I’m a fan of most sports, not just Rugby League. In fact outside of a few completely shit house sports like Rugby Union and AFL, I’ll give any sport a go.
So news this week that the Newcastle Knights Rugby League club had applied to the courts to have the Newcastle Jets soccer club wound up didn’t sit all that well with me.
The Knights are just about a religion up in Newcastle. They are a one club town with a stadium that will end up being magnificent, they have all the media in the region behind them, they have it pretty good for the most part.
The A League soccer team, The Jets, are second fiddle. The A League is played during the Australian summer so it doesn’t interfere at all with the Rugby League season.
That means there is no direct competition between the two teams.
Of the people that might choose to go one teams season rather than the others, you might at a stretch be talking about a few hundred people. As for sponsors, if one team ceased to exist, don’t bet on all their sponsors heading to the other team. It just doesn’t work like that.
I have a real problem with the big boys in town looking to get rid of the only other show in town.
The Jets owe the Knights money. The Knights have asked for this money many times and haven’t got it. The Knights are far from a rich club themselves, in fact, they get by season to season.
But winding up the Jets all together?
Surely there must have been some other way the Knights could have gone about things. As a struggling club themselves they have to know that at times money does become scarce and you you have to rely on the good will of outside organizations to get by.
Rugby League fans and the first to blow up when other sports look to go out of their way to slight our game.
English soccer teams whinge about the rough state of the pitch after a Super League fan and English Rugby League fans go off their heads!
Now imagine if another sport, Soccer for instance, looked to wind up a Super League club because of unpaid debts!
Sure, the Jets have to come to the table and sort this out, but I can’t ever think of another time I have seen one sporting club asking the courts to win up another club situated in the same town!
I hope for both parties sake, this all gets resolved. Rugby League and Soccer in Australia can very happily co-exist, and even thrive with a bit of help from one another.
I don’t watch the A League Soccer, I don’t Soccer at all outside of World Cups, but this is wrong.
