I have been a Brisbane Roar fan since day one and a football fan long before that. But I am sure that the following is typical for many fans and clubs in the country.

I live outside Brisbane, and usually bring my family to five or six games each season, and every final at Suncorp Stadium.

We spent well in excess of $1200 this past season to attend those games, not including fuel for the four-hour 250-kilometre round trip

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I have never found a membership package that really suited my needs or finances, so have never bought one.

My daughter has started to indicate that she might like to stand in the Den, and I have also chosen to stand with them a couple of times when I have been unaccompanied at matches.

Now though, our option to stand and sing with the Den is to be denied unless we purchase memberships, which is not something I plan to do anytime soon.

Why are we to be denied this right?

Apparently it is because of the actions of less than one per cent of overall A-League attendees, in a few stadiums more than 1000 kilometres from Suncorp. They have, on occasion, caused trouble. In fact, the worst trouble they have caused was not even inside a stadium.

I am not aware of any significant trouble at any Roar home match.



While my family and I may not stand with the Den, we love them, what they bring to the game and are proud of the gains they have made in the past several seasons. They are part of the Roar, and we want them to continue to grow and improve.

Active supporter growth across the entire league has come only via a lot of dedication and hard work by a number of people, and dare I suggest a number greater than that of the troublemakers.

Now though, that hard work is being undermined by the blanket restrictions being put in place by the FFA.

By making these restrictions league wide, it reflects not just on the handful of troublemakers present at a couple of grounds, or even just the active supporter sections, but on every A-League supporter.

I am all for the FFA doing whatever it can to stamp out the unwanted minority causing problems, but where is the recognition for the vast majority of well behaved fans who want to do nothing more than voice their support for the teams that they love?

I am sick of the FFA publicly apologising by deed for the actions of a few, and belittling every other regular football fan in the process.

Instead, I want to see the FFA grow a pair, and stand up for all the other football fans in this country and show they are proud of the fans and they way they choose to support their teams.

I want to see them demonstrate that by actively helping our emerging supporter groups and not placing unnecessary and counter-productive restrictions on fan groups.



At the very least, I want them to stop imposing sanctions against every fan and potential future fan of the game for events that have nothing to do with them.

How can we even grow support for the sport in this country when our very own governing body is feeding in to the public perception that all football crowds are violent, unruly mobs that need to be controlled?