Finally, we are really Asian!

Christopher O'Leary comments on how the Socceroos will improve Australia’s ties with Asia, and why Australian rules has earned the right to be called football.

I want to add one another point to Phill Chadwick’s accurate and insightful thoughts into Australia’s venture into Asian football.

Soccer as I call it – because I believe Aussie rules should be called football, a debate covered further down – will allow Australia to further strengthen sporting, cultural and economic connections with Asia.

Now, this may be a little deep, but go with me on this.

Name one major sport other than motor racing or swimming (or tennis even if you’re desperate) that Australia really excels in outside the traditional colonial pastimes of Rugby Union, League and Cricket?

None I believe, which is why jumping on the Socceroos bandwagon is so important for Australia’s place within the region.

We booze it up in Thailand, buy cheap clothing in Malaysia, and ship our minerals to China, but where does Australia and Asia found common ground on the field?

For so long Australia has considered itself a western outpost in the eastern realm. We have always been concerned with our neighbours’ activities on the other side of `the creek’, but rarely does our region engage in the secular spiritual ritual that is sport.

Our entry into the Asian federation will change that. In the future Australians and the Japanese will have more to share an ale over than exported grapes, the Iron Chef and the Gold Coast.

Soon there will be classic battles, with memorable goals, awful referee decisions (we already have one to that tally), and notable openings for businesses to link themselves with a popular theme in Asia’s markets. Think of it now, a BHP Billiton Beijing Stadium? Or the Asahi Adelaide United perhaps?

Time will show that Monday’s match will get the round ball rolling for a prosperous chapter in Australian history.

* Getting back to the Aussie rules v Soccer clash, many Australians consider the European game to be football. We live in a democracy, and people will call it what they please, but what is really wrong with knowing the round ball game as Soccer?

People argue that the world knows it as football. Well, if the rest of the world jumped off a cliff, would we too?

Australian rules has earned the right to be called football because it is the game Aussies follow most passionately. Other than it being obviously more physical and exciting, Aussie rules is the one sport that has been conceived on our shores. Like Vegemite and Steve Irwin (hey, it’s not all good), football is inextricably linked to our national identity, and that is reason enough for it to be the No.1 code.

There are countries that call football something else because there is a local product followed more passionately. Football to Americans is Gridiron, and they feel as much concerned about such a trivial debate as they do about Jessica Simpson’s love life.

So, why should we?

Obviously there is a lot of multicultural friction acting as a subtext in this debate, but there is nothing wrong with Australia adding its own slant on the round ball game.

Having said all of this, I was a shouting lunatic when Cahill and co won last Monday; I have developed a love for the game since Frank Lowy weaved his administrative magic, and AFL House will revel in the challenge Soccer is fronting to keep improving our local code.

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