Jul 12 2008
AFL Aims for Year-Round St. Patrick’s Day
Australian Football and Gaelic Football can’t seem to get away from each other. AFL clubs keep sending scouts to Ireland to swipe young talent with dreams of playing professionally. The International Rules series keeps finding new life, despite being little more than an on-field brawl most years. (Collingwood boss Mick Malthouse is in as Australia’s coach this year, too.) Now AFL chief Andrew Demetriou has a brilliant plan to lure the Irish in even more — an all-Gaelic club in Sydney.
The AFL is considering a radical proposal to launch an Irish-dominated team in Sydney’s western suburbs which would perform before an international audience under the Celtic brand name.
Commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick confirmed on Friday night the Irish option was being explored as a possible basis for the competition’s 18th team, to debut as early as 2012.
Hey, Glasgow Celtic and the Boston Celtics are all league champions this year. Why not slap the Celtic name on everything in sight? Hey, lets put a team in Tasmania and call them the Lakers… no, wait, they’re after the audience in Ireland and Great Britain. We’d have to call them the Rangers.
If nothing else, at least the GAA counties would be able to focus their disdain on one club for stealing all their young Gaelic footballers away from them. That should make everyone else in the AFL look better by comparison, right?
(Thanks, Simon!)
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Don’t think you can give Andrew D any credit for this idea.
In fact he has been quoted as saying it is not an option.