very fitting in light of recent developements.
Could league survive without alcohol sponsorship ?
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Oh well, here we go again. Despite all the talk of responsibility and the setting of standards, the NRL is already in the headlines for alcohol-fuelled problems and sexual impropriety. Not a bad effort for a season that's only two days old, although not a record by any stretch of the imagination.
Who was it that said if you can't learn from your mistakes, you're almost certainly destined to repeat them?
Of course, reaction to the news of Manly footballer Brett Stewart's drunken antics last week, when he was charged with sexual assault and suspended from the competition until round five, has been predictable. Former State of Origin coach Phil Gould has called for a blanket ban on players drinking and NRL boss David Gallop has bristled and blustered about alcohol abuse, saying the "players and the clubs need to know we're not going to accept that".
What Gallop doesn't mention, however, is just how much NRL administrators have accepted from the liquor companies. What he doesn't mention is the utter hypocrisy of league officials immersing their VB-branded code in a tsunami of grog and then wringing their hands and anguishing over the inevitable consequences. He doesn't mention how, by aggressively promoting alcohol, they've failed their sport and let down their players.
Instead, the NRL boffins prefer to point the finger of blame at those who err, and fall through the cracks. Like Corrections chief Barry Matthews, the buck stops as far away from their offices as possible. They've courted and encouraged the advances of just about every cheque-wielding souse salesman in the country, but continue to exist in a state of denial when it comes to the ramifications. If it wasn't so sick it would be funny.
True, it would be a mistake to think the NRL has the problem all to itself. Cricket Australia is another that dances to the tune of the booze peddlers, having aligned itself in recent years to Johnnie Walker and VB, the latter promoted on the back of an advertisment featuring national selector and former test batsman, David Boon, in mid-swill. Yet it still has the temerity to complain about drunken hoons in the crowd.
For all that, the winter footy codes in Australia and New Zealand tell the most accurate story of what happens when governments allow liquor companies unfettered access to sport for the purposes of advertising. Clubhouses and grounds are now awash with invitations to drink. Competitions are named after grog. Players' uniforms are emblazoned with the logos of booze companies, and every NRL, AFL and Super 14 side is visibly aligned to one.
It's instructional too, that New Zealand Cricket, an organisation that's voluntarily distanced itself from alcohol sponsorship, has one of the better records in terms of booze-related issues. In fact, if you accept that Jesse Ryder had a drinking problem long before he had anything to do with the NZC operation, it's hard to remember the last time a Black Cap was involved in a liquor-fuelled indiscretion. Maybe at the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Durban at the 2003 world cup.
If Gallop and company were genuine about wanting to rid their game of the worst excesses of liquor consumption, they would have already acknowledged the duplicity of their position and moved against alcohol advertising and sponsorship. That they haven't only reveals how little they've learnt from history, particularly the era in which their predecessors adopted a similarly ostrich-like stance on the issue of tobacco advertising.
On the legislative front, however, the news is far from inspiring. The Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill introduced to parliament last year by the Labour government is now being heard, but fails to tackle alcohol advertising in sport at any level. Similarly, across the Tasman, Australia's federal government has also sidestepped the issue while debating liquor-related policy. The mistakes, then, are destined to be repeated.
As is the hypocrisy. Paul Dillon, a drug and alcohol specialist who has worked with international athletes from a number of codes, told reporters last week that sports chiefs could hardly point the finger at player behaviour when they were often seen drinking at functions themselves, and were known to openly consort with liquor company executives in the pursuit of the sponsorship or advertising dollar. The entire league-playing landscape was wallpapered in a double-standard.
"What they're doing is picking young men very early, sometimes as young as 15, and putting them in a situation with older men who drink," said Dillon. He might have added that they were also allowing their sport to be used for the aggressive marketing of alcohol and, as a consequence, were guilty of normalising a culture of drinking. That by allowing their players to be bombarded with positive images of alcohol, they were effectively inviting them to get plastered.
As long as that sort of mentality exists, people such as Stewart will continue to fall from grace, pretenders such as Gallop will continue to act horrified, and club and competition treasurers will continue to bank big, fat, thank-you payments from big, fat (and grateful) liquor companies. It is a dance of the damned; as inevitable as a hangover after a night on the turps, and just as ugly. The only difference is that the bank balance is still healthy.
The scariest thing? That the mistakes are destined to be repeated in both New Zealand and Australia until either sports administrators or government ministers become principled enough to appreciate their responsibilities, and recognise the damage caused by alcohol advertising within sport. That could take some time, admittedly. But until the day arrives, we should at least be spared the bogus indignation.
By RICHARD BOOCK
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/2263338/NRLs-hopeless-hypocrisy
