So Melbourne Victory played a friendly against Celtic FC on Wednesday night. And as they’ve been known to do at big events like the AFL finals, the Victorian Cops were nice enough to tweet the score. And by score, I mean, a fun commentary on how many drunks they’d booted from the ground. Here’s the timeline:
Of course, soccer fans weren’t happy, and Football Federation Australia said the tweets were “provocative”. For their part, the police issued a statement that included:
” This was never about soccer and again, we tweet from any number of high profile events and operations. It’s a about getting a safety message out.”
Hate to say it, but I’m with the cops on this one. Kinda funny, too.
[Victoria Police via Footy Fans Downunder via Mumbrella]
Iordan
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 5:31 PMi didn’t realise the boston celtics were in town!
also 14 people being kicked out is nothing compared to every afl match
Corteks
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 5:37 PMI honestly have a pretty low opinion of police(every time I’ve had a crime committed against me they really didn’t seem to care) and I think this is definitely funny.
If the police have to eject you from somewhere you don’t have much right to complain about them reporting you as a statistic. I mean it’s not like they were tweeting names or something.
Also love the article pic!
All Cops Are Bastards? Maybe!
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 6:11 PMCan’t stand Soccer but this is pretty stupid. No wonder those idiots throw flares and stuff, they’re being policed by school children.
Wait, are my taxpayer dollars funding the twitter admin? If so, this is very uncalled for.
Svenz0r
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 8:00 PMSo soccer fans are tools who break the law, get in fights and damage property because police (who are there to deal with said issues and protect people who aren’t being tools) tweet the number of dumbasses they evict from a game.
That’s some top quality logic my friend…
Also I’m pretty sure that your taxpayer dollars aren’t really piling up with the cost of someone sending some quick twitters over the course of a soccer match.
chris peters
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 9:12 PMSo you think it’s ok for police to deliberately taunt and paint a section of the community in a bad light ? wow ok
Tim
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 10:20 PMBlowing things a wee bit out of proportion? So soccer fans have graphene skins. Who knew?
Trav
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 9:13 PMThat’s awesome, nice to see Police with a sense of humour, should be more of it.
Mahony
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 10:41 PMSo do you agree with both the Deputy Commissioner and the operational commander who have apologised – or with the PR flack in communications who, like you, knows a lot about technology but little about football culture. Idiot. Lets see if you print it eh?
Danny Allen
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 10:55 PMa) I don’t see anything specifically anti-football with what the cops did, just anti dickheads b) I don’t agree with what they did though like most I giggled c) I played youth league as a teenager d) I’m happy to publish your comment e) you fail at the Internet
james_whatsit
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 1:27 AMtroll :D
Callie R
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 11:32 PMThe complaint and issue that football fans have with this is that as someone else mentioned, statistically per game MUCH higher numbers of cricket and AFL fans get pitched out of games, but the Victorian Police don’t tweet those numbers.
I’m a football fan (it’s not fucking “soccer” you heathens), and I will admit that some in the football community around the world give us a bad name, but come on VicPol – be consistent in your mockery of dickheads, or don’t do it at all.
mbryant
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 3:11 AMIn a country where we have more than three separate popular codes of football, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to use the word “soccer” to specify which particular one we’re talking about.
Mark
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 10:02 AMBut only one of them is actually played with a foot and ball, hence football.
AFL comes close but its still handfootball
mbryant
Sunday, July 17, 2011 at 1:40 PMThere’s no basket involved in basketball, and there’s no net in netball. Whether the name of a sport makes logical sense is irrelevant — all that matters is that we have a name we can use to indicate which particular sport we are talking about.
The word “football”, when used in Australia, could mean either AFL, NRL, or soccer, so there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the word “soccer” to clarify which sport you’re talking about.
Tim
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 10:13 PMI’m sorry I usually call it soccer, I’ll make sure I call it ‘football’ in future. Forgive me I’m not very familiar with girls sports.
wp
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 12:40 AMThey do tweet those numbers at other sporting events. That is precisely the point, the cops do the exact same thing at other sporting events and no one gives a stuff.
The only issue here is because the soccer boys chucked a massive tantrum about it. Get a grip.
travis
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 12:44 AMAll I see a girls(no offence girls) complaining that the cops thought of a good joke. dear lord the world has ended hasn’t it…oh wait it hasn’t. I hope they do this for every event from now on. This is awesome!
Dorian
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 9:46 AMStill less evictions than the AFL or NRL…
Victoria police seem hopeless, go the NSW police!!! …nah… from experience they are rubbish too.
Thorbjørn
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 9:56 AMThere’s a lot of douchebags ruining the sport (just like a lot of other sports)… Football (soccer) is still my favourite game. But damn this is quality entertainment!
Franz
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 10:38 AMThere’s nothing wrong with mocking drunk, useless objects of society.
Lolwut
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 7:47 AMHear hear mate
Steve
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 2:32 PMYea it is funny, when you don’t understand the relationship between supporters and the police. Come back and see how much fun it is after you get abused by police officers for trying to leave a venue and threatened with pepper spray.