- Footy fans not happy with new AFL commercial
- Say the promotion makes two glaring errors
The AFL is facing a wave of backlash from footy fans who have slammed the league’s latest commercial for making two glaring errors.
Intended to generate excitement for the footy season, which kicked off last week, the new advertisement has sparked criticism from the passionate fanbase.
The ad, called ‘160 years of the good stuff’, has drawn complaints from eagle-eyed viewers for being historically inaccurate about when the game was first played in Australia – and for overlooking one of the sport’s foundation clubs, St Kilda.
The high-energy ad aims to tell a quick history of the sport in Australia, highlighting some of the most controversial and iconic moments in the game’s history as well as rivalries between the various teams.
The omission of St Kilda was quickly noticed by fans, who voiced their discontent on social media.
‘Pathetic from @AFL that aren’t shown at all. They simply don’t care about fans or teams at all,’ posted one X user.
Eagle-eyed footy fans have disputed the new commercial’s claim about when the sport first kicked off in Australia
The promotion tells viewers the AFL as being around for 160 years as it celebrates milestone moments like Lance Franklin kicking his 1000th goal (pictured)
‘The @AFL have screwed @stkildafc over with the fixture for years but now they totally forget about them,’ replied another.
St Kilda remains one of the AFL’s most enduring clubs, despite claiming just the one premiership in its proud 151-year history, in 1966.
The ad frames 1865 as the sport’s starting point in Australia – a clear 160 years to the present day. However, fans claim this ignores the true beginnings of the game.
One X user posted: ‘160th anniversary of what? The game was first played 166 years ago. The rules were first codified 165 years ago. I mean Carlton Australian Rules Football Club celebrated 160 years last year. Also did you forget St Kilda plays in the competition you are advertising?’
Another replied: ‘The AFL is 128 years old. Australian Football is 166 years old.’
It has been stated that Australian Football has its roots in a similar sport played by Indigenous Australians.
A quote from Johnny Connolly of the Mukjarrawaint tribe shown in the State Library of Victoria claims Indigenous Australians were playing in a ritual practice termed ‘game ball’ in the early 1800s.
History Professor Jenny Hocking discovered the quote and a copy paper is held at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Studies.
St Kilda fans were less than impressed with being left out of the new commercial
‘In playing a game at ball which they kicked about – the different totems present two different sides and there were men and women on each side eg Garchuka men and women against Wurant men and women,’ the quote read.
‘Johnny remembers that he, his mother, and her mother all played on the same side at ball. His cousin George played with the Wurant in the other side.’While Tom Wills is regarded as the inventor of the game, historians have placed the presence of Aboriginal football in the regional Western District of Victoria where he grew up.
The anecdote plus the presence of Aboriginal football in the area has opened up the debate to whether Tom Wills was exposed to the Indigenous game before writing and creating the rules of Australian football in 1859.
Wills returned from schooling in England where he played rugby, and proposed cricketers stay fit in the off season by playing football.
In 1859, Wills, his cousin H. C. A. Harrison, W.J. Hammersley and J.B. Thompson co-wrote the rules of football, before Wills went on and founded the Melbourne Football Club. Wills also went on to start the Geelong Football Club.
