{"id":292850,"date":"2023-05-04T02:01:02","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T02:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=292850"},"modified":"2023-05-04T02:59:49","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T02:59:49","slug":"mcguire-whacks-afl-over-opportunity-to-hit-vlandys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=292850","title":{"rendered":"McGuire whacks AFL over 'opportunity' to hit V'landys"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the NRL<\/a> converging on Brisbane for Magic Round this weekend, former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire<\/a> has argued that the AFL<\/a> missed a trick in failing to schedule a match in Sydney.<\/p>\n

The two AFL teams from the harbour city, the Swans<\/a> and the Giants<\/a>, will play their respective round eight fixtures outside of their state.<\/p>\n

The Giants host the Bulldogs at Manuka Oval in Canberra on Saturday, before the Pies and Swans clash at the MCG on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

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\"Fans<\/p>\n

"This was an opportunity to get a situation where AFL owned New South Wales," McGuire told Nine's Footy Classified<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

"If you were in Canberra, \ufeffand instead of it being Collingwood-Sydney at the MCG, it was Sydney-Collingwood at Stadium Australia, that would have been sensational, wouldn't have it?"<\/p>\n

Geelong legend Jimmy Bartel also suggested that the Giants and Bulldogs could have taken the standalone Friday night timeslot, with the Swans playing in primetime on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

With the league searching for a "blockbuster" match, McGuire used a graphic to show the biggest AFL crowds in Sydney on record.<\/p>\n

\"Biggest<\/p>\n

McGuire highlighted the impact of the 72,000-strong crowd at Stadium Australia for the Sydney-Collingwood round 21 fixture in 2003\ufeff.<\/p>\n

"You know how much of an impact that game had?" he said.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffI got a phone call a couple of days later from Bob Carr, who was the premier of NSW, who didn't know anything about football … and he said, 'I will offer you, the Collingwood Football Club, $5 million cash and all expenses to play Anzac Day up in Sydney'."<\/p>\n

Journalist Damien Barrett reminded the Footy Classified<\/em> panel that this match took place three years \ufeffafter the AFL paid for the Olympic stadium to be configured as a football ground which has since "been lost".<\/p>\n

Other than finals matches, the Sydney vs Collingwood match-up accounted for three of the top five crowds for regular season games at Stadium Australia.<\/p>\n

Footy Classified is now available as a podcast! Subscribe\/follow via<\/strong><\/em> Apple<\/strong><\/em><\/a>,<\/strong><\/em> Spotify<\/strong><\/em><\/a> or<\/strong><\/em> Google Podcasts<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Eddie<\/p>\n

McGuire also acknowledged that because of the competition's floating fixture, the dates and times had come in late, but contended that the AFL needed to be more adaptive.<\/p>\n

"You have got to be nimble enough when the opportunity comes," he said.<\/p>\n

"When (Australian Rugby League Commission chairman) Peter V'landys, on the day we are announcing Tasmania, goes, 'Oh, we're going to put a second team in Melbourne' – which is complete nonsense – ee should have been there owning Sydney this weekend.<\/p>\n

"You don't have to do Gather Round, you can just do big games.\ufeff"<\/p>\n

\ufeffFor a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the NRL converging on Brisbane for Magic Round this weekend, former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has argued that the AFL missed a trick in […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":292852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=292850"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292856,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292850\/revisions\/292856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/292852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=292850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=292850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=292850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}