Beautiful Aussie soccer fans unite

A beautiful thing has just happened here in Australia that proves the power of social media and public unity.

On Sunday the 22nd of November our main tabloid newspaper - The Daily Telegraph - published an article that was written by sports journalist Rebecca Wilson that had Aussie soccer fans outraged. The Wilson article named 198 individuals that The Daily Telegraph claims have been banned by Football Federation Australia (FFA) from every stadium in the country. As well as naming the 198 individuals as banned soccer hooligans the article also included photos of these people that The Daily Telegraph had taken from social media sites. The article claimed that the FFA needs to crack down on anti-social behaviour at A-League games and Wilson singled out my favourite team - the Western Sydney Wanderers - as the problem club. The Daily Telegraph follows up Wilsons racist attack with a number of articles in print and online calling for the FFA to crack down on Aussie soccer hooligans.

Australian soccer fans were outraged by the article and took to social media to protest. Soccer fans claimed that many of the individuals on The Daily Telegraphs list were in fact not banned at all and that some of the people named on the list were minors. Many of the individuals on the list want to sue Rebecca Wilson and The Daily Telegraph over the article and find out where the leaked list came from. An Australian Senator demands that the NSW police confirm or deny whether they were involved in the leaking of these individuals names to the media but the police stay silent.

So as a casual soccer fan I really do not pay much attention to soccer at all so I didnt hear anything about this until all of Australia's mainstream news media outlets flooded the news with a story that a Western Sydney Wanderers fan had made a death threat against Rebecca Wilson for writing the article. The media didnt seem to want to go into things too much apart from making sure that the Australian public knew that some Western Sydney Wanderers soccer hooligan had threatened to kill Rebecca Wilson.

Western Sydney is perhaps the most multicultural place on earth and many Wanderers fans are Muslim or from the Middle East so the death threat story doubled down on the racist Wilson article and attempted to justify Wilson's racist article and perpetuate hate for Australian Muslims/Middle Eastern Australians. The Australian media figured that the death threat story would quieten the outrage and backlash coming from Aussie soccer fans over the Wilson article but that did not happen at all. Instead of backing off - our Aussie soccer fans continued to rage on social media.


- RBB banner ( google images )

Along with the alleged but unproven death threat against Rebecca Wilson there was also an alleged and unproven death threat made toward racist shocks jock Alan Jones and Ray Hadley. For background Alan Jones used his radio show to help create the 2005 Cronulla Riots that was a battle between bogan white Australians and Lebanese Australians and Jones has been inciting hatred against Australian Muslims and Australians from the Middle East ever since. Ray Hadley is an unapologetic racist that claimed that riot police were held back from "going in hard" against the Sydney Middle Eastern Aussie protest against America in 2012. Hadley wanted the riot police to go in there and bust some Middle Eastern Australian skulls. Hadley and Jones are flaming anti-Muslim/anti-Middle East racists so it was no shock that they did their very best to try to justify Rebecca Wilsons racist Daily Telegraph article that attacked Aussie soccer fans. Wilson wnet on Alan Jones' radio show to defend herself and Jones used the opportunity to liken Middle Eastern-Australian soccer fans to terrorists saying - "Is this like terrorism in Paris? The leaders have no guts?" and Wilson answered - "Thats exactly right, Alan." Im serious. These Australian media personalities are so racist it is utterly ridiculous. Australian soccer fans are like ISIS terrorists...

So after all of this the FFA releases a statement defending its right to ban fans and they do not defend fans in any way or call out Wilson for her racist attack on their fans. A-League fans are outraged by the FFA statement and they begin to plan boycotts of A-League games. In response to this the FFA calls for an end to death threats against Rebecca Wilson or in other words they give their fans the bird.

So what happened next was that large numbers of fans boycotted A-League games. It was really cool because the A-League 'supporter groups' paid to get into games and then they left in protest 30 minutes into the game leaving a lot of empty seats and the stadiums basically in silence. What was really beautiful about these boycotts was that the Wilson article singled out the supporters of the Western Sydney Wanderers as the main problem and it would have been easy for fans from other clubs to allow Wanderers fans to take all of the blame and hate but they didnt. It wasnt just the RBB Wanderers supporter group that staged a walk out but other A-League 'supporter groups' as well including the Melbourne Victory 'supporter group. Even A-League fans that did not join the walk outs supported them and applauded the protests. All of the weekends games had banners in the stands that supported the walk out protests.

Now this is a huge story but our media is trying its best to keep a lid on it. Media does not want the public to know that this racist attack on Australian soccer has failed. In response to the walk outs the FFA changed their tune on their right to ban any soccer fan they choose without having any evidence. Now the FFA claims that they will introduce an appeals process for fans that have been banned from A-League games but fans are far from satisfied and the backlash continues with more boycotts planned for next weekend. The FFA seems to think that some nothing statement about introducing an appeals process is going to make this all go away but it isnt going away at all. The FFA still wants fans to prove that they are innocent but thinks that they can ban people without any evidence. A-league fans rightly want the FFA to prove that fans are guilty of anti-social behaviour - not for fans to have to prove that they are innocent.

Now the big thing that stands out to me is A-League CEO Davis Gallo. Gallop was the CEO of the professional Rugby League competition (NRL) before he started running the A-League. It was while Gallop was running the NRL that Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs fans were demonized by the NRL, NSW police and mainstream media with racist - The Daily Telegraph leading the charge. Many Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs fans are Lebanese Australians and the demonization of Lebanese-Australian 'Doggies' fans did a great deal to create a climate of hate here in Australia against our Lebanese-Australian community. Gallop used the NRL to help the Australian police, media and government demonize Middle Eastern Australians and here he is doing the very same thing again as head of the A-League. In my opinion the person that is most responsible for this racist attack on Australian soccer fans is A-League CEO David Gallop. Instead of demonizing Middle Eastern-Australian Bulldogs fans he is now using Western Sydney Wanderers fans to incite hatred toward Middle Eastern-Aussies.

The thing about professional sports is that they have very strong relationships with western intelligence agencies. Look at the CIA's strong relationship with the NFL and MLB for example. Western intelligence agencies are clearly anti-Muslim. It is easy to put all of the blame for the leak on the NSW police but in my opinion this entire thing has been pushed by ASIO. ASIO only does what the CIA wants them to do. At the end of the day I blame the CIA for the racist climate in Australian society that the Australian media, police and government have worked so hard to create for over a decade now and I blame the CIA for this Rebecca Wilson article. The CIA wants us all to hate Muslims and people from the Middle East.

In US society the media and helpers may get away with something like the Rebecca Wilson article without any backlash but not in Australian society. Australia is one of the most multicultural nations on earth and despite the stereotype the Australian public are not racist - even with our media, police and government forever inciting hatred against Muslims and people from the Middle East. The fact is that it is not the Australian public that has a problem with racism - it is our media, police and government that promote the idea that all Muslims and people from the Middle East must prove that they are not terrorists. The Australian powers that be are the racist ones not the Australian public. Racists are the minority here in Australia even with our media, police and government backing them up. So if you publish an article that names 198 individuals as banned soccer hooligans in the nations most widely read tabloid then the CIA better believe that there will be backlash. Especially when many on the list have not even been banned at all and when many on that list are actually children. But even for the individuals that are on the list that actually have been banned ( without any evidence ) you would imagine that this kind of thing is illegal so it is little wonder that so many are lining up to sue Rupert Murdoch's The Daily Telegraph and Rebecca Wilson.

So for me this entire thing is beautiful. A-League fans have understood that this racist attack on Western Sydney Wanderers fans was an attack not only on all Australian soccer fans but also a racist attack designed to incite hatred against Australians that are Muslim or from the Middle East. Instead of turning their heads and allowing the Wanderers fans to be demonized - Australian soccer fans have stood up and united against this racist attack. It is beautiful.

Many people will claim that if an individual uses social media to speak out against something that they disagree with or uses social media to try to bring about change then that individual is basically the same as a crazy homeless person standing on a street corner muttering that the end is nigh but the unity of the A-League soccer fans proves these people wrong. Apart from former socceroo Mark Bosnich basically nobody in media has helped the A-League fans sand up against this racist attack on them. It was not journalists or media personalities that drove this public backlash - but regular members of the public that used social media to promote their perspectives. It was not journalists or media personalities that caused the FFA to cave on their right to ban any fan that they please without any evidence or clear way to appeal - it was fans using social media. It was the fans themselves that brought about this strong and beautiful unity.

Despite all of the claims from media and the FFA that death threats have been made against Rebecca Wilson, Alan Jones and Ray Hadley I am yet to read about any arrests or evidence. The only thing that has been shown to the public was some Western Sydney Wanderers fan that made a comedy youtube clip where he pretended to threaten Wilson, Jones and Hadley. The Western Sydney Wanderers supporter group the 'Red and Black Bloc' (RBB) have pointed out that Rebecca Wilson should be more worried about RBT ( Random Breath Testing ) than the RBB. Rebecca Wilson has been charged twice for driving under the influence of alcohol and the RBB have rightly pointed out that drink driving is far more dangerous to the public than some excited Wanderers fan setting off a flare at a stadium. Rebecca Wilson calls Wanderers fans "savages" and has been attacking them and all of Australian soccer for many years for their anti-social behaviour - yet she is a person that will put the lives of the public in danger not once but twice by driving around drunk as a skunk. RBB - "She drinks and she drives, she drinks and she drives!! Rebecca Wilson is .05!"


- Repeat Drink Driver Rebecca Wilson ( google images )

It seems funny that repeat drink driver Rebecca Wilson has been banned by the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs for being a trouble making liar. She was also sued by the Bulldogs for defamation. If the A-League needs to ban anyone from Aussie soccer games it is Rebecca Wilson but they should show evidence of what she has done wrong and allow her a fair appeal process in my opinion.