SWANSBEST
21st April 2003, 08:35 AM
McGuire's banner just lost the plot
April 21, 2003
EDDIE McGUIRE got it wrong on the weekend.
He doesn't do that very often. He is too savvy for that.
The Collingwood president continues to battle the AFL over salary cap concessions. His latest outburst ? and that is what it was ? followed a decision by the league to fine Collingwood if they went ahead with their banner for the Brisbane game.
The banner, penned by McGuire himself, read: "The AFL Lions ? with salaries to spare ? Fix 'em up, Pies ? Make 'em look like the Bears". The reverse side said: "A capacity crowd ? it's live on Nine ? well done, Magpies ? now it's revenge time".
The AFL deemed the banner inappropriate. They considered the reference to the salary cap concessions politicised the banner and the mention of the Bears was considered rude. The Brisbane administration agreed.
McGuire ordered the banner changed. Afterwards he made the remarkable claim that the revised banner "symbolised a shroud of censorship like that seen in Soviet Russia". And he was serious.
The words penned by McGuire were not a good idea. They were self-serving, inflammatory and a blatant advertisement for his television station.
The banner was the wrong vehicle for McGuire to push his political fight with the AFL and certainly no place to plug his employer.
And it is simply gibberish to say it was censorship akin to that which prevailed in the Soviet Union. No one speaks his mind more than McGuire. And no one has more platforms to do just that than McGuire.
To his credit he makes himself available to all media all day. He has his Footy Show, a newspaper column and is part of a radio team on Triple M. If Eddie has an opinion, the whole world knows about it. Censorship? Good grief.
There is simply no basis to say that he or his club have been silenced. They have been told that the banner was not the appropriate place to ? once more ? state his views on the retention allowance for Brisbane in their salary cap.
It was the same McGuire who stalked AFL officials to have them shut down the gimmicky scoreboard in Adelaide last year when Collingwood so bravely beat Port. McGuire was outraged that the scoreboard would flash the word "Power, power" and the fans' reaction was measured according to its volume. A cheer meter.
A furious McGuire chased down AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson to make his complaint, delivered loudly enough to give the cheer meter a tickle up on his own.
The AFL agreed that it was inappropriate for a final and accordingly admonished the Port Adelaide administration.
Using the criteria invoked by McGuire over his Brisbane banner, the crackdown on Port was censorship of the severest form. Port were unable to get their message across. And it was driven by McGuire.
Or, as Eddie said on Friday night: "It's heavy-handedness at best and bully boy stuff at worst." Eddie cannot have it both ways.
McGuire has a complex conflict of interest as Collingwood president, journalist and the Nine Network's main man. He is widely challenged on it and is rightly bemused that Ian Collins, Carlton president and boss of Telstra Dome, is not.
For the most part McGuire handles the very difficult balancing act with precision. Suggestions that his calls of Collingwood matches are biased are difficult to sustain. If you deliberately go looking for bias, you will find it. With any caller. Silence can be interpreted as comment, excitement as barracking.
On the banner issue, though, McGuire got it all wrong. Silly to politicise the banner, silly to turn the flip side into an advertisement. Even sillier to liken the AFL's intervention to Soviet Union censorship.
He defends the latter by suggesting Nine is a sponsor of the AFL. True, Nine has poured millions into the broadcast agreement. But so has the Ten network. It has not crossed McGuire's mind to whack Ten on to Collingwood's banner.
In the end McGuire was using anything as ammunition. He smashed the AFL over its handling of Telstra Dome finances that were released last week. He said they were leaked to the media. They were not.
The AFL financial team showed the figures to a group of journalists as part of a broader briefing on the league's finances. The figures which debunked claims by clubs that the Dome was unprofitable, were then sent to the two clubs concerned: St Kilda and the Bulldogs. Later in the day hard copy of the figures was released to the journalists. Nothing was leaked.
Interestingly, neither St Kilda nor the Bulldogs have been able to demonstrate the AFL figures are misleading.
McGuire has rebuilt Collingwood through hard work, vision and brilliant administration. He is a man to admire and respect. But this weekend he lost the plot.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6312914%255E12270,00.html
April 21, 2003
EDDIE McGUIRE got it wrong on the weekend.
He doesn't do that very often. He is too savvy for that.
The Collingwood president continues to battle the AFL over salary cap concessions. His latest outburst ? and that is what it was ? followed a decision by the league to fine Collingwood if they went ahead with their banner for the Brisbane game.
The banner, penned by McGuire himself, read: "The AFL Lions ? with salaries to spare ? Fix 'em up, Pies ? Make 'em look like the Bears". The reverse side said: "A capacity crowd ? it's live on Nine ? well done, Magpies ? now it's revenge time".
The AFL deemed the banner inappropriate. They considered the reference to the salary cap concessions politicised the banner and the mention of the Bears was considered rude. The Brisbane administration agreed.
McGuire ordered the banner changed. Afterwards he made the remarkable claim that the revised banner "symbolised a shroud of censorship like that seen in Soviet Russia". And he was serious.
The words penned by McGuire were not a good idea. They were self-serving, inflammatory and a blatant advertisement for his television station.
The banner was the wrong vehicle for McGuire to push his political fight with the AFL and certainly no place to plug his employer.
And it is simply gibberish to say it was censorship akin to that which prevailed in the Soviet Union. No one speaks his mind more than McGuire. And no one has more platforms to do just that than McGuire.
To his credit he makes himself available to all media all day. He has his Footy Show, a newspaper column and is part of a radio team on Triple M. If Eddie has an opinion, the whole world knows about it. Censorship? Good grief.
There is simply no basis to say that he or his club have been silenced. They have been told that the banner was not the appropriate place to ? once more ? state his views on the retention allowance for Brisbane in their salary cap.
It was the same McGuire who stalked AFL officials to have them shut down the gimmicky scoreboard in Adelaide last year when Collingwood so bravely beat Port. McGuire was outraged that the scoreboard would flash the word "Power, power" and the fans' reaction was measured according to its volume. A cheer meter.
A furious McGuire chased down AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson to make his complaint, delivered loudly enough to give the cheer meter a tickle up on his own.
The AFL agreed that it was inappropriate for a final and accordingly admonished the Port Adelaide administration.
Using the criteria invoked by McGuire over his Brisbane banner, the crackdown on Port was censorship of the severest form. Port were unable to get their message across. And it was driven by McGuire.
Or, as Eddie said on Friday night: "It's heavy-handedness at best and bully boy stuff at worst." Eddie cannot have it both ways.
McGuire has a complex conflict of interest as Collingwood president, journalist and the Nine Network's main man. He is widely challenged on it and is rightly bemused that Ian Collins, Carlton president and boss of Telstra Dome, is not.
For the most part McGuire handles the very difficult balancing act with precision. Suggestions that his calls of Collingwood matches are biased are difficult to sustain. If you deliberately go looking for bias, you will find it. With any caller. Silence can be interpreted as comment, excitement as barracking.
On the banner issue, though, McGuire got it all wrong. Silly to politicise the banner, silly to turn the flip side into an advertisement. Even sillier to liken the AFL's intervention to Soviet Union censorship.
He defends the latter by suggesting Nine is a sponsor of the AFL. True, Nine has poured millions into the broadcast agreement. But so has the Ten network. It has not crossed McGuire's mind to whack Ten on to Collingwood's banner.
In the end McGuire was using anything as ammunition. He smashed the AFL over its handling of Telstra Dome finances that were released last week. He said they were leaked to the media. They were not.
The AFL financial team showed the figures to a group of journalists as part of a broader briefing on the league's finances. The figures which debunked claims by clubs that the Dome was unprofitable, were then sent to the two clubs concerned: St Kilda and the Bulldogs. Later in the day hard copy of the figures was released to the journalists. Nothing was leaked.
Interestingly, neither St Kilda nor the Bulldogs have been able to demonstrate the AFL figures are misleading.
McGuire has rebuilt Collingwood through hard work, vision and brilliant administration. He is a man to admire and respect. But this weekend he lost the plot.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6312914%255E12270,00.html