bornadog
29-06-2013, 12:23 AM
well for the weekend anyway :D
Alberti becomes top Dog for women's weekend (http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/alberti-becomes-top-dog-for-womens-weekend-20130628-2p2we.html)
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa198/mmsalih/art-svALBERTI-620x349_zps7a96b09c.jpg (http://s202.photobucket.com/user/mmsalih/media/art-svALBERTI-620x349_zps7a96b09c.jpg.html)
Peter Gordon has handed the Western Bulldogs presidency to Susan Alberti for the weekend to acknowledge the AFL's themed women's round.
Moved this week as he learnt more about the still largely unexposed and unfashionable plight of women who play football, Gordon asked his vice-president Alberti - a financial backer of the Victorian Women's Football League - whether she would accept the presidential post.
''These things can be seen, if you want to be critical of them, as tokenism. But I choose to look at them as small, symbolic acts to advance a particular agenda and I hope that we'll play a small role in doing that tomorrow,'' Gordon told Fairfax Media on Friday night.
''Sue is well and truly credentialed for this job, but she was one of several people who asked me if I would do it [after David Smorgon's departure in 2012] and I agreed.''
Before a historic first AFL-sanctioned match between women who will represent two AFL clubs - Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs - Gordon said a great opportunity was being missed in terms of effort towards female participation.
''I feel a bit bad about this, but it's really only been in the last couple of days that it has struck me that this is a really important thing,'' he admitted.
''This is, in one sense, the most mass consumer sports entertainment industry in the country - it's the most well attended and watched - but it's not available as a participation sport in any real sense to half of the consumers and audience.
''It makes commercial sense, it makes health sense, it makes sport sense and it's fair [to improve support for women's participation in football]. It's got all those things going for it.''
The women's match is the curtain raiser at the MCG from 5.10pm before the men's bout.
Alberti said she was honoured to be club president, even if only for a weekend.
Alberti becomes top Dog for women's weekend (http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/alberti-becomes-top-dog-for-womens-weekend-20130628-2p2we.html)
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa198/mmsalih/art-svALBERTI-620x349_zps7a96b09c.jpg (http://s202.photobucket.com/user/mmsalih/media/art-svALBERTI-620x349_zps7a96b09c.jpg.html)
Peter Gordon has handed the Western Bulldogs presidency to Susan Alberti for the weekend to acknowledge the AFL's themed women's round.
Moved this week as he learnt more about the still largely unexposed and unfashionable plight of women who play football, Gordon asked his vice-president Alberti - a financial backer of the Victorian Women's Football League - whether she would accept the presidential post.
''These things can be seen, if you want to be critical of them, as tokenism. But I choose to look at them as small, symbolic acts to advance a particular agenda and I hope that we'll play a small role in doing that tomorrow,'' Gordon told Fairfax Media on Friday night.
''Sue is well and truly credentialed for this job, but she was one of several people who asked me if I would do it [after David Smorgon's departure in 2012] and I agreed.''
Before a historic first AFL-sanctioned match between women who will represent two AFL clubs - Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs - Gordon said a great opportunity was being missed in terms of effort towards female participation.
''I feel a bit bad about this, but it's really only been in the last couple of days that it has struck me that this is a really important thing,'' he admitted.
''This is, in one sense, the most mass consumer sports entertainment industry in the country - it's the most well attended and watched - but it's not available as a participation sport in any real sense to half of the consumers and audience.
''It makes commercial sense, it makes health sense, it makes sport sense and it's fair [to improve support for women's participation in football]. It's got all those things going for it.''
The women's match is the curtain raiser at the MCG from 5.10pm before the men's bout.
Alberti said she was honoured to be club president, even if only for a weekend.