Damien de Bohun today exposed yet again the FFA's inability to understand Active Support in the A-League.
De Bohun released an opinion piece on the Football Federation Website titled "Active fans the stars of the show". His piece fails to respond to any of the criticism and concerns of those supporters across the league who view the FFA as having given up on active support.
I could write another large article, but instead I will list of the issues I believe De Bohun and the FFA has failed to respond to.
- The shattered trust between certain clubs, the FFA & active supporters that developed under the leadership of De Bohun.
- No apology for De Bohun's failure to ensure that Melbourne Victory secured their stadium before the publishing of the A-League draw, which lead to the rescheduling of what was going to be a marquee fixture both on and off the pitch onto a Tuesday.
- No mention of how the FFA refused to discuss A-League active support issues while pushing those in Terrace Australis to create the same atmosphere they were attempting to destroy at A-League level.
- Melbourne Victory & the FFA forcing out the North Terrace, and replacing them with a club approved cheer squad.
- The hypocrisy of the FFA using active support in advertisements as they allowed MFVC to destroy active support at Melbourne Victory.
- What the FFA will do to defend supporters against systemic bias in the media or police.
- If the FFA will go forward with a promise to correct the record when our sport or supporters are attacked in the media by reminding the mainstream media of events of far greater severity across other sports and cultural events.
- The FFA pushing to have made public a complete set of information relating to arrests, evictions and serious incidents across all sports in Australia, so that the media, Police & public have the full truth about anti-social behaviour in sport, and in the A-League.
- Following that, the FFA attempting to reduce the overly draconian levels of Police force being arrayed against active support in the A-League, up to and including paramilitary police units wearing tactical combat gear, standing hand on gun in the aisles of A-League matches.
- Correcting the behaviour of security and police to stop situations where supporters are threatened with bans, evictions and arrests for supporting their team in a manner that the FFA repeatedly use in their advertisements for the A-League.
- No mention of any FFA campaign to improve the training of security to enable security to better understand the differences in an active support crowd as opposed to the nightclubs & pubs that most security guards spend their working lives controlling.
- Removing or justifying the presence of Hatamoto, a shadowy anti-terrorist organisation, from their involvement in football. Nor is there any apology for privacy intruding dossiers being built against people who have done nothing wrong, and disseminated to those at the FFA and other private companies.
- No justification or clarification on the FFA's stance for naming sub-groups in active support groups as 'rogue' or 'splinter' sub-groups, with an inherent negative bias toward anyone who happen to be a part of what would be seen as a 'splinter' group. Even if those groups form out of completely legitimate differences such as geographic location or age.
- Discussion of the major safety issues that come from caging in active supporters, and forcing them into dystopian scanners every single time they leave active support areas.
- Why if only a "very small portion" of people are involved in anti-social behaviour, does the FFA introduce and allow such incredibly draconian anti-supporter measures, such as totally banning supporter equipment like flags, tifos, banners, and going to the extent of trying to ban sub-groups?
- FFA improving their pre-match 'registration system' that has resulted in the FFA approving displays and tifos, only to ban them after groups have gone to great expense of time, energy and money to create them. The FFA also have pointlessly strict limits on certain active support implements such as flags.
- The FFA have not discussed what they are doing to self-educate on best practice active support controls from countries like Germany or England.
- Any concrete information about how long these measures are to be in place for, and what exactly constitutes 'success' in the eyes of the FFA.
- De Bohun says nothing about his intent to use these draconian measures against other supporter groups in the A-League.
- There is no discussion on reform of the A-League banning system to include elements of natural justice such as a right of an accused to face their accuser, to see all the evidence arrayed before them, to make their case, independent arbiters, punishments that fit the offence and a system of appeal.
Damien de Bohun can argue all he wants against anti-social behaviour. Appropriate, non excessive attempts to curb minor levels of anti-social behaviour in the A-League are not what I believe show that the FFA are trying to destroy active support. As I've said in the past, I've not seen any anti-social behaviour that justifies this level of attack on active supporters. I am tired of being treated like a criminal by the Police & media, and disgusted with the FFA's complicity in allowing biased, incorrect labels like 'hooligan', 'splinter' and 'rioter' to spoken in reference to football supporters without any defence from the FFA.
Damien de Bohun continues to stonewall and avoid discussion on these important topics and has done so for months. Of the problems listed there are many that have been in the FFA's hands for weeks, months or even years. His inability to face the real issues is a symptom of a failure of leadership at the FFA.
Instead of looking forward to taking part in a new A-League season, I'm looking over my shoulder in case a policeman is about to indiscriminately blast the crowd with capsicum spray (or their gun accidentally fires while they are in a crowd), or an undercover Hatamoto agent is about to recommend me for a 5 year ban on false evidence, or to be on the lookout for a crowd crush if the FFA implement unsafe crowd control elements at any of the stadiums I will be attending this year.
Damien de Bohun writes that he is 'proud' of active support.
He and the FFA need to start acting like it.
To do otherwise is to risk destroying the active support that claim to be proud of, and that they use to advertise the league with.
To those who read my previous piece "FFA Attempting To Destroy Active Support", I would like to thank you all, no matter what team your follow or your affiliation (or non-affiliation) with active support. People across the nation took this issue to heart, with multiple articles in the media being written and large amounts of discussion taking place on social media. This website in particular gained the highest ever single day viewing statistics, and that article became the 4th highest viewed article in only a day.
Continue to discuss and press the FFA on these important issues.
Football without fans is nothing.
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