cent a year thanks to the World Cup boost but then slow to 1.7 per cent a year by 2024. However, the Russia-Ukraine War has made Qatar a supplier of choice of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), which the IMF expects to boost Qatar’s GDP by 3.8 per cent in 2027 when new LNG production come online.

The World Cup is expected to attract 1.5 million visitors to Qatar, over half its normal population. However, tourists must be full vaccinated, have a ticket the World Cup matches and to respect Qatar ‘modesty’ in terms of cultural values. Qatar had put a lot of investment into cultural attractions, including a new National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ), to interest visitors between matches.

What about Jobs? As many new jobs have been created as tourists are expected, but Qatar has an enormous expat workforce so the benefits will be spread across the MENA region and South Asia and South East Asia as well. Foreign workers fill 9 in 10 jobs already in Qatar, so much of the job creation will be for guest workers, whose working conditions have already come under scrutiny from the international trade union movement. The World Cup should be an opportunity to make improvements on that score. The tax-fee benefits of Qatar mean there won’t be the tax revenue of past World Cups to the host government.

In terms of spending, the big-ticket item in hosting mega global events like the World Cup and the Olympics is infrastructure. It is estimated that Qatar will spend $200 billion (A$289 billion) in infrastructure to host the World Cup (some estimates are closer to $300 billion or (A$ 433.8 billion). Building seven out of eight stadiums from scratch, as well as the associated accommodation and logistics to hold the month-long tournament. Of course some of the infrastructure will benefit Qatar well after the tournament is over such as upgrades to Hamad International airport, a light railway, a bridge between Doha and Bahrain, new roads and the new Doha metro as well as the stadia. Some of the stadiums will be dismantled after the Cup and the seats will be donated to developing countries in the Middle East and Africa helping Qatar’s soft diplomacy.

Will the World Cup benefit Qatar in terms of trade? Overall Qatar is mainly LNG exporter so the export value of the World Cup will be minimal beyond tourism, but it may be an opportunity to position Qatar as an alternation trade and aviation hub the region to the UAE. Especially if business visitors are impressed by Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup.

What about in terms of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)? Most of the investment will come from Qatar itself but the blockade of Qatar by the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) over 2017 -2021 adversely affected FDI so the World Cup has come at an ideal time for Qatar although most studies downplay the effectiveness of one event alone attracting significant FDI. And how about Country Branding? According to Georgetown University’s Qatar campus, Qatar has been put in the map of the “twitter verse” with an explosion in English and Arabic #qatar the day after December 2, 2010 when it was granted hosting rights and it has maintained its position since. After all, like a social media campaign, and in traditional PR, the World Cup is aimed at just putting Qatar “on the map”. It will be a bit like when Qatar launched the Al Jazeera Television network in 1996. It changed the media landscape in the Middle East and around the world giving Qatar more prominence as people started watching Al Jazeera. This increased as Media became more politicized in the West, between CNN and Fox News in the USA and the BBC and Sky in the UK. By contrast, Al Jazeera has earned respect as a high quality, international news channel, gained more followers that has been good for Qatar.

Also hosting the World Cup is part of a strategy to position Qatar long time host of major events – sporting and otherwise. The economic evidence shows that even if one event doesn’t boost FDI substantially, gaining a reputation as a regular host of major global events does boost FDI in the medium term.

So now the Socceroos are in what’s the opportunity for Australia in terms of trade with Qatar and the whole Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region? According to Jonathan Muir, Australia’s Ambassador to Qatar, Jonathan Muir: “Most of Australia’s exports to Qatar are food and engineering services that have and will benefit from the hosting of the World Cup. However after the Cup, I expect investment to be more important especially as Qatar looks to invest globally via its sovereign investment fund. For example, QIA recently took an A$ 1 billion stake (US $691 million in the Sydney Airport consortium, bringing Qatar’s sovereign investment to about A$ 4 billion (US $2.7 million).”

And for Australia and the Socceroos? We have a not so secret weapon, Tim Cahill, Australia’s highest ever World Cup Goal scorer and a FIFA World Cup Ambassador. Tim lives in Qatar, and has and will be involved in a lot of Australian Embassy functions, so he’s likely to help us score a lot of goals off the field as well. So with the Grey Wiggle and Timmy Cahill, Australia looks to make impact on and off the pitch in

Qatar.

Cold War in Paradise? Sport Diplomacy in the Pacific.

Did you hear? There’s a cold war in Paradise. China’s geo strategic thrust into the Pacific caught the Morrison government napping - especially with China’s deal with the Solomon Islands – and now there’s more to come. The Chinese Foreign Minister is visiting the Pacific in an eight country visit to negotiate trade and security agreements, similar to the one Beijing forged with the Solomon Islands.

Now the newly elected Albanese Labor Government has wasted no time in trying to rebuild Australia’s reputation in the Pacific to contain China’s aggression. In fact, on the first day in office the new Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong made a video specifically for the Pacific nations before she joined the new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the flight to Tokyo to the Quad meeting (Australia joining Japan, USA and India). And as soon as she got back, channelling former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kevin “707” Rudd, she flew straight to Fiji to reassure our regional neighbours that the new Australian Labor Government would prioritise the Pacific on its foreign policy agenda.

Penny Wong quite rightly identified climate change as key Pacific concern, saying Australia needed to do more to save its neighbours from the fall out of lack of climate action let alone the planet. The visions of former Prime Ministers Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and now Opposition Leader Peter Dutton making jokes about the rising seas and “water lapping at your door” in the Pacific were fresh in Pacific memories, hence the haste with which Wong flew to Fiji. Climate Policy will be a major issue for Australia-Pacific engagement.

Along with the pressing need for climate policy action, there are also other ways to re-establish Australia’s ties with the Pacific.

One is international trade and investment. The Pacific nations already comprise 3 of our top 20 exporter destinations (that is number of exporters not export values), as the Pacific has always been a great nursery for exporting Small and Medium sized enterprises (SMEs) trying their luck off shore for the first time. Many try the Pacific (especially New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji) before going onto ASEAN and the rest of the Asia Pacific.

A second is education and the labour market. The shortages of labour in rural areas have long attracted guest workers from the Pacific. When we filmed The Airport Economist Crisis and Recovery series, we visited Batlow, who had their apple orchards revived by visiting Pacific islanders who entertained the locals with magnificent singing from their choirs that are so prevalent back home. We know that many Pacific islanders come to Australia as guest workers as students for education and many Pacific islanders eventually settle in Australia and New Zealand where there are vast communities in cities like Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland. Close to home and already with strong communities many Pacific Islanders would prefer to settle in Sydney rather than Shanghai and Shenzhen.

A third is media and communications. The new Albanese Government could restore the services of the Australia Network and Radio Australia that were cut by the Abbott Government when Joe Hockey was Treasurer and Julie Bishop Foreign Minister.

And a fourth, which may have slipped under the radar is Sport. It’s time for the National Rugby League (NRL) granted Papua New Guinea (PNG) the 18th licence. They love their league in PNG, produce a lot of talent as well as fervent supporters, and the game brings commercial and trade opportunities to both countries. The NRL can do what Beijing can’t.

And in Rugby Union, there are now two teams in the Pacific, Moana Pasifika and Fijian Drua competing with New Zealand and Australia in the Super Rugby Pacific tournament. Rather than having Pacific players just play for Australian and New Zealand teams, there are a couple of home based sides as well. Of course, the export of great Pacific Rugby players to New Zealand, Australia and the northern hemisphere is well known. But it is important to ensure that player welfare is looked after (a lot of young players leave their island home at an impressionable age similar to young soccer players leaving South America and Africa to play in the English Premier League and in Europe) and that there is support at home for development programmes too not just stars abroad.  At the University of Technology (UTS), my colleague Nico Schulenkorf runs extensive sport-for-development and health promotion programs on improving social outcomes in the Pacific from sport. Looking after the people at home as well as the superstars overseas is the reason for these UTS programmes as well as having the home based Moana Pasifika and Fijian Drua franchises in Super Rugby Pacific.

In short, economic development, trade and aid will matter in restoring Australia’s reputation in the Pacific along with Senator Wong’s emphasis on Climate Innovation. But don’t underestimate the passion for sport, especially the rugby codes, and sport diplomacy amongst the people of the Pacific, New Zealand and Australia.

A Game of Our Own. 1858 and all that – the origins of Australian Rules football

The extraordinary thing about Australian Rules football is that it wasn’t imported like other sports, it is truly indigenous to Australia. It’s also one of the oldest sports in the world and had its rules codified officially even before the soccer or association football got its official act together in the UK. That makes the first Australian Rules football Clubs, Melbourne and Geelong, two of the oldest football clubs in the world.

The ‘Australianness’ of the game’s origins had been a source of pride to one of the Australia’s most distinguished historians Geoffrey Blainey. Blainey notes:

“Australian football was the most remarkable of these spectator sports. It is sometimes said to have stemmed from Gaelic football in Ireland, or to have moulded by the football played at the Rugby School in England. Certainly the squatter’s son, Tom Wills, a Rugby boy who did much to shape the game, borrowed from rugby football, but the game was essentially a Victorian invention. It was not born ready-made but changed itself so much that the present game is unrecognisable from that which was first played on Melbourne parklands in 1858.” (1)

Those Melbourne parklands described by Blainey, of course became the parklands surrounding the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) today.

The economic factors in nineteenth century Australia, cheap land and a shortage of labour were factors that helped Aussie Rules football boom in Melbourne. As Blainey notes:

“The native brand of football gripped Melbourne long before soccer and rugby took a grip on the imagination of big English cities….It belonged to a society where land was cheap and where the government normally set aside large areas of public recreation. Transfer a Melbourne football oval to Hong Kong, Chicago, or Manchester, and whole terraces and apartments would have to be demolished to fit in the ground, its grandstands and embankments.” (2)

This was good news for workers being able to play and the rest of the community being able to watch as spectators. As Blainey notes, this lead to large crowds of spectators, which at the time were some of the largest crowds in the world at any code of football.

“As a result, this workingman’s paradise of cheap land, good wages and good weather produced Australian Rules Football, truly a game of our own. And particularly after workers got Saturday afternoon off, Aussie Rules was well attended. The South Melbourne- Geelong Grand Final on Saturday 4th September, 1886, drew 34,141 at the Lake Oval in Albert Park.” (3)

According to British Sport historian Tony Collins that South Melbourne Geelong clash was “probably the largest crowd that had ever assembled to watch a game of football anywhere in the world.” And the crowds kept coming, including well attended games under floodlights between Collingwood Rifles and East Melbourne artillery as early as 1879. (4)

In many ways, Australian Rules football was invented right when Melbourne was developing as a city on the back of the wealth generated by the gold rushes. This allowed Australian rules to grow organically rather than be imposed from outside on an existing urban social structure. As Tony Collins says:

“In Britain, sport had come to cities that however much they were changing, had been founded centuries earlier and already had their own distinctive cultures. But in Melbourne, football appeared at the same time that the city was in the process of being born. Rather than merging with the city’s preexisting culture as in Britain, the game was an organic part of Melbourne culture, as integral to the pulse of the city as its climate and geography. Football encompassed all of Melbourne’s classes, from Scotch College’s elite upper-class schoolboys to Collingwood’s unskilled labourers who had to queue to find work every morning. Nowhere, not even in Glasgow, was football so completely inter-twined with the life of the city.” (5)

There has always been speculation that Australian Rules also had historical links to ‘Marn-grook’ (or Marngrook) a game played by Aboriginal Australians with a possum skin (or a variety of games played by many diverse Indigenous communities). Some of this is conjecture is understandable given the success of so many Indigenous champions of the game, on and off the field. The TV show, itself called Marngrook was hosted by very popular Aboriginal footy stars and panel gained an enthusiastic following from the wider football community, especially as it celebrated Indigenous footballers and the communities they belonged to. However, despite the wishful thinking, the links have yet to be proven, and Aussie Rules followers may have to be left with the fact that their code was also started by private school boys, like almost every code of football, except rugby league.

As well as Marngrook, there also is also a romantic attachment of Australian rules to Gaelic football. Again, this is due to so many great Irish-Australian champions who have played the game, and the traditional links between Irish and Australian nationalism, especially in the early Australian republican movements. But the games actually developed totally separately and again, Australian rules got in first in terms of official codification of the rules. There’s no mention of Gaelic football when Australian rules was first created and codified despite the fact that one fifth of the population of Victorian were themselves Irish born or had Irish parents. And the creation of Gaelic football had its own unique Irish history and links to Irish nationalism quite separate to the English private schools (known ironically as ‘public schools’) that created rugby and soccer. However as the games developed, because of their similarity, games of ‘international rules’ (a modification form of Gaelic and Australian rules football) were played from 1967 when former umpire and entrepreneur Harry Beitzel’s ‘Galahs’ toured Ireland. And from the 1980s a number of Irish Gaelic footballers tried their luck at Australia Rules with the most famous being Melbourne legend the late Jimmy Stynes winner of the Brownlow Medal in 1991 who also has had an enormous community impact off the field.

So the game’s origins were Australian, or rather Victorian (in terms of era and colony of origin. But from its humble beginnings in Victoria, Australian Rules football spread quickly to the then colonies of South Australia (SA), Tasmania and Western Australia (WA) and even to New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland. Part of the reason was the spread of inter-colonial migration particularly when gold was found in WA in Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie just as it had been found in the middle of the century in Victoria in Ballarat and Bendigo. Amazingly, at one stage Aussie Rules was popular in Queensland in the late 19 th century and Rugby Union in WA, but the gold rushes and vast inter-colonial migration put paid to that.

According to esteemed South Australian sports historian, Bernard Whimpress:

“Australian Football started in the same decade as the gold rushes. Immigrants came from all over the world to try their luck prospecting and were no doubt imbued with the optimistic spirit of the age, a spirit which might also favour a nationalistic, republican identity and a willingness to adopt anything Australian made. The concept of ‘a code of our own’ had arrived at just the right time. South Australia and Tasmania, as Victoria’s geographical neighbours, were more likely to adopt the Victorian game than its northern neighbour New South Wales, jealous of its position as the premier colony, and threatened by Victoria’s rapid expansion. While football made a promising start in Queensland, the tyranny of distance in its isolation from Victoria told against its expansion when rugby links started to be forged with New South Wales.

Early football in Perth benefitted from the influx of a substantial number of Victorian and South Australian immigrants (many following the gold rushes westward – my addition) who had already been playing the Australian game. Twenty years later, the establishment of football in the territories perhaps relies on political history. What became the Northern Territory had previously been administered by South Australian governments and many of its public servants were drawn from Adelaide and played Australian football. Although Canberra was much closer to Sydney than Melbourne, the southern city had been the headquarters of the national government so that, in its formative years, the bulk of public servants transferring to the new capital would have come from Melbourne and brought its football code with them.” (6)

The States therefore grew their own separate competitions with the Victorian Football League (VFL) in Victoria comprising 11 teams largely in inner city Melbourne plus Geelong. The South Australian National Football League (SANFL) in Adelaide and the Western Australian National Football League (WANFL) in Perth (although there had been a successful Goldfields League too at the turn of the last century) and three separate leagues in Tasmania based in the South, North and North West in the decentralised island state. The competitions basically operated independently for almost 100 years with little interaction with each other.

In fact, crossing the border to get some excitement, only came at State Carnivals and Club ‘Champions of Australia’ games at the end of the season (a bit like the excitement of new state based beers being poured on interstate trains like ‘The Overland’). And from the 1970s, State football became even more exciting as matches took place on a ‘State of Origin’ which enabled South Australians, Western Australians and Tasmanians to play for their home state even if they played club football in Melbourne in the VFL. In fact, once it became State of Origin, Victoria didn’t dominate as they once did, with star studded SA and WA line-ups (full of VFL based players) regularly defeating ‘the Big V’ and even Tasmania beating Victoria on a couple of famous occasions.

Border crossing became common at the club level when the VFL decided to take the game national, to save some struggling Melbourne clubs, and to head off the threat of the proposed National Football League (NFL) set up by some SA and WA football administrators to put the Australian game on a national competition footing. To protect its patch, and hopefully preserve most of its clubs the VFL decided an expanded Victorian competition with a few interstate teams grafted on, was better than starting a truly national competition from scratch.

The catalyst was the South Melbourne Swans. The struggling inner city club South Melbourne, unsuccessful on and off the field, flew from Lake Oval, Albert Park to the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) and became the Sydney Swans. This gave the VFL a beachhead in Sydney, Australia’s largest city and was the beginning of the VFL looking beyond its traditional heartland.

The West Coast Eagles and Brisbane Bears joined the VFL in 1987, followed by the Adelaide Crows in 1991 (by now the VFL was the Australian Football League, or the AFL as we know it today). A second WA side, the Fremantle Dockers joined in 1995, and Port Adelaide (the most successful club side in the South Australian National Football League, the SANFL) joined in 1997. Port joined at the same time the league facilitated a controversial merger between the Fitzroy Lions and the Brisbane Bears (who became the Brisbane Lions adopting Fitzroy’s colours of maroon, blue and gold and the Fitzroy theme song). The merger was regarded by football traditionalists as an assassination of a proud inner city club of 113 years standing, although the efforts to incorporate Fitzroy’s identity in the new club, followed by 3 premierships did help heal some but all of the wounds. In a further aggressive expansion into the northern states, the AFL added the Gold Coast Suns in 2011, and the Greater Western Sydney (GWS) Giants in 2012. In nod to the active Aussie Rules community in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) it was decided that the Giants play 3 home games a year in Canberra as well as at their home ground in western Sydney and have ‘Canberra’ written on the backs of the Giants’ guernseys. The question is whether the GWS Giants be enough to satisfy Canberra’s appetite for Aussie Rules which before the rise of the Canberra Raiders in rugby league and ACT Brumbies in rugby union had a healthy Aussie Rules following as many public servants had been transferred from Victoria when Canberra became the nation’s capital. In addition, Canberra is also close to the Aussie Rules rich regions of southern New South Wales and as the capital of Australia attracted transfers in personnel (particularly in Defence and the other parts of Public Service) from Aussie rules dominated states. Alex ‘Jezza’ Jesaulenko, Kevin ‘Cowboy’ Neale and James Hird are all famous names associated with the ACT.

But this aggressive expansion still leaves some unfinished business in the traditional footy heartland of Tasmania. Tasmania, has a vigorous Australian Rules football tradition with the game played at the grass roots all over the island state from the stormy North West to the gravel oval of the mining community of Queenstown and has produced champions like Royce Hart, Laurie Nash, Darrel Baldock, Alastair Lynch, Ian Stewart, Brent Crosswell, Nick and Jack Riewoldt and Peter Hudson. But somehow despite its historical status, the VFL and AFL have given short shrift to Tasmania, preferring to enter expansion clubs in non-traditional states and use Tasmania as landing pad for Victorian Clubs, North Melbourne and Hawthorn who play a few ‘home’ matches in Hobart and Launceston respectively. That may soon change on improved economic position of Tasmania, the breakdown of the historical north-south rivalry within the state and the successful hosting of two AFL finals in 2021 when Covid19 prevented them being played in Melbourne. It is likely that the Tassie Devils will soon enter the AFL and finally all Australian states will have representation at the top level.

Once Tasmania is admitted, that only leaves the Northern Territory (NT) without a berth in the AFL (assuming GWS continues to play some matches in the ACT). The NT has produced some fantastic footballers, many from the Indigenous communities from the Red Centre up to the Tiwi Islands and has a strong local league. Footballers like Michael Long, Gilbert McAdam, Maurice Rioli, Andrew McLeod, and Nathan Buckley have been some of the greatest players ever seen and hail from the Territory. The question will be size and climate given the unique circumstances of the Top End but the emphasis on the development of Northern Australia may help the case for a NT side in the AFL.

Historically, the domestic expansion of the VFL then AFL has raised some interesting questions. Is it a genuine national competition or Victoria plus? Many traditional Australian Rules football followers point out that the game is not just about Victoria but there have been many proud clubs not in the AFL like Norwood, South Fremantle North Hobart and Southport. And why should the AFL Grand Final be played at the MCG every year until 2057? Surely, we saw during Covid19 affected seasons that Brisbane did a good job hosting the Grand Final at the Gabba in 2020 and Perth showed how great its magnificent new stadium was in the 2021 Grand Final in terms of atmosphere and facilities. It could be like the Superbowl that is shared around different cities of the USA each year. Or some would counter that in soccer in the UK the FA Cup final is always at Wembley so Australian Rules should stick to the Grand Final at the MCG for the ultimate game of the year.

There’s also the question of launching into non-traditional territory or consolidating the base like rugby league. It would seem the Sydney Swans and Brisbane Lions, both clubs with VFL roots, are a great success but the jury is still out on the GWS Giants and the Gold Coast Suns (especially the Suns). The additional of 2 sides from both SA and WA seems natural, hence the case for adding the Tassie Devils from another traditional Australian Rules football state. Again, it’s the question of whether the AFL is run as a business or custodians of the code or a mixture of both, balancing all interests.

But when it comes to international expansion, apart from the quirky musings of Richmond and Essendon legend Kevin Sheedy (who after all created some great traditions like the ANZAC Day game, the Indigenous, Women’s and Country Rounds) the AFL has always been realistic and kept its feet on the ground. There have been exhibition matches in London and North America, in the Middle East, Africa, New Zealand and North East Asia. After some flirtation with China by Melbourne (‘it’s a grand old red flag’), Port Adelaide took Chinese engagement very seriously with actual games for premiership points in Shanghai. As Port Adelaide’s visionary chairman David Koch pointed out Port Adelaide is the only foreign sports club to play in China for competition points, not just playing an exhibition game. And of course there are AFL clubs set up for social games of Australian Rules football amongst expats and enthusiastic locals across Asia, Europe, USA, Canada and Latin America. Having watched the Shanghai Tigers in action against the Beijing Bombers I can testify to the vigour of the games and the enthusiastic fund raising they do especially for local charities in China.

But for all this talk of domestic and international expansion the great leap forward had of course been in the women’s game the AFLW. Whilst historically female participation in the playing ranks is not new, there were Women’s’ games together with spectators in the early 20 th century, the game has really exploded professionally since the AFLW was established in 2017. And with 18 AFLW teams now representing all 18 AFL clubs they can now make their own history.

In conclusion, there are seven codes of football that developed in the 19th century, but only one, Australian Rules football, was created here (and codified before most of the others). Clubs like Melbourne, Geelong and Port Adelaide are some of the oldest football clubs in the world and continue to this day playing at the top level in front of some of the biggest crowds in the world, both then and now. It really is a game of our own and a social phenomenon that Australia can be rightly proud of.

The World Game. The origins of ‘Association Football’ or ‘Soccer’ in Australia.

‘Association Football’ or ‘Soccer’ was a British invention that took the world by storm in the late 19 th century and throughout the 20th . Through the British Empire’s influence, mainly via the British Army, the Navy and the building of the railways, soccer spread like wild fire to Europe and Latin America, and eventually, to the Middle East, Africa and Asia. By the end of the 20 th century, it truly was the world’s most popularly supported code of football, although there were some parts that didn’t take to the game. In North America, the US preferred its own code of football, American football or ‘gridiron’. Canada preferred Canadian Football. Ireland codified its tradition Gaelic football. India stuck to cricket. And in New Zealand and the Pacific and in the Afrikaner and Anglo parts of South Africa, Rugby Union took hold as it had in some parts of Europe and the Britain, sharing the stage with soccer, and later Rugby League. In Ireland supporting Gaelic football and hurling was a Republican rejection of the imported British imperialist sports, yet India took to the British games of cricket and hockey but not soccer. And amazingly in Australia, soccer had to compete with three other codes of football, Rugby Union, Rugby League and Australia’s own home grown popular sport Australian Rules football. The extraordinary situation of a country playing 4 different codes of football (more than the usual 1 or 2, and sometimes 3) was the reason why I became fascinated with ‘Footynomics’ in the first place!

The so-called ‘Australian paradox’ with respect to soccer always puzzled the one man most associated with Soccer, ‘Mr Soccer’, the late and great Les Murray. One confession, I was a friend of Les’s and spent a lot of time with him at cafes in Double Bay, Sydney discussing economics, politics, sport and culture. We both shared Hungarian roots (his more immediate than mine) and an anglicized last name. Les had come to Australia with his family as a Hungarian refugee, called Laszlo Urge in 1956. My great grandfather Israel Harkowitz came from the Hungarian part of Romania (Transylvania) in the 19th century. His son, my grandfather Kopel Harkowitz changed his name to ken Harcourt, about 30 years before Laszlo Urge became Les Murray.

As a Hungarian refugee, fleeing communism, Les loved Australia. And whilst he loved his code of football, that he and many other European families brought with them and was a passionate advocate of ‘The World Game’ (he even coined that phrase for soccer in his broadcasting role at the Special Broadcasting Service, (SBS)) he always respected his fellow Australian passion for their codes, whether it be Rugby League (he did grow up in Wollongong after all) Rugby Union or Aussie Rules.

Nevertheless, it was always the greatest puzzle to Les. If soccer is ‘the World Game’ why is not so in Australia? And why didn’t soccer – a game invented by the British – not take off in Australia despite it being such a British place in the 19 th century? Les and I covered this issue many times in long conversations in the coffee shops of Double Bay, but Les also covers it in print (note Les insisted on using the word ‘football’ for soccer). Take it away Les:

“There are, of course, pockets of the world – though not many – in which football didn’t make this conquest and where, a century or more later, other sports dominate. Curiously, this is the case in North America, Australia, New Zealand and India, places that were once at the very bosom of the British Empire and where, one would have thought the social models of the motherland would have been most readily followed.

But they weren’t and why they weren’t has fascinated students of football for decades. As an Australian who dropped into the sporting culture of the country as a child immigrant from football-mad Europe, this for me has long been a source of curiosity. Why is it that Australia, amongst the most culturally British of the former colonies, took to rugby and cricket when Argentina, Egypt and Azerbaijan were seduced by football? And why is it, most bewilderingly, that Australia’s native form of football, Australian Rules, actually pre-dates the birth of organised football (at the Freemason’s Tavern, 1863) in England?

The reason for the latter lies in the fact that the various forms of football disparately played in Britain before the rules of Association Football were codified and some kind of unity was achieved, were already emigrating to the colonies in the mid-nineteenth century and were being taken up by the empire’s far reaches. A particularly winning recipient was the booming city of Melbourne, where labour was plentiful and leisure time long. Out of the muddle of fun recreation around Melbourne’s vast greens emerged a single game in 1859, four years before the Freemasons Tavern meetings, when the original Melbourne Rules (or Victorian Rules), the Mother of Australian Rules were written. Melbourne has been the citadel of a communal sporting faith call Australian Rules football (nowadays AFL) ever since.”

Hence why Aussie Rules not soccer or any other football code took hold in the southern states. And that’s even before the popularity of Rugby League in the northern states is examined. Les Murray would have made a fine social historian as well as a great sports commentator. And it must be said that Les Murray, and the great British social and sports historian, Tony Collins, take a far more tolerant, nuanced and comprehensive account of the rise of the football codes in the 19 th century. They explain why the football codes too root, in their various varieties, and indeed why Australia, with 4 codes of football has been a historical outlier. It’s a welcome approach in contrast to other authors who arrogantly dismiss the non-soccer codes without an appreciation of the popularity and history of the alternative football codes. Especially Aussie Rules football which was popular by international standards even in the 19 th century let alone in the 20 th and 21 st centuries and as Les Murray points out Australian Rules football was codified as a game before the Association football or soccer pioneers got their act together in the UK and before the great split in rugby occurred.

In some ways, soccer in Australia is actually more a 20th century phenomenon much of it post-war thanks to the large waves of post-war migration that bought hard working communities to Australia. Soccer, as Les Murray observed, largely didn’t take off in big numbers when Australia was made up of colonies of Anglo Celtic immigrants in the 19th century. But after World War Two as the Snowy Mountains schemes and other industrial projects were being developed, the newly arrived hard working immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, brought their love of soccer with them. So despite being a British game in origin, much of the soccer story in Australia is the story of non-Anglo in nature as soccer clubs were social clubs for post war immigrants wanting something familiar about their countries. So we saw communities made up of Greeks, Italians, Croatians, Poles and Hungarians setting up soccer clubs like South Melbourne Hellas, Adelaide City Juventus, Marconi, Adelaide Polonia and St George Budapest. This was not similar to the early role played by Celtic when looking after Irish Catholic immigrants in Glasgow, a point made by Ange Postecoglou the Australian manager of Celtic who himself is of Greek origin who grew up playing for (and later coaching) South Melbourne Hellas and also playing Aussie Rules footy.

This is not to disparage the role also played by British migrants to Australia in developing soccer. Craig Johnston, one of the first Australians to play top flight professional soccer in England for Middlesbrough and later famously Liverpool (scoring a famous goal in the Liverpool-Everton all Merseyside FA Cup Final of 1986) noted that his father player in the Newcastle/Hunter Valley area the cradle of Australian soccer in the 1950s, and the soccer clubs of the suburbs of Adelaide and Perth had a fair sprinkling of northern English and Scottish accents. The Illawarra region has played an important role too, boasting Australia’s oldest soccer club, Balgownie Rangers, formed in 1883. And then there’s the case of our most famous Socceroo captain, Johnny Warren, described by his best friend Les Murray, as a ‘Vegemite Aussie from Botany’ who was adopted by the traditional Hungarian club St George despite not a trace of Magyar roots.

Of course, Soccer’s governance in Australia has always had its issues. After an effort by the Soccer Australia chairman (and former ABC managing director) David Hill to remove the strong ‘ethnic’ ties to the game, banning names like Melbourne Croatia, Westfield billionaire Frank Lowy took over the game to create Football Federation Australia (FFA) and the A-League and W-League (Now Football Australia, FA, A Leagues Men’s and Women’s). The Lowy revolution seemed to work especially after his recruitment of Australian Rugby Union supremo John O’Neil with the men’s national team, the Socceroos, making the World Cup in 2006 in Germany for the first time since 1974, and the popularity of the women’s national team, the Matildas. Furthermore, soccer’s participation improved for both boys and girls at junior level with favourable demographics, although with some evidence of a drop off in participation levels at a later age. Soccer also had to battle the other codes for TV time, although the FIFA World Cup TV ratings always were a bonanza for the game, especially with the Socceroos regular participants, and the Matildas doing well in a Women’s game rising in popularity.

Of course, with soccer truly being the World Game, it is a double edged sword, as promising young talent will go to the big clubs off shore like Liverpool, Real Madrid and AC Milan rather than play in the A-league. And in the women’s game our talented Matildas are also playing in the UK, Europe and USA (Sam Kerr is a star for Chelsea for example). This is not an issue in Aussie Rules and Rugby League for example as Australia host’s the best competitions in the world, although there is a strong off shore pull in Rugby Union given the strength of the competitions of the Six Nations and the lucrative contracts on offer in Japan.

In short, soccer is unusual in Australia in that, unlike in other countries, it has to compete with 3 other codes of football. However, it has steadily improved in participation and popularity, and its status in the 21st century is better than in the 20th or 19th and its proponents say it’s best years are yet to come which would put a smile on the faces of Les Murray and Johnny Warren who were the standard bearers of the world game for so long.

Why Sports sanctions against Russia will hurt.

Remember the old adage ‘don’t mix sport and politics’? The recent crisis in Ukraine has put paid to that with Russia targeted in terms of sport as much as in economics and diplomacy in terms of sanctions.

It started with ‘the beautiful game’ soccer or association football. Saint Petersburg was stripped of the Champions League Final by UEFA Russian gas giant Gazprom had been banned as a sponsor of the tournament and of football clubs. Targeting the country and the sponsorship has occurred after numerous investigations have found that Russian oligarch money has made the beautiful game not so beautiful.

Even so soccer’s world body, FIFA was slow out of the blocks and pretty reluctant to act given Russia’s financial influence in the game. After trying a typical FIFA like compromise, inviting a team from the ‘Russian Football Union (RFU)’ (like the athletes competing in the Olympics under the Russian Olympic Committee, ROC banner) the Zurich-based body was forced to ban both Russian men’s and women’s teams from their respective upcoming World Cups.

Even more interesting are the developments in London where English Premier League (EPL) club Chelsea’s owner Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch with close ties to Putin, has quickly handed over the reins to its charitable foundation in a pre-emptive move. Abramovich has even “offered” to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, but may face possible bans from the EPL.

And in the Olympics, in an unprecedented move, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has banned athletes from Russia and Belarus from participating and stripped Russian President Putin of his Olympic order. And in an embarrassing back flip (usually not seen by a skilful Russian gymnast) the IOC has reversed its decision to let Russian and Belarus compete in the upcoming Beijing Winter Paralympics.

Similar moves are afoot to ban Russian tennis players from the international circuit, Russian swimmer from FINA and Russian racing car drivers from the Grand Prix events. Russia has already lost hosting the 2022 Formula 1 Grand Prix in Sochi.

So are these moves to sanction Russia tokenistic? No these are serious moves. After all, sport was the one area where Russia is still a super power as it was back in the glory days of the USSR. After all it hosted the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 (at great expense) and then four years later, the 2018 FIFA soccer World Cup after winning the bid in dubious circumstances. As sports historian David Golbatt said in his excellent book The Age of Football - Soccer and the 21st century:

“The World Cup bid was so slick, that while the British Prime Minister, the heir to the throne and David Beckham humiliated themselves for England in front of the FIFA executive committee, Vladimir Putin did not even show up in Zurich until the victory had been announced. Later down the line, when investigators both FIFA and Swiss legal authorities came looking for the bid committee’s digital archive, they were informed that the entirety of its computers, leased for the occasion had been incinerated.”

The Sochi Winter Olympics that preceded the World Cup were also seen as a chance for Russia to flex their muscles like they were back in the USSR. Anticipating the Winter Games of 2014, to be held on Sochi, Putin reminisced, “We have strong memories of the emotional, uplifting enthusiasm we felt during the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The mighty, inspiring spirit of the Olympics is once again, returning to our nation.”

But it cost a lot. Russia spent around $50 billion (A$71.5billion) on Sochi 2014 due to the extravagant ceremonies, expensive infrastructure with newly built stadia plus the cost of security given the then 2014 Ukrainian crisis in Crimea. On the field (or on the rinks and slopes) Russia did win as swag of medals but this was overshadowed when Russian whistle-blower Grigory Rodchenkov revealed widespread doping practices taking some gloss of the glorious Russian performance. This put a dent on the legacy of Sochi but Russia still had to foot the bill, which it could due to the high oil and gas prices it was earning at the time. Europe was paying for Russian gold medals, via natural gas purchases, some of which were won illegally, as the anti-doping authorities found out.

In summary, putting sports sanctions on Russia is the final blow to their former Soviet like super power status not to mention, the favourite play things of the Russian state and the Russian oligarchs. In short, Sport is power. Sport is business. And sport is politics.

The Economics of the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022

The Winter Olympics are upon us in Beijing, who also hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008, giving China a unique double. Like in 2008, hosting the Olympics is important to China in terms of showcasing its economic and technology credentials to the world as player on the global stage.

But the times are different now compared to 2008 when there was less geo-political tension and whilst we had a global financial crisis (GFC) to handle then there was no global pandemic. This makes hosting a global sporting event more problematic, and as we saw in the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games (albeit held a year later in 2021) as there is less domestic public support for the Games due to fears of Covid19 contagion. Many in Tokyo felt the Government should have put more resources into the pandemic rather than the games, especially given that locals were largely locked out of the stadium and other venues.

So why should a host city press on given the uncertainty in world affairs and covid? After all, even before covid hit, there was mounting evidence that hosting the games came with a significant price tag. According to Oxford University nearly every games has overrun its budget since the infamous 1976 Montreal Olympics (that caused long term financial problems for the City of Montreal), with an average overrun for 252 per cent (adjusted for inflation). The only exception was Los Angeles 1984 which as the only bidder, negotiated a favourable TV rights deal from the International Olympics Committee (IOC). With growth of the number of Olympics sports, which has grown three fold since the 1960s, the huge increase in infrastructure and operating costs, and the increased numbers of countries participating, hosting the Olympics has now become out of reach for all but the wealthier economies. The large infrastructure costs of the Rio 2016 Summer Games ($20 billion or A$28.6 b) and Sochi 2014 Winter Games ($50 billion or $71.5 b) for Brazil and Russia respectively, highlighted this risk to host nations. The elaborate bidding process, almost a financial beauty contest to impress the IOC to win the games, saw costs escalate out of control like an arms race. And whilst the costs overran, hosts still claimed benefits in terms of economic growth, employment, investment and tourism, although economists debated to what extent Olympic spending did ‘crowd out’ tourism spending that would have taken place anyway. Certainly there were some trade benefits, particularly savvy hosts like Sydney 2000 that set up Business Club Australia a networking club to generate trade and investment around the Games (the ‘power of schmooze’).

The costs associated with the bidding war have now been acknowledged even by the IOC, who now allocate the games to established hosts (like Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028) and see the host city using existing facilities to host the games rather than having to invest in a massive infrastructure spend as has been the case in the past. Brisbane 2032 was looked at favourably from both Brisbane and the Gold Coast both having hosted the Commonwealth Games and having a high standard of sports infrastructure on the South East Queensland Corridor from the Sunshine Coast down to the Gold Coast.

So economically, how does hosting a winter games compare to summer? It’s a bit cheaper. The official budget for 2022 Winter Olympics is just $3.9 billion (A$ 5.6 b) compared to $45 billion (A$64.3 b) for the 2008 Summer Olympics. It’s on a smaller scale with less countries and fewer athletes. And in 2022, it will rely on domestic Chinese tourism given covid19 and China’s border controls. Is there any risk of a cost blow out? Beijing has had to use fake snow and some complex water delivery systems that could be both financially and environmentally risky, although Beijing also wants to demonstrate China’s green credentials in renewable energy. And of course a covid19 outbreak in the Olympic village or further poses a major risk as we saw in Tokyo.

So given these risks, why does Beijing 2022 matter to China? Like 2008, it’s for global prestige, although in 2022, it’s more about China showing it can go it alone in the world more than joining the world. But there are benefits from Chinese athletes working with international coaches given increased interest in winter sports amongst the Chinese population. The Chinese Government has also used the Winter Olympics to invest in poorer mountainous areas in Northern China, to boost local jobs and domestic tourism. Some 400 ski resorts were built across China between 2014 and 2017 with a goal of 803 by the time the Games commence together with over 654 skating rinks.  The Games are principally for domestic consumption in terms of tourism, local infrastructure and jobs.

Will the 2022 Winter Olympics help China’s ‘soft diplomacy’? Covid19 has limited its wins in this regard and the diplomatic boycott won’t help but the athletes and the local tourists will largely be unaffected by the boycott. The bottom line for this Games is to develop the winter sports industry in China, for domestic consumption and investment and cheer the Chinese athletes on. And if they can get through the games largely covid19 free, it will be deemed a success

Do you want to study Sport Management at UTS? Check it out at:

https://www.uts.edu.au/study/business/i-want-study/management/postgraduate-options/why-sport-management