Several generations of footballers in Western Australia both male and female have finished playing in the State League, or what is now the NPL, and many rarely see their former team mates or opponents again; admittedly some may not want to!

The clubs in the main only call back past players to celebrate a famous cup or league victory. Few if we are honest keep a reliable database of past players so are unable to invite them back for special occasions. Which means that the only time these players catch up is when they accidentally bump into each other, or when they attend a funeral.

Following a comment on social media about how his dad has not been well of late, and the only thing that brightens him up is talking about football Callum O’Connell decided to reach out to the football community.

As a result of that post and the number of people who contacted him Callum O’Connell along with Mickey Brennan have set about organising a football reunion. The aim being to bring together people who played in the same team or against each other for an afternoon to reminisce, tell tall tales and hopefully motivate people to come again and catch up.

This reunion is not restricted to male players but female players, referees, team managers and administrators at the various clubs. All are welcome.

The hope is to have a focus on a few key moments in the history of the game such as the Marah Halim Cup and of course the birth 30 years ago, of the Perth Glory, whose players and coaches in the main came from local clubs.

Callum’s dad John O’Connell, has probably done more to promote the game of football than anyone else in Western Australia in the past 50 years. John played and captained Western Australia, and played for Swan Valley, Morley Windmills and East Fremantle Tricolore. He then went into coaching and sharing his love of the game.

He served as a Board Member in the 1990’s for the Soccer Administration of WA, which ran the state league prior to the creation of Football West. He was also the driving force behind the establishment of the Football Hall of Fame Western Australia who are having their latest induction in November, For tickets to this event click here.

However, it was before the internet and Optus and Foxtel that John brought football to the people of Western Australia on 6NR with the British Football Show every Saturday night throughout the season; some commitment. He would also present a show on a Sunday on the State League competition each week. He then moved to Information Radio 990, and Fremantle Radio.

No one should need an excuse to come along as it is a chance to catch up with old friends and rivals and debate the quality of the competition, and individual players. For all those who used to play but do not have time to go to games today, or are tied up coaching their own children today, this is a great one-off occasion to wind back the clock amongst like-minded former players, coaches, referees etcetera.

For those of you who ever listened to John on air, played alongside him or were coached by him, wouldn’t it be nice to brighten up his day by coming along and repaying the man who gave so much to the game? That should of course not be your only reason for coming, but it is a reason for coming as you have no idea who else’s day you may brighten catching up after so long.

There has always been a rivaly in football in Western Australia and often even mistrust.

This event is being held at Perth Azzurri’s Dorrien Gardens. There were several reasons for this. One being geographical. It is a good central location that everyone knows.

The second reason is the club offered the venue for the occasion at no cost to Callum and Mickey. They have even agreed to put on a buffet meal at cost for everyone attending. It should be pointed out that Perth Azzurri is not making any money off any of the tickets sold.The ticket price is simply to cover the cost of the food and the club preparing it.

Hopefully players from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and 2000’s will take the time to come along as the hope is that if this is successful it may become a regular event each year so that past players do see each other more than every few years and not just at funerals!

Tickets are available by scanning the QR code on the poster attached.

The post Don’t Just Talk About It, Do It. first appeared on Not The Footy Show.

This is not a new question. In fact many coaches have said that they believe that many parents are a distraction that needs to be managed very carefully. There is no doubt that at the Olympic Games there are already so many more distractions with the Games being a multisport event.

Our guest on this show is former New Zealand International Hockey player Shea McAleese who was fortunate to attend four Olympic Games. At his first Games he told his family that he did not want them there as he had to focus on what he was there to do, play hockey. Now having transitioned into coaching he has been documenting many of the lessons he has learned along the way. One of the issues he revisited was whether he did the right thing in Beijing? What did he learn from making that call and how is he, and New Zealand Hockey using that knowledge to make it easier for those coming through now?

In this show Ashley asks should administrators be allowed to travel to international sporting events at the sport’s expense if they are asking those representing their State, Province, County, or Country to pay their own way to the tournament? Is that fair? Is it time such expenses were made public knowledge, so that all who pay fees to play can see where those fees are going?

John asks why the Wallabies continue to take on the All Blacks at Eden Park? Australia has not defeated the All Blacks at Eden Park since 1986 and were comprehensively beaten again. Meanwhile, the rendition of the national Anthem was outstanding, and Ashley mentions the respect shown by the ball kids in Inner Mongolia.

John then looks at The South Africa v Australia Test Cricket Series and asks where are the crowds? Also why has cricket taken on the trend of a countdown clock to start the game? John also asks will TV save Test Cricket?

If you don’t want to miss a post or a podcast subscribe to Not The Footy Show on our home page. Over 2000 people have. All you need do is insert your email address and then you will receive an email update whenever a new post or podcast is posted. Rest assured we will not pass on your information! Also please feel free to share your thoughts and the Podcast.

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The post NTFS#148 – Parents at the Olympics, would you have yours there? If athletes are being asked to pay to attend World Championships, should administrators be given a free ticket? Will Television Save Test Cricket? first appeared on Not The Footy Show.

Surely, it belongs to those who pay to play each week in leagues and competitions around the world, the same people who then pay their hard-earned cash to go and watch the professionals play.

The game belongs to those players and the fans, and to a certain extent the professional players too.

Yet in the past 30 years there has been a real shift in so many sports. Maybe even 20 years ago most fans had no idea who was the CEO of the club they supported let alone the head of the association that ran the competition that they played in.

In the past few decades those in these roles have wanted to be centre stage too. Today we see the CEO having photos with a player when they sign for a club rather than the coach, the CEO is quoted on such signings when truthfully who cares what they think about the player? Fans want to hear what the coach sees in the player and how they plan to use him or her.

In fact, the CEOs are quoted on everything these days. There is hardly a press release that comes out in which these individuals are not quoted. As one media manager advised they have been instructed that they must not publish anything without a quote from the man at the top.

The trouble with this is the club or sport loses credibility, as their words just become fluff, and on some topics, they really do not have the expertise to be quoted.

Another CEO of a sporting association actually said, “there is not a decision made in this state about -said sport – that is made without my approval.” A quote that was truly laughable, but these are the sort of egos sport must deal with today. 

In some clubs and associations, it is even worse as you witness a battle for the limelight between the CEO and the Chairman, and the only outcome then is one must go.

One Chairman who had invested heavily into a club loved being the front person of the club, but when results weren’t going well on the pitch was surprised that the love for him from the fans had dwindled. So, he brought in an expert for some advice. He did not like the advice he was given. “Stay out of the spotlight and away from the media, because you are not very good in that space,” was the advice given.

To be fair despite being offended by the suggestion, this individual did take heed of the advice and noticeably withdrew from public view.

At the recent Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, many of the medals were presented by members of the various sports federations. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. However, this is not their moment. It is a special moment for the athletes that is the result of no doubt a lot of hard work, heartache, sacrifice and commitment.

It was embarrassing to witness how these individuals happily stood in front of the medalists and even when asked to move by not just the photographers but also the organizers simply refused to until they were virtually manhandled out of the way.

Not at this event but a previous one, this writer even witnessed one dignitary climb onto the podium and join the gold medalists from their country. Apart from being embarrassing, this should never have been allowed to happen. It showed a lack of respect for the athletes and revealed an ego that was out of control.

It also showed that the Board member in question failed to understand their boundaries. This is not unusual today. On another occasion once the event had finished a board member came down from their seat and celebrated with the victorious athletes. Again, is this the behaviour expected of a board member? The other question that needs to be asked is who allowed them that access?

If these individuals cannot be trusted to hand over the medals and step aside, they simply should not be afforded that privilege.

It is scary how many staff from the various organizations feel that they have a right to be at these events. In Lausanne where many of the International Federations are based if staff from an International Sporting body are not taken to the Olympic Games many resign and move to another sport in the hope that in four years’ time they will be taken.

The athletes must earn the right, so should everyone else.

Why is it board members and CEOs of sporting bodies get free tickets to Olympic Games and World Cups? These same organisations espouse supporting the lifeblood of community sport, the volunteers, but how many are prepared to give those free tickets and airfares to one of those dedicated volunteers?

The question often asked is why are certain individuals there in the first place? Why does the CEO of a National Association have to be at some tournaments? If they are there for business how many days does that business really take? The National Association can pick the tab up for two days, but if they stay on beyond that meeting should not this time be taken as annual leave and they be responsible for paying their own accommodation and other expenses?

There was a recent case of a CEO attending a major sporting event to supposedly see how the event was run, in case they happened to host the same event in four years’ time. With no decision made at this time on who will host the next event, was there really a need for this money to be spent, and if it was deemed a good investment surely it would have been more beneficial to have someone from the Events department go rather than the CEO? Yet this expense was supposedly signed off by the Board.

As was suggested at the Asian Games there need to be restrictions put on the number of representatives from the various sports governing bodies who are permitted to attend, and the same with the National Sporting Associations.

Many have asked what some of them are doing while they are there, and within some national associations the individuals in question have no qualifications to hold the position that they are attending under. This again undermines the athletes who have worked so hard to get there; to see people just given a free trip.

What is incredible and galling to many fans is that these individuals just seem to want to keep taking from the sports they have worked in even when they have left.

Many years ago, a former airline manager shared a piece of wisdom that he had discovered upon retiring, ‘you find out who your real friends are.’

For years ‘friends’ had called asking for free tickets, cheap tickets and upgrades to business class and when they could they would often assist. As soon as he retired, he never heard from most of those people.

This is the brutal world we live in.

It is similar when you leave any job. You are no longer required, relevant or important. No longer do you have access to the perks that you enjoyed that came with that role.

Although when it comes to the world of sport that is not always the case, and understandably there are many within several sports who are becoming more than a little annoyed about this trend.

For example, in one sport a CEO who was sacked for failing to achieve the goals set by the board was seen enjoying free hospitality at an event from his former employer.

Another CEO who was forced to resign due to inappropriate behaviour which could have resulted in a court case, was also welcomed back with open arms and enjoyed the hospitality of their former employer.

Then there was the former board member in another sport whose time on the board had expired but continues to turn up at events not expecting to pay for their place and enjoy the food, wine, and hospitality.

Who is allowing these situations to happen? Are the Boards even aware that they are? They should be, as often Board members are there. Is this really a good look for the sports in question?

It is not just the freebies but the gall of some of these individuals. Another individual who held a senior management role in a sport, that their qualifications and work experience said they should never have held in the first place, was fired from that position after four years was recently posting about how the sport must always come first. Had they put the sport first and not rashly spent the sport’s money, it has been alleged they spent $1000 on bottles of champagne, they may well still have had that job and would be in a stronger position to make such claims.

One thing is glaringly obvious those allowing these former employees and board members access to these privileges are simply not reading the room.

Just as was claimed by one individual that in their sport two individuals both of whom had been allegedly accused of a misappropriation of funds were part of a VIP group presenting prizes.

Players, coaches, officials and fans are beginning to start speaking out about the amount of travel, most of it unnecessary that administrative staff and board members are making attending meetings that could be done on-line, or attending tournaments and events with the Federation, Confederation or National Association picking up the tab.

As one coach pointed out, is it right that national under 21 and under 18 representatives have to crowd-fund or rely on their parents to pay for them to attend international competitions, and not only that, but are expected to pay for their national tracksuits, and polo shirts while representing their country?

Is it fair to keep asking parents to pay? This is another example of sport witnessing the best payers being selected over the best players. Something that this coach said was very much the case in their sport. “Some representing their country would never get that opportunity if the association was paying for everything,” they admitted. 

In their opinion the National association should not be flying staff or board members to these tournaments if they are not prepared to fund the athletes, and coaches. “It is not a good look.”

There are few who would disagree with this comment.

One thing is clear; fans and players are sick of the freeloading. Those who make up the majority within sport, those who play week-in and week-out for local clubs are sick of seeing their costs go up every year and board members and staff being given a free ride.

As a wise man said if you work in sports administration you work in customer service. You are there to serve everyone in the sport, to try and keep them happy.

In the world of football in recent months there have been clear examples of where those at the top have lost sight of that simple rule and let’s be honest, they are not alone in not reading the room. FIFA President Gianni Infantino is clearly not listening to what his customers are saying and neither are others within the game in relation to him or the Manchester City situation.

This is a pervading feeling in many countries and many sports.  Yet will any of those at the top with the power to make the necessary changes implement change?

Probably not, as they are the ones who will miss out. If they were truly there for the sports they claim to love, then they would. It would be an easy decision to make.

Sadly, we live in a selfish world today where it is more about what people can gain for themselves than benefit the sport in the long term. Their actions speak louder than words. 

But is it time that the expenditure was made public and also the reasons for travelling and what work was done over what period of time?

The post No Time For Freebies first appeared on Not The Footy Show.

This line has been used for decades. After all, the object of the game is to get a ball into a goal in order to score. That goal can be an official, goal, two dustbins or two jumpers on the ground. The game and the aim of it is the same.

Although there are some who are determined to try and make out that it is far more complicated that that.

Since the various Confederations and National Associations realised that they could make money by running coaching courses and forcing teams to have only accredited coaches in charge, some of these coaches have set out to bamboozle most fans by implying that it no longer is a simple game and that only a select few know how it should be played.

To add to the confusion are the studio pundits on television. While some are very good and talk total sense, some are clearly there to try and big themselves up, fool the TV executives who employ them that they know more than they do and hang onto a job by trying to make out that the game is akin to rocket science.

Then there are those who administer the game…

As mentioned football has been around for a very long time. Fans and players alike understand how things work. There is a league competition where teams play each other home and away over a season and the team that has accumulated the most points wins the league. There are also Cup competitions which invariably are knockout games. Here if you lose you are knocked out of the Cup. Two teams progress to a final to ‘play for the Cup.’

Now, there are some countries where this tried and tested method is not as accepted in the rest of the world and Australia is one. With the A-League the most consistent team over the League season are named Premiers; not League Champions. The top six teams, which is fifty percent of the teams in the league, then play off in a finals series of knockout games to be crowned “Champions.”

At the lower levels of the game there are still finals as this is the way things are done in Australia, but clearly in most of the competitions winning the League is the goal as that shows consistency over an extended period of time. It shows the true depth of a team.

So, once again the administrators tried to make a very simple situation extremely complicated.

When the Clubs in the Football West Junior Community League U18 Division 1 signed up for the season they expected to play nine home and away games in the season.

However, at the beginning of the season Wembley who had a team in this division opted to drop out as they were being beaten heavily each week.

Even though the season had already started the fixtures were suddenly changed, and it was no longer a strictly home and away season. To share an example Woodvale played Forrestfield twice away from home, and never played them at home. Sorrento played Gwelup who did not win a game all season on three occasions. Gwelup were one of the poorer teams and conceded more goals than most. Needless to say this enhanced Sorrento’s goal difference when it came to the League ladder.

The big question was why change all the fixtures, make extra work and complicate things?

Surely with Wembley dropping out you simply carry on and every team has a bye. The games that had already been played against Wembley are all 3-0 wins or similar for every team, or they are completely wiped from the League table?

However, the issue that allegedly reared its head was one of parents stating that they had paid for their children to play a set number of games in the League season, and as we all know the fees to play football are deemed to be on the high side.

It would appear that rather than give each of the clubs an appropriate credit for this year or next year’s registration, Football West opted to try and give the teams the agreed number of fixtures. Surely a credit would have been far easier to arrange? Then it would be up to the clubs to share that credit with the parents of their players.

Instead, come the end of the season and Sorrento finished top of the League ladder with a disproportionate goal difference. After complaints from the other clubs in the league Football West ended up deleting all of the games against Gwelup as well, and then calculated the league ladder based on points per game for each team. This was calculated by taking the total Points won by a team and then dividing it by the matches played.

Talk about making things far more complicated than they ever should be! No wonder people walk away from the game.

When historians look back at this season how are they going to interpret it? How many asterisks is it going to need to explain how the final league table was calculated?

Good management is about thinking about worst case scenarios before they happen, and having a plan should they happen.

This looks like it was a case of trying to fix an unwanted situation on the run, without looking at the simplest solution. As it happened a bad decision at the start when Wembley withdrew ended up resulting in two other changes having to be made down the track. Changing the fixtures was crazy and unneccessary. Then having to delete the results from another team’s games was an admission that the administrators had got it wrong. Then finally, to try and make some sort of sense of the season to resort to a points per game formula to decide a league ladder is surely proof that what was once so simple is now being overcomplicated.

After FIFA was accused of trying to influence the outcomes at the World Cup the last thing the sport needs in Australia is people making similar accusations.

Hopefully lessons have been learned and before next season kicks off all clubs are advised as to what will happen if a team withdraws before they do.

The former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly was never afraid to share his wisdom with those who would listen, one wonders how he would have coped with the media today, but his words still ring true today, “Football is a simple game completely complicated by the people who look at it, and the people who think they know everything about it.”

The post Making a Simple Game Complicated first appeared on Not The Footy Show.

The recent FIH Women’s and Men’s World Cups hosted in the Netherlands and Belgium have both been labelled as a success by the sport’s governing body and many who were in attendance.

Credit must go to all involved behind the scenes, but especially to the players, coaches and umpires without whom the two events would not have had the drama that made it memorable to those who participated or watched. So, congratulations to all.

Also it is important to acknowledge all the volunteers who would have worked in the background.

However, now that the dust has settled on the victories of Germany and Argentina it is pertinent to point out that while the event may well have been a success there were also a number of issues that came to surface that cannot be ignored if the game is to move forward in a positive way.

One of these was the lack of promotion and visibility of the FIH’s showcase event, which has already been covered in The Band Played On But Is It Time For The Lifeboats?. In many countries If you were not a hockey follower you would never have known that Hockey was hosting a World Cup.

To make matters worse those who follow the game and subscribe to the FIH’s Watch Hockey App went on social media and shared publicly their frustration that having paid to watch the tournament they were in fact unable to watch games. Some stated that when they tried to log in again, they were asked to subscribe again! When they contacted Watch Hockey some have claimed they never received a response, others have said that it took over seven days.

Whoever is responsible for this platform within the FIH should have some explaining to do. How can this happen on your blue riband event? How can the customer service be so tardy when dealing with your core audience?

This should have been tested time and again to ensure that these issues did not occur during the event. Many organizations would not wait for an explanation and would simply show the person responsible the door. 

That aside the one glaringly obvious conclusion from the tournament and reading conversations online is that the rules of the game need a serious overhaul.

As one former international, who has transferred into coaching said, but requested they remain nameless, “the rules committee at the FIH should resign en masse. If not, they should be sacked as they single-handedly are killing the game. They feel it is their job to make changes every year just because they are a committee, but the changes they make are simply window-dressing, or more like job justification. I have tried to talk to some of those on this committee over the past five years and it is like talking to a brick wall. They all need to go.”

That may sound harsh, but during the World Cup feelings were running hot as interpretations of the rules varied. That in itself is not good for the sport. The strength of sports with a large following lie in the fact that their rules are easy to understand by all.

The spin off from the rules issue is the pressure this puts on the umpires.

Remember that these are not full paid officials. This is not what they do for a job and herein may lie another problem.

As the teams, support staff and players have become more professional in terms of financial support the Umpires have been left behind.

There were some ugly moments for the sport as a result of umpiring decisions during the final stages of the competitions, which were obviously not good for the sport or more importantly those involved, players, teams and officials.

Yet this should not have come as a surprise, and surely the FIH were prepared for such a possibility of this happening?

After all it is common knowledge across world sport that since the Covid Pandemic the abuse of officials has risen dramatically.

While this surge in abuse has been seen in grassroots sport it has also been a factor in the higher echelons of sport.

In the USA 20% of High School referees/umpires quit between 2018 and 2021 because of abuse, that equated to 30-35% of their official’s pool.

In the UK 10,000 referees walked away in a five-season span. After being surveyed 50% ranked verbal abuse as the main reason for walking away.

Experts, psychologists and the sports that have investigated why this abuse has suddenly increased pinpoint several causes.

“The Pandemic Pause,” is one. This is where during the pandemic when sport was suspended many officials decided that the low pay and high stress levels were no longer worth it and walked away to spend their time in other more rewarding ways.

Psychologists believe that society as a whole since covid has seen a trend of “diminished patience levels, poor self-regulation and general anti-social behaviour.”

A third is a lack of respect for authority, or those in power. As we saw during the Pandemic many of our leaders did not adhere to the lockdown rules imposed on the masses. It appeared as if the rules did not apply to them, and as a result the general populus has less respect, trust or faith in those in authority.

In the English Premier League bookings doubled after the pandemic. The number of coaches sanctioned or sent off was the highest it had ever been, this was not just in England but also in other leagues across Europe, and the same behaviours have been witnessed in other sports.    

The current levels of abuse it has been reported go beyond simply questioning a decision. There is verbal abuse and intimidation. There are threats of and acts of physical violence carried out on officials as they are targeted after the game has been completed.

One of the areas where harassment has seen an incredible spike is online. Digital harassment has reached unprecedented levels. Again, as some experts have pointed out, those sports who think that social media is just a marketing tool and see this as their main form of promotion are the most likely to come unstuck in this space.

FIFA for all its faults has had to invest in upscaling its automated social media protection tools to flag tens of thousands of social media posts targeting and abusing officials. FIFA has the money to do this. How many other sports have those same resources? Suddenly you understand the comments made by those experts about sports focused on marketing through these channels. They are going to be seen to cop more abuse than others unless they have a similar investment. 

So, what was put in place to protect the officials in case this happened at the World Cup? What would happen to the perpetrators?

Throughout the tournament just like at the FIFA World Cup there were many who had little faith in the video umpire system. Even going so far as to claim it was being used to manipulate results as was the accusation at the FIFA World Cup.

There is no doubt that the system in Hockey, which was at one time seen as one of the best, needs reviewing and almost a complete overhaul.

First up if the Video officials are not going to be provided with the highest level of equipment and replays from which they can zoom in on a passage of play then the video umpire should not be in play. After all the game survived for nearly 100 years without it.

You cannot expect people to do a professional job and make crucial decisions if they are not given the right tools. Again, it is unfair on those asked to carry out the task.

Yes, this would require a bigger investment, but that is where the board and management of the FIH, the Confederations and National Associations must stand up and be counted. They need to make a decision that benefits the game and protects the officials. The buzz on social media during the world cup questioning decisions was not good for the sport.

When the Video Umpire system first came in the sport used umpires who had retired or were close to retirement. Umpires with experience in the game. Umpires are forced to retire at 47 years of age, then they are put out to pasture. Why not tap into those years of experience and use it in the video box? This must be a better option that rotating on-field umpires through that role. Some who openly hate taking on the role.

As some have shared with this writer, they did not take up umpiring to be in a box watching video back. They want to be down on the pitch. One umpire at one tournament was told that they were on video duties as they were ‘the best communicator.’ Flattered as they were, they too wanted to be on the pitch officiating.

Which raises the question are we getting the best or most focused and dedicated umpires in the video booth?

Once again there was a situation at the World Cup that should have been avoided after Belgium had an equalizing goal disallowed after a video referral in their semi-final against the reigning Champions and hosts the Netherlands.

Justine Rasir of Belgium was suspended for her side’s subsequent bronze medal match for the comments she made on live television at the end of the game against the Dutch.

This writer has worked in broadcasting and the media for over 35 years. He has at times been asked to get a rise out of a coach or a club owner in an interview pre- or post-game. Why? The reason is simple; it is like clickbait. If there is a reaction, then it will attract viewers and makes a great sound byte to promote future games and coverage.

Let us get one thing clear most broadcasters are only interested in their broadcast, and doing what is best for that. After all that is their business.

Where hockey showed its naivety was allowing any post-match interviews with the Belgian players or coaches in the immediate aftermath of the match. Once again, it resulted in more bad publicity for the sport.

As Anthony Mackaiser a respected former Media Manager with the Springboks rugby team stated on Podcast 97 the media manager must control the narrative. They must be aware of the questions that are going to be asked and give the players the responses. They are there to promote and protect the team, the players and the brand.

So, who was responsible for preventing this interview from an FIH perspective? Surely, they would have been aware that there was likely to be an emotional response from a team that has just missed out on a World Cup Final?

Equally, where was the Belgian team Media Manager to prevent this happening?

Rasir stated that she had said ‘no’ to the interview initially, but kept being badgered to do it.

If there is a commitment to a team to put a player forward at the end of the game did the Belgian’s put forward the right person at that time? If there is a fine that can be imposed for not giving a player to be interviewed in such a situation surely it is better to cop the fine? Is that not why people have the title of “Manager?” To make decisions, the right decisions when needed. 

The World Cup raised a great many issues around the world, like does the delay for penalty corners break the flow of the game, is the protective gear being hurled from the field a good look?

Another was why is Hockey still having the teams that have been eliminated from the tournament stay behind and continue to play for final placings? Is this still necessary today? Would it not save on costs by eliminating these matches?

If when you ask these questions and an administrator responds with ‘because that is the way it has always been,’ you know that you have the wrong person in that role. Just because that is the way it has always been done does it make it right? Is it the best option available?

If alternatives were tried, why didn’t they work? This is the important information as these facts will assist in making informed decisions which may or may not be for the better.

Another legacy of the past is having those competing nations provide the umpires; although this is not as black and white as it used to be.

At the recent world cups there were 16 teams in each competition. There were 32 Umpires from the competing nations, with some countries having more than one umpire. Eight of the competing nations had no umpire representation, and there were 5 neutral umpires from countries who had not qualified.

While it is to a degree subjective, were these the best umpires? Even within the umpire community there are some who question the appointment of their colleagues not only to the event but also to key games later in the tournament. Like players understandably there is competition.

What is sad is to hear is how there is an underlying belief that there is a clique and that certain appointments in the past and even to some degree now, are not based on merit or performance.

There are umpires from nations who are unlikely to ever qualify for a World Cup or an Olympic Games who feel that their pathway is blocked no matter how well they do or how hard they work. That is not good. As one young umpire said to this writer, ”I am not sure how long I can stick at it if I do not get the opportunities.”

Possibly there needs to be more transparency about the selection process? Clearly there needs to be better communication, that will hopefully happen with a new person taking on the role of Umpire Management at the FIH.

What many forget is for an umpire to be chosen to officiate at a World Cup, years of hard work and sacrifice have gone into them reaching that milestone. There is plenty of training alone, time away from their families, and time invested on being the best that they can be.

As we saw at the World Cup abuse of the officials reached another level, possibly unseen in the sport before.

It is worth noting that all these officials only received a EUR60 per diem while at the World Cup, oh and three umpiring shirts and three polo shirts! Surely, they should be given more recognition than that? After all like the players officiating at the sport’s biggest event is an achievement and something to be proud of. Even a small memento that says they officiated at a World Cup, as a thank you would surely go a long way?

Not surprisingly some are asking if the abuse is worth it for so little reward?

An internet search found a guide for businesses as to what to pay their staff in terms of per diems when travelling for work in every continent, and even specific to some countries. With accommodation taken out of the equation here the recommended rate for the Netherlands and Belgium for meals and incidentals was EUR140. So, the umpires were getting lower than 50% of what is perceived as the norm. Is that really acceptable?

As one umpire shared, they do not expect to make money from attending such an event, but many have taken time off work to officiate at an event like this so it should not cost them money. Yet it did. How many other Hockey tournaments do they find themselves in the same position, where simply getting to the airport in a taxi costs more than they receive?

Why are these things not budgeted for by the FIH, Confederations and National Associations? Is it incompetence? Or a lack of knowledge and professionalism?

What is equally worrying is that some of the up-and-coming umpires, not unlike some of the teams have had to pay their own way to officiate or play at a tournament. This should not be happening in the sport, and shows that it is still very much an amateur sport.

Surely the FIH needs to look at raising funds so that they can offer qualifi8cation funding to assist these nations in attending just as FIFA and World Rugby do. This comes down to working out your priorities, it should be about making it as easy for all the teams and officials to get to the event without having to worry about finding the money to cover the cost?

If you are running a World event it must meet World Class standards on every level.

Finally, the World Cup should have been all about the players and the nations competing. They should have been the sole focus. Yet during the event we had announcements on a myriad of things being promoted from the FIH Board meeting during the World Cup, an Athlete’s Forum meeting, a National Associations Summit as well as promoting Diversity and Inclusion Day. All things that surely could have waited until after the event? Would they not have gained more interest as stand-alone announcements?

The key takeaways are that the sport needs to look at the whole umpiring landscape. The rules Committee needs to be looked at and questions asked if the sport has the right people involved, and whether there need to be wholesale changes here to achieve the best outcomes. There is no doubt whoever you talk to the rules need to be made simpler so that the umpires are protected and suffer minimal abuse. This and previous committees have failed in this task, and as many believe, have actually made things worse. It is obvious that with simpler and clearer explanations of the rules there is likely to be more consistency, which will make it easy for all to understand, especially non-hockey followers.

The review process also needs an overhaul and if the money is not going to be invested to give the umpires the best vision to make informed and correct decisions then it should be shelved. Hopefully if this investment is not forthcoming, we see the umpires simply decline to be a part of the Video referral process for their own well-being.

Even if it means that video referral is only used at major tournaments, as long as it is being done properly then most would be in favour of that. The game survived without it for decades, and as in football the last thing the sport needs are accusations that the review system is being used to obtain the outcomes that will be best for the sport in terms of filling stadia.

Or worse that it could be related to gambling.

The excuse will be that this all costs money, money that the FIH does not have. Then it is time for the FIH to cut its coat according to its cloth. Even if that means the organization cutting back on spending related to non-essential travel.

The events at the World Cup brought to mind the words of F Scott Fitzgerald in the Great Gatsby, when Gatsby introduces the narrator Nick Carraway to a gambler Meyer Wolfshiem at a restaurant in New York. Gatsby casually mentions that Wolfshiem is the man who fixed the 1919 World Series (the infamous Black Sox Scandal). “It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of 50 million people, with the single mindedeness of a burglar blowing a safe.”

When people start questioning decisions in sporting contests the damage can have a long term lasting effect on the sport and those involved. Could hockey survive such a scandal? That is why these issues need to be looked at and changes made urgently.

The post The Review That Needs To Happen first appeared on Not The Footy Show.

A similar quote that this writer’s late father always used was statistics are like a bikini, they show a lot but hide the bare essentials.”

The same day as we published “The Band Played On, But is It Time for The Lifeboats?” the International Hockey Federation (FIH) sent out a press release and published on its website a piece entititled “FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 breaks New Ground With Record Audiences.”

The article claimed that the current men’s and women’s world Cups have attracted record engagement across the FIH’s digital platforms.

They went on to say “As the tournament reaches the end of its second pool phase, World Cup content has already generated 106.4 million views across FIH platforms – and, importantly, is taking hockey far beyond its existing fanbase.”

They claim that Instagram has generated 66.7million views and Facebook 32.6million. However, as most people know Facebook’s recording of views is very loose. When a user watches a video for at least 3 seconds or less if the video is shorter, including auto-played clips Facebook counts these as views. Many who work in this space also claim that watching more than once adds to the number of views, but Facebook has failed to confirm or deny this.

Facebook is also very clever in that while you can see the total number of views, it does not show a public list of every specific user who watched a standard video. So how much can these figures be relied upon? The top Marketing companies do not rely on them at all.

A view on Instagram is counted when a user ‘actively taps, opens, or pauses on the post,’ rather than just scrolling past it in the feed.

It was also claimed by the FIH that they have had 4.5 million views on TikTok and 2.65 million on YouTube.

On TikTok a view is recorded the exact moment playback starts, this is said to be typically after about one second of viewing or a maximum of three seconds for longer videos. A view is registered almost immediately when a video begins to play even if you have not intentionally clicked on it! If a user loops or replays your video, each repeat view is added to the total count.

The Youtube result comes as no surprise with the World Cup matches not being shown in many countries around the World and many fans simply not prepared to purchase the Watch Hockey App. So they only place they can go to watch the highlights of any of the matches is via YouTube.

Many people are unaware that YouTube updated its public view system effective August 24, 2026. YouTube now counts a view from the moment a video begins playing from the very first frame. There is no longer a minimum length of time for it to be registered as a view; this used to be three minutes. To find out how long viewers stayed the creator will now have to go in and check “Engaged Views” to be able to obtain that data.

YouTube also would investigate views once they reached 300 and remove any views that were associated to bots to drive the figure up. Whether they are still doing that is not clear. What is clear is they have had to fall in line with their competitors as due to the uninitiated it was obvioulsly harming their business that other platforms were not bothered about the accuracy of their viewing data. As usual those who failed to do their homework becoming their easy prey.

YouTube has also now capped repeat views to a limit of four to five per day per IP address. There was a time when they actually did not count repeat views. Some feel that this could distort viewing figures, as with a livestream where someone may have to take a phone call or head to the bathroom, so are they a new viewer when they come back?

With other platforms counting every time someone’s finger slides over a clip on their phone it would appear that YouTube felt it had to change its reporting to match them.

However, while the FIH’s article is extremely self-congratulatory it fails to share the crucial information that many who are unfamiliar with this space would be unaware of.

This is nothing new across many sporting organisations. Sometimes those sending out such information actually lack the understanding themselves, however often these figures are shared to try and impress and promote a narrative that they want.

Hockey Australia’s former CEO shared some stats last year on the Pro League viewing figures on 7Plus revealing that this was all part of the “Hockey Australia Strategic Plan and the growth of our Sport.”

Realistically the viewing figures were poor. What the figures actually revealed was that Hockey Australia has a loyal fan base but it is a small one. When they watch games they stick with them, although the average viewing time was down on the previous year. Yet the viewer numbers were marginally up, but still averaged less than 10,000 per game, which shows why the World Cup has not been picked up by any broadcaster.

The FIH claim that “on Instagram alone more than 11 million non-followers have been reached.”

The FIH has 462,000 followers on Instagram. What this statement means is that 11 million people who are NOT followers clicked on their Instagram posts.

Having consulted a digital marketing expert with over 20 years experience in this space and having shared the FIH’s article with them their first reaction to this type of claim was ‘what percentage of non-followers were generated organically?’

In other words they just came to the sites without any prompts.

The next question was ‘do the FIH have a paid strategy to support these results?’ In other words did they pay for followers? This is nothing new, and many big organisations do this to make their figures look better than they really are. Remarkably there is no law stating that they must declare this. If there was a great many “influencers” would be out of business overnight.

Our expert said that ‘these results are great, but the key now is what is the strategy beyond this to leverage these non-followers? How is the FIH going to translate these figures into fans watching the the World Cup and the sport beyond that, and also play the game?’ This is probably the most important question, as if you do not have a plan around this what is the point of boasting about such figures?

Our expert felt that this plan should be made public, and if not key stakeholders need to be asking for a copy of the plan.

Of course one of the issues that is always going to restrict turning these non-followers into fans is having the sport aired behind a paywall or on an app that only those in the sport know about!

Which raises the question that many who read the story put out by the FIH have already asked, if people had been able to watch the World Cup and it was readily available in their home countries, would these figures be so high? The unavailability of the tournament according to our expert ‘would certainly have driven up online views for content.’

Which leads into the need to know more information about the non-followers. How does the FIH know that these ‘non-followers’ are not already hockey fans, but simply do not follow their social media accounts? Is it not realistic to think that many hockey fans without the tournament being aired in their home country have been scouring the internet for content, yet do not follow the FIH’s platforms.

So as our expert pointed out the FIH was very clever with its statement that said ‘the extraordinary high proportion of views and interactions coming from non-followers shows that the World Cup is attracting people who were not previously part of the FIH digital community.’ They are not clearly stating that they were not hockey fans, just that they were not followers on their digital platforms.

They continued that quote by saying that this was “demonstrating the way the presentation of hockey is evolving.’ This is extremely questionable. As stated previously had the tournament been available to watch in more countries would these figures have been close to these levels? With the lack of coverage they show that there is a hunger out there. The evolution is probably one that is not going to sit well with many if this is how it is to be in the long term.

Whether these non-followers are in fact already hockey fans is very important information, and should be shared so that we can actually determine whether the event has grown the attention of people with no connection already to the sport. Or is it simply those already with an interest already trying to find information? Those who do not “follow” the FIH’s digital platforms.

Our expert stated that this was a very ‘inward focussed’ approach, and that what would be more beneficial would be to step back from these figures and in their words explained, ‘today you never look at the figures you look at the trends and actions.’

They clarified what they meant by this by saying that if you have a digital presence you should know what your average view or engagement is per week, even per day. It is common for these to flat line, but what you need to know is when they go up or down, also what affects them going up and down. This will help you position yourself in context to other influences.

In the context of the World Cups, which posts about which teams are generating the most traction? Are that nations games being broadcast on free to air channels back home? Which day are you finding that you get the most engagement?

Our expert also asked whether these figures were linked to tangible measuring sticks. Are they helping drive subscriptions of the Watch Hockey App? Are people only purchasing the World Cup package? If so how are you going to get them to come back?

Are you monitoring player registrations in the coming seasons to see if this interest turns into more player registrations nationally? Again, compare to the countries where the World Cup was available to view to those where it was behind a paywall, and see if there were indicators as to the impact this had.

Compare these to the traditional upturn in registrations after a Word Cup tournament. Taking football as an example, participation numbers traditionally across the globe rise in the year before a World Cup and the two years after, but decline in the third year. Does Hockey have a similar trend? How much will not having the games available across hockey playing nations impact those figures this time around?

The article is in fact more of an advertorial justifying a strategy and claiming that it has worked, but as our expert said “How many views of the World Cup itself are being achieved, and can the FIH tell if these views came as a result of their social media channels? Surely the key is to have people watching games in full and not just highlights?”

They went onto say that if these results are indeed generated organically, how is hockey going to keep these people involved and following the sport once the World Cup is over? If there is no strategy in place to achieve this then what really has been gained?

Sadly, there are many in the Hockey fraternity who question the validity of these figures. Much of that stems from the claim when the ten year Watch Hockey app deal was signed with NAGRA, and it was promoted that this would service the “30 million players, fans, and officials worldwide.”

If one looks at the amount of short clips that have been produced and the number of views they are getting it is feasible that they are achieving the cumulative figures that have been promoted. Of course it would be interesting to know how many posts have been created on each platform and the average number of views per post, and how many are being watched by the same people, as that too would give a good insight into whether the sport has really managed to grow the following.

Of course some posts that garnered a large number of views were the posts featuring cricket legends Rahul Dravid and Steve Waugh, alongside Bollywood star Abhishek Bachchan. They were seen supporting India at their crucial FIH Hockey World Cup match against the Netherlands,

Needless to say Hockey saw this as chance to gain some views, – certainly the powers that be were lining up for photos – but in reality was the sport acting in the best interests of Hockey?

It transpires that the reason that they were in the Netherlands was for the launch of the European T20 Premier League (ETPL). Abhishek Bachchan is a co-founder of the ETPL, which aims to promote cricket in Europe. A sport that will no doubt compete against Hockey, certainly for sponsorship dollars.

T20 cricket is all about the crowd experience. Dutch Hockey is one of the best at creating a fantastic atmosphere at games, but could this league pull some fans away from the sport? After all so many hockey players have been very good cricketers and vice versa. Australian Jamie Dwyer who was pictured with the stars famously turned his back on cricket so that he could go to the Olympic Games. How many will share his view?

While on paper these figures look fantastic there are so many questions that need to be addressed to find out if they are actually as positive as they would appear, and the reporting of views by all platforms can be extremely deceiving, but surely the FIH is well aware of that? Hopefully key individuals will pursue this matter and gain more information and discover what the plan is moving forward to turn any non-hockey followers into long term supporters, or players. After all is that not the reason behind creating such content? To grow the game.

As Plato wrote, “a good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.” It is time to extract that knowledge from these numbers.

The post Learning From Numbers first appeared on Not The Footy Show.

Is the same true of hockey at this point in time?

The FIH Men’s and Women’s World Cups are currently being held simultaneously in the Netherlands and Belgium and as you would expect the players are giving their all to progress within each tournament, but is the game itself sinking? If not sinking globally, then is it sinking in certain key markets?

The sport has two key events held within a four year cycle, that everyone will agree are the pinnacle of the sport, The FIH World Cup and the Olympic Games. To many the Olympic gold medal being the one that everyone wants. Meaning that being an Olympic Champion means more than being a World Champion. So keeping Olympic status as a sport is vital.

Hockey has been under a little bit of pressure since it was threatened with expulsion from the Olympic Games after 2012. Reports are mixed as to how close the sport actually came to being cut, but this was a wake-up call for the sport.

The IOC apparently has a system in which it’s Olympic Sports are placed in tiers according to their history within the Games and importance today. Not surprisingly Athletics and Swimming are in Tier one along with gymnastics. Depending on which source you go to Hockey fluctuates from tier four and five of the six tiers, modern Pentathlon, golf and rugby sevens consistently being placed in the lowest tier. These are the sports that will be under pressure if the IOC look to trim back the number of sports at the Olympic Games.

The Paris Olympic Games did not do Hockey any favours. The coverage was very poor. The white ball on a blue turf with the sun’s reflection off the turf made it almost impossible to see, and the cameras were too far away from the action, while the commentary was dour.

One of the other issues that continually comes up when new fans try and tune in during the Olympic Games is that the rules are hard to understand, and so many tune into something else. Every year the sport witnesses the rules being tinkered with but never is there a simplifying of the rules so that more people can comprehend the decisions being made by the umpires.

As has been suggested to for CEOs and the past three Presidents of the FIH they need to get players and coaches past and present, along with umpires and broadcasters in a room for at least two days and go through the rules one by one, and not only simplify them, but reduce the number that are open to interpretation, and ensure that they can be adopted at all levels of the game. The focus must be the whole of game, rather than purely the elite side of the game.

Leading into the London Olympic Games we featured the coach of France on Not the Footy Show and they stated how important qualification for the Olympic Games was to them. Only with Olympic qualification would the media in France give the game coverage. This of course had an impact on inspiring children to take up the game, and also attract sponsors.

Things are a little better in Australia but media interest only ramps up when the Olympic Games come around as Australia is expected to medal, yes, expected. The same is true of the Commonwealth Games. Otherwise coverage of the sport is minimal, as it competes with first tier sports for air time.

Technology has now worked against the sport. With broadcasters of the Olympic Games now offering multi-channel options so that you should be able to tune into the sports that you want to watch – In Australia this did not always work during the Paris Games – the number of people tuning into Hockey is reduced, as now in the main only the diehard fans will tune in.

The same problem is there with the current World Cup tournaments. In Australia only the Hockeyroos and Kookaburras games are being broadcast on Channel Seven. How can random sports fans get a perspective on the tournament without having all games being aired. Or even some introduction to the games or conversation at half-time? Viewers literally just get the game. Would this be the case with the Football, Rugby Union Rugby League or Netball World Cups?

If you want to see the other matches they are behind a paywall on the FIH’s third iteration of the Watch Hockey app. Once again only those who already follow the sport will go there to watch games, and in many cases reluctantly. It did not help that the platform fell over the first weekend of the tournament. How does that happen?

If you want to grow the sport it has to be visible. Stuck behind a paywall all you will do is reduce your following as there are simply too many other pay-per-view channels that families give priority too. As mentioned in the most recent Podcast, World Athletics make their events available via YouTube, because they want everyone to have access to them free of charge, and see that as the best way of growing participation and interest.

It is interesting to note that in the USA one of the reasons that the NFL is so strong is that unlike its main rivals Basketball and Baseball it has never gone behind a paywall.

The sad thing is it is not only in Australia where the tournament is not avialable to view, but also in Malaysia one of the hotbeds of Hockey in Asia.

Just last month Malaysians could watch every game of the FIFA World Cup, a tournament in which their country has never qualified for the finals. In fact two channels were broadcasting that event! Now none are broadcasting an event that their national men’s team were competing at.

Malaysia has twice hosted the FIH Men’s World Cup and the Women’s event once. They finished fourth in the 1975 men’s event as hosts.

Malaysia has annually hosted the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup which dates back to 1983. It also hosts one of the only internaional under 21 tournaments the Sultan of Johor Cup. It is a Hockey loving nation.

Yet the reason that there are no broadcasters showing the World Cup or Malaysia’s games at the World Cup is because the audience is no longer there. It is no longer commercially viable to the broadcasters.

This will have a massive impact on the sport. A sport’s visibility is part of its development. Sports grow when children can watch players they admire and idolise them. They then imagine themselves in that player’s shirt.

The rules have played a huge part in this drop off in interest and support. The physicality that has been allowed into the game has put the smaller Asian nations at a huge disadvantage. This is reflected in only one Asian male team being in the top ten teams in the world, India, and they have had to adapt their game and sacrifice some of their traditional play to be able to match the physicality. In the women’s game only China and India are in the top ten. Only two other Asian countries are in the top 20. While in the men Malaysia (14) Japan(17) and China (20) are the only teams in the Top 20.

There can be no doubt that the FIH Pro league has had a great deal to do with the lack of interest from TV stations. How many of those who signed up to air the FIH Pro League are still on board with Hockey?

The FIH promised them and the fans in the words of the then CEO Jason McCracken “a professional sport, making it a career choice for athletes who will be given the opportunity to perform in big, bold, packed and loud venues both in their homeland and overseas.”

The crowds were good for some games and poor for many and have declined over time. The lack of marketing, and the drawn out length of the league matches with games not being played each week meant that many lost track of what was happening, when games were being played and where. In fact many simply stopped watching at all.

The Pro league has had a direct impact on the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup as the FIH would not allow nations participating in the Pro League to play each other outside of the league, which meant that teams in the top ten in the world rarely participated at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup. An event that many were frequently involved in. That in turn lowered the quality of the competition, and also meant that Malaysia along with many of the other nations were unable to pit themselves against the better nations to gauge where they stood.

Equally important to games being shown on TV is the access for budding coaches to study what those at international level are doing to affect change in games. Once again across Asia the development of coaching has been neglected with very few top quality coaches from these nations rising to the top.

Another factor that put the top teams off playing these nations was the new World Ranking system which sees higher ranked teams deducted world ranking points if they lose to a lower ranked nation. This is why many have said that World Ranking points should only be available in key tournaments.

The elitism of the FIH Pro League and the effects of it are now becoming obvious to those who are not part of it.It is such a long way from delivering the vision that Jason McCracken and the FIH promised, which was, “We strongly believe that this new competition will fuel the growth of our sport for many years to come, significantly increasing revenues for hockey.”

It is stifling growth and seeing the gap between those in the top six or seven and those outside that group widen. The results at the World Cup are reflecting this. It is also costing those participating a fotune to be a part of it. Costs that some countries realised before it started were unsustainable and some have only realised after being a part of it.

Australia allegedly did not carry out a full audit of whether entering the Pro League was going to be viable. They were also it has been claimed going to withdraw when New Zealand withdrew, only to change their minds at the eleventh hour. The cost of participation is one that all players in Australia have had to bear, as the fees to play locally have risen to try and offset the cost of participation.

Add to that the State bodies participation in Hockey One which replaced the Australian Hockey League; a mini version of the Pro League and the problem the sport faces are magnified.

The Australian Hockey League was always the competition on which final selections for the Kookaburras and Hockeyroos squads were based. Players had to play if they wished to be considered for the national teams. Now there are rumblings of discontent amongst many as the current national players do not have to play or only have to play a reduced number of games in Hockey One. Suddenly it is not an even playing field for all with international ambitions.

The problem here is that Hockey Australia under its former CEO encouraged its players to seek contracts overseas, so that they could earn a living from playing Hockey. Something that they are unable to do in Australia. However, Not The Footy Show has been advised that once a player makes that decision to play overseas, they no longer receive their AIS scholarship funding. As obviously they are no longer a part of the centralised program.

Ironically some of those who have been most vocal speaking out against the centralised program and being away from their home states and clubs are the ones who have opted to head overseas. This would tend to indicate that the centralised program is not the problem, neither is the location. Could it be the problem is in fact money? The lack of payment for being essentially a full time sportsperson.

So, Hockey now faces a problem that Australian football faced in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Players based overseas and unable to be a part of the centralised training program full time. In football those playing in Europe paid their own way back to play for Australia; because the national Association at that time simply could not afford to fly them home for internationals; hence why some of these players have less caps than those who never played outside of Australia. Before the FIFA International breaks there was always a fight between club and country, as the clubs who were paying their wages did not want them to leave. This is now raising its head in Hockey.

Jay Stacy, one of the first Australians to head over and play in the Netherlands in the late 1990’s had agreed to play the season and return to Australia, but then when his club wanted him to prolong his stay he faced a dilemma. The Australian set up at the time took a hard line and said if you want to play for Australia you honour the agreement.

Alyson Annan suffered a similar fate at just 28 years of age. Annan was also playing in the Netherlands and had a commitment to her club, she had also started a degree in sports marketing the year before and was tied into her studies. She offered to return home for two weeks, but her offer was rejected.

In her biography “Beyond the Limits” the Australian Women’s coach at the time, David Bell is quoted as saying, “The difficulty was that she was playing a sport that was centralised in Australia. The ideal world for Alyson was to live in Holland and play for Australia, but when you try to put the dynamics of the group together, if you make allowances for one, you have five or six coming to you asking for the same thing.”

She did not play for Australia, and won the Player of the year in the Dutch League. Many still argue that it was Australia’s loss. Since that time the Hockeyroos have not won a World Cup or an Olympic medal.

Half a century later it is hard to take such a hard line when players have been encouraged to head overseas by those running the game, in order to be paid for their talent. As some have asked, is it morally right for a nation like Australia with so much history in the game to expect other nations to financially support their players?

Another question is can the coaches today take a line similar to that taken with Jay Stacy and Alyson Annan? Would, as some claim, it be a restraint of trade? Or does the coach have the right to select who they wish?

Just as with no free-to-air television coverage if you wish to grow the game these players need to be playing in Australia, even if it is only for the entire Hockey One season.

The centralised National players have been withdrawn from their club sides and many only play limited games, but they are somehow allowed to just return and play finals. This year the Hockeyroos have not been allowed to play for their clubs at all, what does that do in terms of inspiring the next generation? Many of the juniors at these clubs will not even know who these players are, as they never see them play. So they have no chance of being inspired.

With finals just around the corner, after the World Cup finishes there is already debate as to whether those international players who have not played for their clubs should be permitted to play. Some have suggested the clubs as a whole should stand united and not select these players. After all it is harsh on those who have contributed all season to miss out. Another argument that has some validity is how many extra fans will these players add to the gate? Sadly it will not be 100’s, so there is little to be gained for the sport.

Then some players who are part of clubs in the finals will opt to take a vacation after the World Cup rather than return and play, So, as one player suggested if they must play it should be all must play or none. Or should that be all should be available and it is up to the coach as to whether they select them? This is just another area which is proving divisive just like the availability in Hockey One. It needs to be addressed.

The other impact this has is it affects the crowd when the national team plays. There is not the connection between the club players and the national players that there used to be. Suddenly they are expected to support the team when the team – often through no fault of their own – are not supporting the clubs. While their team mates will be there many in the lower grades are missing.

The children are no longer begging their parents to take them to watch their idols because they no longer idolise the players because they cannot see them.

If you ever wanted proof that the game is no longer front of mind, it was there on the weekend. At games in the local competition it was interesting to eavesdrop on the conversations of those about to play. Despite both the Hockeyroos and the Kookaburras playing crucial games at the FIH World Cup, there was no conversation heard on the World Cup. Amongst the men the conversation was AFL and English Premier League. So if those who are playing the game are not engaged, the sport has clearly fallen a long way. Is that down to the visibility and promotion?

The Kookaburras were knocked out off the tournament while the Hockeyroos have progressed to the semi-finals and still have the hope of a medal. They took home bronze four years ago and will be looking to go better this time around. However, one has to point out that this was their only medal in a meaningful competition since silver in the 2018’s Champion’s Trophy and silver in 2019’s first edition of the FIH Pro League, when all nations were committed to the league. For the men, apart from a Silver at the Tokyo Olympics it has been an extremely lean time for a team that was at one time one of the strongest hockey nations.

Another question being asked in Australia is the same as one being asked in Asia where are all the coaches coming through?

For the first time ever Australia appointed a foreigner as a coach of a national team when South African Rhett Halkett was appointed coach of the Hockeyroos. Recently another South African was appointed the Women’s pathway coach.

Halkett may well be the perfect man for the job, but for a nation that is incredibly proud of homegrown talent this revealed a problem. Where are the next generation of International coaches in Australia, and are they up to that level yet? Clearly those making the key decisions felt that they weren’t. So what is being done to give talented coaches the opportunity to gain that knowledge and experience?

In Asia the same is true as overseas coaches are being given the key roles. Some bring a great deal to the table, some less and appear to be attracted to the money on offer, but while these individuals are being employed part of their remit has to be to assist in the development of local coaches to underpin their efforts and improve the nation in the long term.

There are talented coaches out there, many sign up for the various courses and diligently attend them, only to then be passed over by someone who has not made the same commitment, or does not have the same results to back up their claims. There is nothing more demoralising, and so credit should be given to those who still hang in there, for they are truly committed.

There can be no doubt that the sport in Australia has suffered poor management and a lack of awareness as to where it was heading internationally by the board and the CEO’s in at least the last two, possibly three Olympic cycles.

It is no comfort to see other nations in Asia suffering in a similar way. For ultimately it is the sport that is suffering the most.

It was dropped at the recent trimmed Commonwealth Games but is likely to return with India hosting the next games; that is unless Commonwealth Sport, who run the games deem that it was not missed. A decision that will be based on viewership figures and which broadcasters would purchase the rights.

There is an old saying ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,’ but it would appear that the game is broken. it has hit an iceberg and is listing badly. it needs to be fixed or rebuilt.

There are so many factors that need addressing, with the rules being a priority. The rules have needed serious attention for at least ten years, probably longer. Why is this so hard? Are the right individuals overseeing this, and are they listening to what people in the game and those who aren’t are saying?

The calendar also is crucial with competitions domestically and internationally dovetailing, as young players are being burnt out especially with the Junior World Cup being played every two years. Many young players are not being given the chance to develop properly, and that is apparent in countries like Malaysia where few are ready to step up and replace the senior players. The senior players keep playing even though they are no longer at their peak, and the gap widens between them and those coming into the side. As a result the nation’s performances slip.

Teams can manage a dip as a side transitions but not a slide from which they fail to bounce back.

Does the sport have the right people in place to make the hard decisions. As one former international player stated ‘the game internationally is no better run than a club.’ That may be harsh, but the sentiment is clear. If you look at the administration of the game domestically and internationally you will meet people who are quick to tell you how much they ‘love the sport,’ but does that love blind them from making decisions that have to be made? Did that passion get them the jobs they are in, rather than their expertise?

One area where the Hockey administration in Australia dramatically dropped the ball in the past ten years was as women’s sport came the fore. Australian Women’s hockey had been a dominant team on the sporting landscape for decades, It had been successful on the international stage. They were the first team sport male or female tio win an Olympic team gold medal – based on the IOC’s definition of a team. Here was the perfect time to celebrate that, and have those heroes from the past talk up the sport and its benefits. Nothing happened, and now we see so many women’s sports have passed hockey in terms of profile, sponsorship, funding and participation.

Once again the question has to be asked were the right people at the helm at that time? They may have been nice people, and may have “loved the game” but ultimately they let have the game down.

Where to now? A new CEO is on the cards but will they be able to right the ship as the players continue to play on, or is it time for the lifeboats?

The post The Band Plays On, But Is It Time For the Lifeboats? first appeared on Not The Footy Show.

Has Glasgow saved the Commonwealth Games? As successful as the paired back Games were Brian shares his view on the Games future. Interestingly some non-Commonwealth nations took part.

Brian also discussed an obvious economic benefits which makes us refer back to our last guest TJ Rosandich whose comments were backed up between podcasts as the Western Australian State Government hosted the Calcio Italiano tournament, featuring Italian football giants AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, and Palermo. The WA State Premier has claimed that “Tourism WA analysis found the festival generated an estimated global media value of more than $110 million. The other claim just a few days after the last game was played was that it generated $94 million to the economy. Should they be forced to justify these figures? Our interview would tend to indicate they couldn’t.

In this show Ashley asks fans and administrators to learn from the FIFA fiasco and look at their own governance. There are tell-tale signs as to whether your sport is being run properly. It is clear across many sports that voting can, and is manipulated. So do the voting rights need to be looked at? Should votes be given based on participation numbers or the fees paid by member nations? With many Confederations voting en bloc and determining the outcome of elections how can the power of confederations be reduced? As has been shown in football how important is the voice of the fans to effect change?

John and Ashley look at the Commonwealth Games and their relevancy, after the interview, before John asks can clubs offer waivers on contracts regarding injuries. Are players going to have to find their own insurance? Where would this leave clubs, individuals and the sports legally? Should the top leagues have to follow the English Premier League and set aside funds for former players?

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The post NTFS#147 – A Look Back at the Paired Back Commonwealth Games, Lessons to be Learned From FIFA, and Are Waivers on Player Injuries Going to Change Sport in the Years Ahead? first appeared on Not The Footy Show.

At the level below the professional level there has been a big change, and one that has many who have been around sport a very long time scratching their heads as to what can be done.

Several years ago there was a player playing at the highest level in their state bemoaning the fact they were not selected for the professional side in their given sport. At the level they were training twice a week with games on the weekend. One day one of the coaches took this player aside and asked them why they believed that they were being overlooked. There were a range of answers given as they pointed out how in their mind they were a better player than several other players who had been given a professional contract.

The coach agreed that he believed this player was a better player, and then asked if that was the case why would they be selected and not this individual. The individual in question was at a loss for an answer.

The coach asked the player how much extra training they did outside of the club’s twice-a-week sessions. The player looked at the coach, eyes wide open as if to say,’what sort of question is that?’ The answer was none.

The coach pointed out that maybe the players that he believed were inferior worked harder. They were more committed to making the most of their talent. They were leaving nothing to chance. He pointed out that they were fitter and stronger. That maybe they had appreciated that to go to the next level they had to be a great deal fitter than they needed to be playing at this level, after all as a professional you had to train every day.

Finally the penny dropped. For a few weeks the player in question started to train on their own, but it did not last. A professional side never came calling.

That is one example of how dedicated you need to be if you want to play at the next level. It doe snot guarantee you will.

For decades across all sports if you wanted to play in the first team – even in amateur leagues – there was a commitment that you had to make. Not just in terms of fitness and attending training. You had to commit to being available for the whole season barring injury.

When in Australia all the shops closed at lunchtime on a Saturday there were few excuses. Now with many jobs putting greater demands on individuals provate lives, sometimes players are unavailable due to work.

That is understood, and accepted by coaches and team mates.

One player who found themselves in such a position where they had to work every third week, made themselves unavailable for the first team, as they felt it was unfair that once they were available they were selected. It was also unfair on those who were promoted.

So why are so many players today playing at te highest level no longer committed to their team and their club for the whole season?

Today we witness players going off on holiday during the season, taking a weekend off for a Bucks night when there are games, and some even participating in other sporting events. We are not talking about State representative teams where it is an honour to be selected, but tournaments in which they choose to play.

To show how bad things have become we have even had first team coaches going off on holiday during the season, because it is school holidays! What example does that set your players?

Many clubs are at a loss as to what to do to try and stop this, as many do not pay their first team players. If they did they could simply not pay them. Many coaches have stated they would like to leave the player in the second team, but when they lose players to injury, to youth state competitions or other players going on holiday, they concede that they have to play the returning players to remain competitive.

There is no doubt that this trend has become far more prevalent in the last ten years. Some have said that it has become the norm since the Covid pandemic.

Others who have been around sport for a long time feel that it is a result of the way many clubs run their junior teams.

The belief here was that once again parents are not made to commit their child for the season and frequently they are unavailable due to family events. A failure by the parent to understand what it means to be a part of a team and a club. That there are responsibilities, and that commitment is a crucial part of a child’s learning. It teaches them what it means to be a part of a community, and also that once you commit to something you see it through, as you owe it to those around you.

Another issue that was raised was that many of these same parents have their child play and as soon as the game is over it is in the car and off they go. The child missing out on understanding what it means to be a part of a club. Never watching the first team play and having aspirations to make it to that level one day.

Going to training twice a week, playing and leaving straight after the game, and missing a few games here and there has them growing up believing that this is how it works. This is normal behaviour. They clearly never appreciate the work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure that they have a team to play for and kit to wear; so too do their parents.

The problem with such behaviours is that they erode the quality of the competitions. They also result in the talent pool from which the professional sides recruit diminishing. To make matters worse, the clubs do not stand as one to try and raise the bar back to where it was. Many simply accept such behaviours as long as they parents pay the fees each season.

Yet at these clubs there are a diminishing number of people who are committed to keeping them going. Volunteers that give up hours each week not just during the season but also in the off-season to keep things going. They are the epitome of commitment. Do they deserve more from those playing the game?

Sadly, it would appear that commitment no longer means what it used to. The days when players who knew they would not be available all season would drop down and play in the twos, and only step up if required. These individuals understood what it meant to be a part of a club, and to put the interests of the team and the club as a whole ahead of themselves.

The fact that coaches are now going on holiday during the season shows that there is a huge problem in terms of understanding and respect for the club that has trusted them to take on such a role. Any club that is happy to accept such behaviours from coaches in their top teams will eventually pay a price. Certain standards have to be maintained or everything starts to crumble.

Maybe clubs need to bring in an expected code of conduct for all players and parents. The message is clear something has to change across many sports to raise the bar in terms of what is the minimum expected commitment for those aspiring to play in the top side, and equally those in junior sides, so that they learn the culture expected in club sport and also the standards expected of them.

The post Missing Commitment first appeared on Not The Footy Show.

The same is true of National Associations. Here there is a depressing merry-go-round of CEO’s who step into a sport for one Olympic cycle or a little longer and then move on. Few take the time to understand the sport, its history and what it means to its followers and players. They bandy around the word “family,” but frequently all we see is as a an old-fashioned family in which the head of the family makes all the calls and is never wrong. This is not a nurturing environment. .

Of course this is not always the case, as some club owners and some administrators are very aware of what their brand is; however some are only aware of that brand in terms of its earning capacity and not what it represents.

Most sports fans will tell you that the one thing that you should never do is change the colours that your team plays in, unless you have a very valid reason.

One of the most iconic football shirts in the world belongs to Brazil.Yet that famous shirt was born out of what the nation saw as a disaster.

Heading into the last game of the 1950 FIFA World Cup all Brazil needed to be crowned Champions was a draw against neighbours Uruguay. The unheard of happened, they lost 2-1 at the Maracanã Stadium in front of nearly 200,000 fans, most of whom were Brazilians.

They would never play again in a major tournament in the white strip that they wore that day again. A competition was held in the newspaper Correio da Manhãto for a new kit for the national team.

A 19-year-old local illustrator named Aldyr Garcia Schlee submitted the winning design which featured a yellow shirt with green trim, blue shorts, and white socks. A strip that is now recognised and respected the World over.

Leeds United in England used to play in a kit with blue and yellow stripes before switching to their now famous All White kit when Don Revie took over as Manager in 1961. His reasoning was that he wanted the team to look like the dominant Spanish side Real Madrid. He wanted them to project an image of “elegance and success.” Under Revie they were capable of some sublime football and were certainly dominant.

Many other sporting clubs have changed their colours and some have been for good reasons and some for more bizarre reasons. Norwich City being a case in point. The club originally played in blue and white, but changed to yellow and green in 1907 after the club president took up canary breeding! Some claim that the switch related to the area, which was known for the breeding of canaries.

A recent attempt to change Cardiff City’s, – known as the Bluebirds – strip to red in 2012 when new owners came in was short-lived, reverting back to blue in 2015 after huge protests by fans.

There has been a huge amount of press been given to the news that India will be wearing a change of colour at the FIH Hockey World Cup which starts this month. Rather than playing in a blue or a white strip which has been the tradition for many years it was announced that the famous blue strip was gone, and would be replaced by a saffron/orange coloured shirt.

Traditionalists vented their feelings on social media. The Indian press lapped it up, and now there is a witch hunt to find out who made the decision.

The President of Hockey India, Dilip Tirkey has, it was reported, sought an explanation as to why this change has happened, and who authorised it. He also it was claimed had asked for details on which players and team staff were consulted. In addition documentary evidence of any testing that was conducted before the kit change was introduced.

Former India International and coach Harendra Singh came out on social media soon after the news broke offering a possible explanation as to why the change had been made. He wrote, “There is strong evidence from sports vision, perceptual psychology, and ecological optics that team identification becomes more difficult when the uniform color has low visual contrast with the background. {Pitch Colour}.”

He went n to say “A player wearing dark blue on a dark blue turf has reduced visual contrast. During fast transitions, this can delay passing decisions, as Hockey is a high-speed and high-intensity game, Teammates require slightly more time to recognize the player.”

It was a very detailed and scientific explanation and one felt that he was trying to calm the waters which were becoming extremely turbulent amongst fans and former players who could not accept that India would be playing in a World Cup and not wearing their famous blue shirts.

Head coach Craig Fulton gave an interesting response when questioned about the change by ANI News India when he said “I don’t want to get too complicated with it, it was a technical thing, at the same time we’re preparing for a World Cup, there have been other jerseys played in different tournaments, even Indian cricket played in orange in one tournament, but i think our focus is if it can help by 1%, you know from a technical point of view we’ll really try and do it to help our team perform and win and at the same time we’ve got a great opportunity in a new strip, and the guys are very excited about it.”

While appearing to try and throw water on the issue he also implied that he was involved in the process, although it was still unclear as to whether this was the case or not.

Interestingly it was around the year 2014, another World Cup year that the discussion of India playing in a Saffron/orange strip was raised. On this occasion a poll was held amongst the players who unanimously voted to stay with the traditional blue shirt.

In fact some fans even raised the introduction of the blue turf as another devious scheme by the Europeans to suppress the Indians!

No doubt the backlash is a result of what that blue shirt means. It is a privilege and an honour to wear that shirt even once. Knowing the greats who have gone before it would carry an understandable sense of pride to be one of only a select group to not only wear the shirt, but walk out onto the field of play and compete in it.

To the fans it is revered. It is an item of immense national pride and understandably so, as it was in those blue shirts that India dominated the sport and defeated their Colonial masters.

Just as the baggy green cap is the ultimate prize in cricket in Australia. As was clear when limited overs specialist Aaron Finch despite playing 93 One Day Internationals and 42 T20 Internationals was finally rewarded with selection for a test match, and earned the famous baggy green cap. His Test career would last just five matches but publicly stated that he had now fulfilled a dream he had held since playing in the backyard as a child. Showing that Test cricket meant so much more than the shortened versions of the game, as it gave him the chance to wear that famous cap.

The same would apply to many nations, such as the All Black jersey in New Zealand and the Springboks one in South Africa. Even shifting that famous emblem from the left side of the chest to the right caused ructions in rugby in South Africa.

The reasons the public become upset is because dreams are built around those national shirts.There is a history and a legacy attached to national colours that some fail to grasp. Nations are invested in the shirt and the team, as they are representative of the people on the world stage. Those colours belong to the nation. That is why you will rarely see national teams change their colours, it is also why this decision in India has upset so many.

As stated the national team, and its colours like the national flag are supposed to represent everyone within a nation. They are symbols that should bring everyone together. They have the power to unite.

In Australia and many other nations we see Governments leveraging sport to try and push social messaging. If the sport promotes a certain social message it receives money.

One of the messages that many sports have tried to push is that they are “inclusive.” That all are welcome. If you watch the national team play you will witness people from many different walks of life come together to support that team, many recent immigrants are part of that because they are grateful for the opportunity given to them by their new country. It is a way in which they feel a part of that new country.

The Australian Hockey team has opted to have their alternate strip be one with an indigenous theme. This has been the case since 2023. In True Colours we spoke to Tony Shaw the Director of Indigenous Services Australia who has worked with many sporting associations in Australia educating them about Aboriginal beliefs and culture. He has worked previously with the Australian Men’s Hockey team, as well as the AFL Players Association (AFLPA), the Cathy Freeman Foundation and AFL Clubs such as the West Coast Eagles, Fremantle Dockers, Port Adelaide and Collingwood.

The point he made at the time was, “A jersey design can be powerful, but only if people understand the meaning behind it. If the story and symbols aren’t being explained properly, especially to overseas audiences, then the message gets lost. Eight Aboriginal players in more than a hundred years tells us the system hasn’t worked. It’s time for more action, more investment, and a genuine effort to make the sport more accessible to our communities,” 

In February of this year Hockey Australia announced that sports manufacturer Kookaburra would design a new kit for the Men’s and Women’s national teams. The Press release stated that “Athletes from across the Kookaburras, Hockeyroos and national pathway programs have been directly involved in the design process.”

It went on to state that “Player feedback was central to the development of the 2026 kits, with athletes calling for a strong return to Australia’s traditional green and gold across both Home and Away uniforms. Players were keen to reinforce the visual connection between the men’s and women’s programs on and off the field, while maintaining the storytelling elements that reflect hockey’s culture and pathways.”

Once again backing up the belief that players – rather than athletes – prefer to wear a traditional shirt that has historical significance and meaning.

At the time of the announcement it was also revealed that “The kits also feature a bespoke Indigenous design created by Kevin Bynder, in collaboration with Nova Peris, telling the story of Australian hockey from grassroots to the highest level. Circular motifs represent the Hockeyroos and Kookaburras, surrounded by symbols of players and hockey sticks, while smaller circles acknowledge clubs and junior participants. Pathways within the artwork illustrate the journey from junior hockey to national representation, completed by a kangaroo for the Hockeyroos and a kookaburra for the men’s program. The design is grounded in Country through the depiction of the Darling Ranges as the Waagyl (Rainbow Serpent), a creator spirit in Noongar culture, reinforcing connection, continuity and pride.”

While this is commendable it causes an issue among the very communities that it is aiming to promote, something that was highlighted to us by an Aboriginal individual.

There are over 250 Aboriginal nations or language groups in Australia today. This is mapped out by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

There are up to 600 individual tribal groups based on specific traditional lands (Country) and laws.

At one time Australia is believed to have had over 250 distinct languages and a further 800 dialects. Today, it is estimated that roughly only 120 to 150 of these languages are still actively spoken, but the vast majority are critically endangered and many of these are only spoken by older generations. One source has claimed that there are only 45 languages now actively in daily use.

In many of these languages simple words can carry a completely different meaning in another. So too stories can have very different meanings. As was pointed out to us it makes it very hard to try and link all of these mobs with one theme. The only thing that is truly inclusive thing we were told is the Aboriginal flag, or believe it or not the Australian flag.So adopting the motifs of one mob excludes the others.

Surely the flag and the nation’s colours worn by national teams should be all that is required to represent the rainbow nation made up of people from many different cultures and countries, different beliefs and religions? Kowtowing to the whims of politicians is always a dangerous path to tread, for as soon as you have toadied up to one group another takes power.

In a sporting environment the key to success is to know your history. Know the importance a national shirt, or for that matter what the colours worn by a club mean to those who played in the past, who are currently playing and those who aspire to play.

The answers will reveal that some things should not be tampered with under any circumstances. For there can be no greater legacy than the shirt of a national team.

The post Colour Blind first appeared on Not The Footy Show.