NRL Thankful Their Fans Prefer To Punch-On Instead Of Fucking Around With Emergency Distress Signals

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

TWO VERY DIFFERENT PROBLEMS: As sure as death and taxes, the Australian sports media have snapped photos of soccer fans letting off flares during the A-League decider in Melbourne over the weekend.

This may have been the first media coverage that the game received, after a sold-out local derby grand final between Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory failed to make any headlines last week.

Despite an extremely over-the-top police presence at AAMI park on Saturday, the ‘English Disease’ of soccer hooliganism was still still very visible.

And Australia’s major newspapers sent their very best photographers to capture one thing: the red glow of emergency flares being set off deep within the cheering crowds.

This is a unique problem for Australian soccer, with both the local police and media taking great issue with this problematic ritual that has clearly been borrowed from the notorious football firms of Britain and Southern Europe.

Elsewhere in the Australian sporting landscape, the bosses at the National Rugby League are extremely thankful that their fans do not watch enough local soccer to start doing the same thing.

Commonly known as the most excitable fans in Australian sport, the NRL supporters are more than content with high-octane hand to hand combat in the stands – rather than risking heavy fines for letting of emergency distress signals in enclosed spaces full of children.

However, NRL Chair Peter V’Landys says that’s not to say that rugby league fans wouldn’t begin to take part in such a ritual if they realised how much it stirred up all the cops and journos.

“We need to keep the NRL base separated from A-League supporters.”

“The soccer fans could teach the footy fans their favourite past time of letting off flares for no reason. And in turn, the NRL fans could teach the soccer fans how to throw hands”

“If you combine these two problems, you basically get Green Street Hooligans”

Peter V’Landys says he’s pretty confident that he can isolate the NRL fanbase from the A-League, but there are some concerning cross-overs in places like Melbourne and Bankstown.

“When the NRL recruits talented kickers from Western Sydney, we know they are bringing some flare-waving cousins with them”