Sam Newman at it again!

[LP]

I've never heard anyone complain about the endless and thoroughly boring speeches, thanking of sponsors (in itself a heavily political act) etc. that accompany some games like the Grand Final, yet any hint of a Welcome To Country or similar, and all hell breaks loose.

When you take your argument to such an extreme you diminish the cause and that seems to be the very issue causing some people angst or trepidation.

I've mentioned this before on many issues not just this, extremism on any side of the debate divides never unifies. I would think the main way forward on this issue is to unify, and I'm not sure how subjecting football fans to what now seems to be a politicised event helps that resolve.

Have the debate all you like in the appropriate forum, don't lecture fans on their day off in a captive space. It would be as divisive as taking this debate into the pre-game thread.

Participants can ignore the way the wind blows on this issue, or they can keep screaming into it for all their worth, but that won't stop it and it may even make it worse! I note our notable AFL apparatchik Waleed Aly seems to have arrived at the very same conclusion, my surprise is how the "academics" ever thought this behaviour could end any other way.

You can't be told how to vote, that is entrenched in democracy, you can only be asked for support!