If you're bored, go do something else. Pretty simple really.

Maybe you should go do something else.


Ner ner ner.

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

I'm not bored though.

What I'm thinking about is how different footy is compared to when I was a boy. Back in the early 80s I can't remember anyone calling a VFL player "cancer". Was I just too young to notice? Maybe some of the old stagers can help out there.

It's the evolution of the game, and money is the root of all evil...it is affecting the supporter base, and maybe I have different morals, who bloody cares? but I think it's terrible that this is the way footy is evolving.

At 6 million plus per list...
The pie can be split up more fairly if the players took a sense of responsibility to their team mates.
No it doesnt mean that Betts gets the same as Kouta... but it doesnt mean Kouta gets 20 times what Betts gets either.

What that would mean is that the club can stabilise its finances. .. we should have been on the minimum threshold prior to next season if the players were honest with themselves and wernt interested in ripping us off.
We could have chased players we needed.
We wouldnt have had the Lappin situation
Make no mistake greed causes friction in a group.

Weve been a rabble and the playing group that has taken the larest slice have alot to answer to.. not the guys on minimum who arent good enough but you cant replace them with players that are good enough but cant fit those kind in the salary cap.

Campo is a disgrace!!!
He doesnyt like playing for a struggling club... because the players around him wernt your Williams Ratten types.. but he was on closer to $700k per year than $600k .. and averaged out over $450k per year in his four most unproductive years.

Players must recognise.. if 4 or 5 players take up half the salary cap and 33 take up the other half.. then the team will be crap... no ifs no buts...

Campo doesnt get it!!!... theres a salary cap a club needs to pay and play to these days.

You dont have to know Campo personally to know he is a scumbag..

These players had to go!!!... the club should not have been scared to do it or force them to piss off....!!!

We dont want them.. we dont need them.,.we have to start again!!!

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Actually the quote from the Bible (not sure what part, or whether it's the circumcised or uncircumcised version) said The love of money is the root of all evil. Remind you of anyone?

In the 70s and 80s, players had jobs. Ok, some of them were sham jobs or sinecures, but the players earned their living away from footy, and played for the love of mateship, the love of the club, and the love of the game. When players were too slow, or too old, they were moved on. Can you say "traded to St Kilda" anyone? Players didn't hang about for one more year of money they didn't really earn.

It's never going to be the same as it was back then, so get over it.

Campo could look well to the past of our great club, and see the legacy greats like Nicholls, Silvagni, Jesaulenko, Barrassi, Vallence, Fitzpatrick, and Kernahan left, and learn a great deal from them. Then compare that to the legacy left to us by John Elliott. Chalk and cheese.

It is sad losing a 200+ Carlton player, no argument there, but in one season, he undid all the goodwill which may have been coming to him, by the club and the fans, and hopefully his legacy to the club will be those 200+ games, not the damage he did, or the bad attitudes he instilled in the younger players who looked up to him.

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

It's becoming more and more obvious that elite sportspeople in general prioritize money before anything else these days. No problem with individual sports such as golf, tennis, etc. but it will affect team sports more and more unfortunately.

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There's so much I could say...

Ok heres a trickle down effect that mentality has at a club.

Houla was paid big money to stay last time he threatened to walk.He threatened to walk for the money because everyone else is on big money.. and of course individuals think their worth is greater than what it actually is.
Much like property vendors when they put their house on the market. Each person thinkis his is the best house on the street.

My cousin bumped into Houla.. Houla told him "The club didnt look after Campo properly with their offer"..
What a dummy like Houla should realise is ... Has the club looked after Campo over ten years?...
What does Campo offer the club that the club had to continue to pay over the odds for him?

Are some players that dumb and self centred that they cannot see the bigger picture? (ie Salary cap- where were at right now- what players benefit from a club - etc?)

Judging on those comments i wouldnt be surprised to see another Houla contract saga.. but this time he will be out on the street if he pushes it.(or another club and then on the street- like his brothers)

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I'm not talking about the difference between players getting paid less in years gone by and more now though KK. I'm talking about how money has corrupted the supporter base. It has made supporters angry. It has created negativity. Accusations and finger pointing. It has diminished the enjoyment many have of the game.

I was at a Brisbane Lions match this year, and after four consequtive grand finals, Lions supporters were still yelling at their players to do better because that's what they are paid for.

It's no longer about going to the footy to watch a game. It's about going to the footy to expect a return on investment.

It's really very sad.

I didn't say you were saying that about the dollar amounts paid now compared to previously.

The attitudes of the supporters has changed because of the money paid towards the players, because the players attitues towards the money changed first. The players become more insular and selfish, and play for themselves and the next year, or towards the signing of their next contract. That attitude is generally forgiven if the player and more specifically, the team is successful, but the forgiveness threshold is very narrow.

I guess the argument is somewhat circular, but that's the way I see it.

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

verbs footy is a business now.
Footballers have every rate to be well compensated for their efforts.
I was watching a ch 2 series on the evolution of cricket and WSC coming along.

It was clear cricketers wernt making money and something had to be done.

If you go out to buy a car... you dont pay more for it because of the potential it has (ie take off the anti pollution gear and it goes faster)You buy and pay for what it is..
Cars have a shelf life like footballers.

Football is a business where the players get paid on potential.
Potential is a very dangerous thing to invest in when its not safe like real estate.

Players should be paid what theyre worth to a team in the context of a salary cap.(which is a sense of responsibility and accountability to their teamates who they should all be hoping to play in a GF winning team together first.

See Kouta Campo Lance etc arent interested in winning a GF.. if they were they would all take a pay cut and we coupld bring in a couple more players that could help them...

Its about money .... and the hope that youre in the right place at the right time to win a flag.(with alot of players not all)

stKilda have done a great job at keeping alot of players under what they could get elsewhere- not all but a lot of them)
That goes along way to keeping the club potent.

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Getting back a bit, I mentioned the reason for this thread really has nothing to do with anything other than money.

There's no denying footy is a business. But it's only one aspect of footy. danny and I have argued in the past about footy's role in society. Though we differ in our approach, neither of us are fixated by money as being a primary focus on why we follow the footy.

Whilst I prefer to approach footy as entertainment, danny prefers to focus on the intangible wonder of the game.

With the influx of money, and the transformation of the game into a business, many others prefer to approach footy as a financial analysis.

Maybe it's just me, but I have both found, and observed, there is little joy in being fixated by money. It has the opposite effect to the role I choose footy to play in my social life.

I have no control over the players' payments, the AFL's management, the salary cap etc, and I have very little interest in it. I just love watching a game of footy, and in particular I love watching Carlton.

But I am well aware this is the worst place to be making my feelings known. I'm not sure why I do.

Then why are we using Fisher as the go to guy in the forward line? Is it because Lance isn't up to it? Is it because Fisher has a better pair of hands eben though he is built like Orlando Bloom? Or is it just because we don't have that collosus you speak of?

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Forgotten, but not gone

And your bringing down posters who you've never met, know virtually nothing about, have no knowledge of his personal/family life and who's [sic] crime is to post on the TalkingCarlton forum is no different to what I'm doing?

Camporeale has to earn back my respect for what he's done to the footy club I love. Walking out on it in its greatest hour of need is not going to change things.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

I was hardly bringing you down, merely saying that if you are being truthful in what you said, I find that quite sad. Is that such a bad thing to say?

Interesting that you say that, verbs. Because it's the "entertainment-isation" of the game which spelled the death-knell to traditional suburban grounds, so everyone can watch in bucket-seated, air-conditioned comfort. It also brought about the larger and larger amounts of money into the game via TV, internet and Pay TV.

People go to the games to be entertained. They no longer care who wins, as long as they get their Saturday afternoon matinee. That's why it's better for the AFL to give the majority of Finals tickets to corporates, who will turn up no matter who is playing. The 2005 GF was a problem though, because while the match was a great footy match, as entertainment, it was more like watching Demetriou preen. Ugly and boring.

The audience who watch footy as theatre also make the attitude towards players you described earlier a lot easier to happen. If I paid hundreds for a comfy reserved seat at a ground, and felt I didn't get my entertainment dollar's value, I'd be angry at the players for "not doing what they're paid for" too.

Like paying for a Sydney Theatre Company season ticket, only to turn up and watch the cast sit around on seats reading the play from the script.

It's not entertainment, it's footy. I'd prefer to watch Carlton hammer a team in a boring walkover but us playing well, rather than a pulsating spectacle with a 1-point game.

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

As I said the "business" side is only one aspect of footy, and if you choose to fixate on that, you are doomed to disappointment. I choose not to.

Am I being truthful? Well, I guess you've never met me so you don't know.

The original comment was that I wouldn't say anything online that I wouldn't be prepared to say to someone's face. If I was challenged to, yes, I would say it to his face. Would I deliberately go up to the guy and say it? No, that's not decent behaviour.

I think that point of view has been lost. The original point was "whether we'd be game enough if challenged to say it to another person's face". And my answer is yes. But would I deliberately set to do so? No, of course not.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

From your post, and especially the quote I used, it seems like that's the way you do see it. Footy as entertainment. With the theatre comes the expectaions of return for ticket price. Maybe you don't see it that way at the moment, but a whole lot of other people obviously do.

The way I see it, the business side exists only to make it possible for guys to be able to pull on the Navy blue week-in, week-out, and to earn a bit while they do it for the footy enjoyment of the spectators.

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

Okay then.

Hmm...well I can't ever remember going to the theater, or the cinema, or the footy and asking for my money back, or thinking "what a waste of money" etc. I go for the enertainment. Sure, sometimes it doesn't live up to expectations, but you take the good with the bad. It kind of evens itself out in the long run.