Participant Observations 26/8/19 - Qatar Airways, Swans fans, and Globalisation. And Buddy's 300th!!

The Swans last game for 2019 turned into a big day out for this little black duck. After recording an episode of the Hunter AFL Masters pre game show, I had a 30 minute phone conference with AFL Masters. This was followed by a dash to the train station, where I jumped on and met Benny Douglas on the train. Journey down was unremarkable, then took the pilgrimage to the stadium up Devonshire street, stopping in at the Trinity for a beer along the way.

We managed to get seats on level 2 of the Members, which was good, because that section had been closed off. The seats were great:

Then everything in the game went according to plan for Swans fans: Buddy kicked 4 goals in his 300th game. Jarrod McVeigh and Keiran Jack both kicked goals in front of us in their final game before retiring. Aliir Aliir celebrated his 50th game. Reg Grundy and Nick Smith also did a lap of honour at the end as they also retired. Five players chaired off at the end of the game.

Then, halfway through the last quarter, the PA announced said they would have kick-to-kick on the ground after the game, which wasn't scheduled. But it was epic:

Then we headed back down Devonshire street for a bit of a pub crawl, before getting back on the train around 8pm, and home by 11pm. Fucking. Massive. Day.

However, I also noticed something else on the day that demonstrated the Sandvoss concept of how fandom is a blend of internal projected reflection and external globalised structures. This example also demonstrates how these can sometimes be in conflict.

So, the Sydney Swans and St Kilda Saints play a 'pride' game each year, celebrating same-sex relationships. This is easy for me to project my own values onto the Swans with, as I believe and support equality.

However, for many Swans fans, this is a hypocritical position to take, as the Swans also have a sponsorship with Qatar airways - the national carrier in a country where being gay is illegal. So how can the Swans support gay rights on the one hand, and yet support a company based in a country where being gay is illegal?

An articulation of the issues can be seen here: Rainbow fans urged Sydney Swans to drop sponsor because being gay is illegal in Qatar:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/115162857/afl-rainbow-fans-urged-sydney-swans-to-drop-sponsor-because-being-gay-is-illegal-in-qatar

The Swans operate in a globalised environment, where the national air carrier in a foreign country is a domestic sports sponsor. This globalisation may conflict with the subjective projections fans place on the Swans, whether the Swans mean for those projections to be there or not.