Roos tell ACT Government to get stuffed

‘And the Raiders and Brumbies are being opening talked about in terms of relocation.”

Half mention of the Brumbies, which was dismissed and won’t happen, and no talk whatsoever of the Raiders.

Get your facts straight champ.

The Roos won’t be a big loss. Struggling to get over 10000 there

Bad call Biogaz,

Canberra not having a team in either Rugby code wouldn’t entice me to Manuka if that was all that was on offer but I can well understand why there’s much greater interest in the Swans than the Mercenaries. I’d suggest the Gvmt kick the Roos into touch and bring the Swans down for a game here once a year – along the lines of a ‘festival of footy’ weekend.

Good call though re an A League side. It could work if the petty squabbling amongst the East European heritage mobs could be laid to rest and everyone got behind a Canberra team. Certain self styled disruptive player ‘agents’ have thankfully left Canberra (now overseas I believe) so that’s a positive to start on.

“Sounds to me like the greedy Roos just wanted more bucks”

They have said all along they are waiting for the best offer available. Calling the poorest of all AFL Clubs greedy is showing your ignorance of the Kangaroos financial plight. At this stage, they survive on handouts from the AFL and the appearance money paid by the ACT Government to play at Canberra. They are trying to maintain their identity and existance as a Melbourne based club, as well as make an extra half a mill a year.

I don’t think this is based on greed, but survival.

should have read… why aren’t the community…

Whether the Roos are in Canberra or not really doesn’t matter.

If a team can be bought once it can be bought twice… meaning that once you have to offer something above the market to get them here they will always test the market. Even if they stay, Canberra will have to come up with the goods again in the future.

Better to spend the money and effort on building the case for why a team would want to be here. Sponsorhip, membership, Tv rights, gatetakings, influence etc – not kickbacks from failed Governemnts wanting to provide circus entertainment to distract the masses from their lack of bread.

Where is the Government’s growth plan? Why are the community saying how do we grow our economy to support a team on our own, without having to steal money from the health system, housing or education.

this is such an easy one for ACT Govt

give the AFL 1/10th the money and offer up a neutral Wizard cup venue, beg a Sydney game here and forget about the roos. stick 1/2 the money in the ACTAFL promos and give the rest to me.

The fact the Gold Coast has more demographic likely to want to go and see the Shinboners run around Carrara is irrelevant, given there are only 6,000 seats to put bums on. I don’t think Andrew Barr and team has been out of place in imposing an ultimatum on the Roos who are obviously chasing the dollar – but rightly so, they are a struggling franchise.

Perhaps there is no right or wrong and this is just business being business. A guaranteed annual income of $630,000 from 3 ACT games through AFL contributions and corporate sponsorship shouldn’t be sneezed at by the Roos, and I believe they should be really careful, cos if they don’t want the income, someone else will.

Don;t bother with a demographic debate. The facts are there for all to see.

In Qld every school is growing and being upgraded and built upon. The polical power is shifting with two new seats from NSW and Vic.

Now I love Canberra for many reasons, but have had to move for opportunity and because of the apathetic attitude of the old public service guard who believe Canberra somehow belongs to them and not to the rest of the nation.

They want to keep it as some socialist paradise of the 1970’s – but it is slowly dying and soon it will be more schools more specialist services in hospitals, the public transport system (which is already marginal in utility). The ACT Governemnt cannot even afford to maintain the road system that it has. Thank god it was so good when the Feds paid for it – but in years to come the lack of investment in maintenance will start to show.

“as an afl fan, ive gone to almost every match at manuka – to watch football.”

Ditto. The average crowd of 10,000 is made up of 2000 passionate Roos fans, 2000 passionate opposition fans, 1000 corporate types and 5000 football fans keen for a contest.

For the Swans game, it was 2000 for the Roos, 10000 Swanny Come Latelies and 2000 others 🙂

I agree with bonfire.

I too am an AFL fan (Crows) and also go along to the games at Manuka. However, I just dont think there is enough interest in this town for “general” AFL games. I am sure if the Swans or Collingwood played 3 home games here a year then the matches would all be sell-outs. The fact that Swans fans outnumbered Kangaroos fans at the last game, and that the official Kangaroos cheer squad were chanting “North Melbourne”, just goes to show Canberrans arent good neutral spectators.

If Canberra didnt have a national team in each of the Rugby codes then the AFL experiment might work.

I say the ACT should now concentrate on lobbying for the next A-League licence. We have a decent stadium sitting there over summer not being used and we would have a team Canberra could call their own. Not some sort of Melbourne reject …

Well Stanhope blurted out that for the first time in seven years the interstate migration was positive for canberra. What his cronies didn’t tell him was in the same period international migration was negative for the first time in seven years. The positive interstate migration figure for was 67 people with Canberras loosing people to Qld, Victoria, Tasmania and NT.

Hell even Tasmania and NT had net interstate migration of 340 and 477 respectively.

Qld was the only state to attract people (net) for all states and territories.

Instead of wasting money on a dragway, spend the 8 million on upgrading Manuka Oval: more bums on seats = more money for an AFL team that wants to play here.

SLB, I’m not going to get into a demographics argument comparing and contrasting the Gold Coast and Canberra.

Swaggie – the Swans have a much higher fan base in Canberra for a number of reasons. Some of these include the fact that the Swans were the closest we had to a local club for many years. They have had a fw locally born players such as Craig Bolton now and Brett Allison previously. Their games are on free to air nearly every week. And they have been reasonably successful for the last decade or so culminating in the Premiership last year.

The Kangas, despite being the most successful club on the field over the 90’s did not consolidate this with a massive fan base, and have struggled off field ever since.

These days they are forced into being football mercenaries – seeking whatever corporate or government $ they can receive, and forced into using recycled players to fill their playing list rather than taking 3 years to develop juniors, as immediate survival is more important than long term planning.

However, any good will they had in Canberra is being burned quickly – playing a small but loyal band of supporters cultivated over 5 years of struggle in Canberra against the financial backing of the Southport AFL club and the wish of the AFL to develop the game in Queensland may end up winning no friends, and may be another nail in the coffin of the once great Kangaroos.

i think the interest in the swans is the afl’s own doing.

its the tv. usually the ONLY live afl games shown on fta are swans games.

i think the afl need to develop interest in afl in the act, not the act govt. why are my rates paying for afl ? or any PROFESSIONAL team liek the brumbies, raiders etc. let the market sort this out.

as an afl fan, ive gone to almost every match at manuka – to watch football.

Hence the great Live in Canberra campaign that’s sure to bring them here in droves …

I’m no AFL fan but there seems to be far greater interest in the Swans her in Canberra than there is in the Kangaroos anyway. No ‘roos is no big loss in my book and the Gold Coast ssems to attract financial parasites and get rich quick merchants so the Kangaroos will feel right at home.

No they are Canberrans and Sydneysiders. Melbourne is attracting people, Tasmania is also.

Face the music Canberra is closing down slowly and silently. Unfortunately, most people are oblivious to the fact.

72,000 expat Victorian pensioners have moved to the Gold Coast. They can have them…

The fact of the matter is that the Gold Coast population has grown by approximately 72,000 people over the past five years. With the annual growth as a pecentage expected to be high. Over the same period Canberra’s population has grown by only about 9,000 (under the national average). Worse still this population grown is under the natural increase (difference between births and deaths) so about 3,500 more people CHOSE to leave Canberra than come to it.

So you can see why is bye bye Cannons, Comets, Cosmos, kangaroo’s, Giteau, John James hospital, 39 schools, hospital services etc. And the Raiders and Brumbies are being opening talked about in terms of relocation.

And before some bright spark goes and says but there are less people calling on services. I am yet to hear of any city having more because it is slowly dying. If it wasn’t for the federal Government spending like there is no tomorrow Canberra would be feeling the pinch now

pffft… negotiation tactics. that call from the roos sounds to me as though a.) they are fishing for more $$, and b.) thye are waiting for their own internal decision making process to come to a conclusion.

In it’s belated efforts to do something about the state of finances the council will be happy to drop the funding commitment to the pauperoos who seem more attracted to the offer from the Gold Coast.

Melbourne’s chairman has threatened members that there may be a possibility of them playing home games in Canberra but I wonder if the council will be serious in getting another team to replace the pauperoos.

The Kangas are rapidly losing any good will that was built up with non Kangas fans in Canberra…

The money on the Gold Coast had better be worth it.