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3000 members. Played everywhere and anywhere. Could not pay their bills and were not viable. No conspiracy, just cold hard numbers. They were in the same position that South Melbourne found itself in before they moved to Sydney. As painful as it was for South supporters, they have enjoyed a fair bit of success since. North Melbourne will be the next club to move, fold or merge as they do not have the members.OK this is a bit left field, but we know that match fixing occurs in some sports. It got me thinking of real or alleged footy conspiracies. Players, officials, journalists colluding to achieve dodgy outcomes. A couple of examples come to mind:
VFL/AFL officials conspired to get rid of Fitzroy - I believe Roylion is an expert on this matter
The issue of recreational drugs and testing - are high profile player strikes being covered up?
Fair call. This was before my time as a footy fan (Fitzroy last made the finals just before I was born). I guess the writing was on the wall once the VFL decided to become the national competition. They had the foresight to move the Swans to Sydney, so it seems strange they went ahead with the Bears while keeping Fitzroy in Melbourne. A move in the 80's would've been far less painful than their eventual fate.3000 members. Played everywhere and anywhere. Could not pay their bills and were not viable. No conspiracy, just cold hard numbers. They were in the same position that South Melbourne found itself in before they moved to Sydney. As painful as it was for South supporters, they have enjoyed a fair bit of success since.
The AFL won't let that happen. Fold or merge that is. Move remains a slight possibility, if they resolve to include Tasmania.North Melbourne will be the next club to move, fold or merge as they do not have the members.
Fair call. This was before my time as a footy fan (Fitzroy last made the finals just before I was born). I guess the writing was on the wall once the VFL decided to become the national competition. They had the foresight to move the Swans to Sydney, so it seems strange they went ahead with the Bears while keeping Fitzroy in Melbourne. A move in the 80's would've been far less painful than their eventual fate.
The AFL won't let that happen. Fold or merge that is. Move remains a slight possibility, if they resolve to include Tasmania.
What Fitzroy supporters conveniently forget is that Fitzroy did a deal with the AFL to takeover the Doggies. it was to be called the Fitzroy/Bulldogs, playing out of Princes Park, wearing Fitzroy colors, with a Fitzroy Board and coach. It nearly got through until Irene Chatfield stepped up and woke up the Bulldogs supporters. I remember watching Ted Whitten just watching on and saying nothing. I would have thought he would have been the first one to lead the charge, alas media hype and reality about a person can sometimes vary significantly.
Whenever I hear Fitzroy supporters bleat about how unfair it was, I remember what they tried to do to the Doggies, and say good riddance to bad Lions.
With respect to North...they are the most logical to go to Tasmania. The AFL has been getting the population ready for it, like they did with Sydney. They will have some serious logistic issues because of the North/South divide in Tassie. GWS is another basket case. They have been more popular in Canberra than Western Sydney. How long before the AFL Clubs get fed up with the Suns and GWS hemorrhaging $$$$? The GWS have a reasonable team and they still can't get anyone to watch them. What will it be like in 5 years when they are at the bottom of the ladder trying to lure kids to Bankstown? At the end of the day all footy members are paying for it. Remember that next time you are paying $8.00 for a hot dog.
Rigged matches may work in soccer or Rugby league, but pretty hard to pull it off in AFL. With all of the acting and refs cheating in soccer you have to wonder how many games are legitimate. Just happened in a recent World Cup match between South Africa and Senegal. The perfect final round for the AFL is to have 4 teams playing off for the final spot. Occasionally happens.Footy is a business...Not far fetched to think the league has fixed games or has predetermined results coming into the finals to maximise profit
What Fitzroy supporters conveniently forget is that Fitzroy did a deal with the AFL to takeover the Doggies.
The Fitzroy board did a deal with the Footscray board.
The Dogs were insolvent, had accumulated a trading loss of $3.8 million between 1979 and 1989 and debts of $2 million and had breached the conditions of a overdraft of $400,000 from Westpac. The clubs directors were facing prosecution and an administrator was about to be appointed to the club.They were in far worse financial shape than Fitzroy were.
As a result Footscray had been seeking a merger for the previous seven months including talks with North Melbourne, Richmond, St Kilda and in that time had made the most progress in merger talks with Fitzroy, with both boards of the clubs reaching an in principle agreement, The talks had almost finalsed by the end of September 1989.
With the merger talks reaching their final stages, Footscray CEO Dennis Galimberti went to the press the on Monday October 2nd with the news of the impeding merger, sparking a media storm. As a result, the VFL threatened to cancel Footscray's licence on the afternoon of Tuesday October 3rd 1989 and appoint an administrator, if the club did not agree to a merger with Fitzroy that afternoon. As the VFL saw it, the problem of Footscray's dire finances - now that it was public - needed to be addressed / resolved very quickly. The VFL feared the regulatory authorities becoming involved in Footscray's dire financial affairs as a result of the negative publicity. The club was insolvent and was continuing to trade illegally.
As Fitzroy was the only club willing to consider a merger with Footscray, the Fitzroy board were called in by the VFL to finish the negotiations with the Footscray board that afternoon.
Those final negotiations took about an hour and were the culmination of several months of earlier negotations. Naturally Fitzroy fought to have their club name and club colours retained in any new entity.
This sounds almost as good as the Warren Commission report.
So why all the secrecy? Why not come out 6 months earlier and just say the club is in real trouble, and the supporters need to come or the club would fold?
Instead we have all this BS that Oakley was worried about the regulator, however if the merger had gone through the debts would have disappeared.
The Regulator knew this, and they knew the VFL was behind them. Oakley though he was running an Insurance company where he could strong arm everyone into doing what he wanted. Fitzroy saw an opportunity and tried to take them for everything,
and crossed a line that once upon a time existed which was never kick someone when they are down.
Oakley was a snake, and Fitzroy aided and abetted him and in the end they got what they deserved. Make no mistake, Fitzroy's standing with AFL supporters took a terrible hit after their attempted takeover, and probably explains why no one gave two hoots when they folded.
Admittedly a few lucky calls went our way in the last quarter - almost felt sorry for Sicily. But I think we'd have won anyway and it was mostly due to the Hawks bench and rotations being reduced after injuries. Are umpires even allowed to bet on the footy? Wouldn't have thought soIf that Round 2 game this year at the M.C.G - in which the umpires single-handily turned over a 5 goal lead to Hawthorn at 3 quarter time - wasn't rigged, then I'll go hee.
The worst case of umpiring interference on behalf of the bookies/Gill - whom-ever - that I've ever seen.
As blatant as that Chelsea/Barcelona CL game at Stamford Bridge, some 12 years ago.
Any registered umpire at professional level is not allowed to bet on any form of football.Admittedly a few lucky calls went our way in the last quarter - almost felt sorry for Sicily. But I think we'd have won anyway and it was mostly due to the Hawks bench and rotations being reduced after injuries. Are umpires even allowed to bet on the footy? Wouldn't have thought so
Any registered umpire at professional level is not allowed to bet on any form of football.