Posted by Vietnam Swans on March 23, 2008
Former Carlton Assistant Coach, Tony Liberatore has accused the Vietnam Swans of “tanking” matches at the end of last season.
Speaking on the Footy Show last week, Liberatore cited the fact that the Vietnam Swans “lost their last four matches of the season” (sic) (Editor’s note: clearly, the fact that Libber’s brain is tanking would be less evident if his lips stopped flapping. The Swans won our second last match of the year against the Lao Elephants).
In a wide ranging interview, Libber accuses Coach Stacey of standing over Swans player, Mattie Greenwood, “demonstrating how to feign a medial ligament injury”.
The latest Libber outburst follows his comments last month that Swans President, Phil Johns is “a divisive figure who should be sacked and that Swans’ Captain, Gus McEwin should also get his marching orders if he could not guide the club to the finals at the 2008 Asian Champs”.
The Swans have obviously “issued a statement emphatically denying the claims and said they would hold a press conference about the issue on a Friday in 2020″.
To read the full story, see Micky J’s article, Tanking claims not confined to the mainland.
Posted in Asian Champs, Unheard of | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Vietnam Swans on November 23, 2007
The Swans Blog has just learnt that Singapore will host the 2008 Asian Champs. They expect the event will be held in mid August 2008.
Posted in Asian Champs | 1 Comment »
Posted by Vietnam Swans on September 11, 2007
The airwaves are abuzz again with talk about hosting the 2008 Asian Champs. Where should it go? Who has the facilities? Who has two decent-sized ovals next to each other? Who has a location that is relatively cheap to fly to and is relatively inexpensive?
Yesterday, the Thailand Tiger’s President, Rhino offered Bangkok again as a venue for consideration as currently, no other venue has been locked in. If it is held in Bangkok, it would have to be held on 16 August (already, that is the only available date to book the Patana Grounds).
It must be said that the Tigers did an absolutley outstanding job this year.
In an earlier email, the Philippines believe that the Champs should be moved around the region “to showcase the game to the local community”. This is particularly important to the Philippines whose “main goal is to develop a proper league comprising of juniors and schools and just to be able to show every 5 to 10 years a major Aussie Rules event would no doubt be a massive help to any team”. Another option would be to formailise an Asian League with a North and a South Division; the top 3 of each division play off in Bangkok.
The Bali Geckos favour a permanent home which would also help raise sponsorship.
The Bintangs prefer a rotating system. It is a revenue generator for the host team. They can attract extra sponsors and give existing sponsors additional exposure. It’s also an opportunity to showcase footy to the locals which in turn, becomes a showcase to the AFL.
Singapore has said that they have two suitable ovals and they would be “more than happy” to host. Having said that, Bangkok is an exceptional venue with it being extremely accessible for all teams. However, it’s unfair to expect the Tigers to carry teh full burden of organisation each year. Perhaps a professional events management company could play a major role?
Well, that’s a snippet from around the region about where the Champs should be hosted next year.
What do you think? Post a comment.
Posted in Asian Champs | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Vietnam Swans on August 18, 2007
Yesterday the Swans Blog had 114 visitors which took us up to 7,000 hits. Today’s posting is the 200th.
Surely, in some culture it must be lucky to announce 7,000 on your 200th? If there is, the Swans will give them an honourary membership.
In other statistics, it’s just 3 days more than 100 since we launched the Blog on 7 May with the story, “2 months and 10 days before Asian Champs”. Speaking of 10 days, it took just that many after the Champs for the Blog to record our 5,000th hit on 24 July. Coincidentally, 24 was the number of days it took us to collect the 2,000 hits needed to reach 7,000.
Conspiracy theorists momentarily suggested something more sinister than the above being just a random collection of unrelated coincidences. The Swans Blog considered their suggestions to be nothing more than malicious gossip – so we burnt them at the stake.
But back to the Blog’s stats: Vietnam accounts for 43.15% of the traffic (compared with 46.5% at 5,000 hits), Australia 30.85% (30.2%) and the US 6.83% (6.5%). The total number of countries that have logged on to the site has increased from 48 to 58 countries.
In other Swans Blog related news, Marty Hartigan, who lives in Melbourne, will be in Hanoi on the day of the AFL Grand Final. He got onto the net, found the Blog and emailed us requesting a couple of seats at the Vietnam Swans 2007 AFL Grand Final Party. For sure, Marty!!
Marty also mentioned that The Age ran an article a couple of weeks ago that included a reference to the Vietnam Swans.
It’s official: you don’t have to wait ’til the end of the day to discover that it’s all good. Hearin’ me?
Posted in 2007 AFL Grand Final Party, Asian Champs, Sponsors | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Vietnam Swans on August 12, 2007
Former Swans President, Dave “Flyer” Kainey, often points out what’s good and what’s not in Asian football.
It’s since been pointed out that the Flyer was the Bintang’s runner during the recent Champs - for which he miraculously escaped the wrath of the Fines Master, Pago. This has raised eyebrows and questions in some circles with whispers of favouritism.
Kevan Dacey, by contrast was belted by the Fines Master for wearing a Brisbane Lions t shirt on match day and then a China Reds shirt during the fines session (what was Kev thinking there??).
While people are able to understand the Kevan Dacey situation, the same cannot be said for Dave Kainey.
Perhaps it’s time for the Fine Master to explain. When two people commit the same offence but only one is fined a double shot of Thai whiskey, you have a double standard. Plain n simple.
Posted in Asian Champs | 2 Comments »
Former Carlton Assistant Coach, Tony Liberatore has accused the Vietnam Swans of “tanking” matches at the end of last season.
The Swans continued to give back to the community by raising money for an organisation dealing with prostate cancer in Hanoi and also for the Loreto Foundation in Saigon which deals with disadvantaged children. On both occasions we raffled off Jim Beam bottles which were part of the original sponsorship from the Asian Champs.
Other teams in corporate uniform (especially liked the batik outfit from Indonesia), but we’d sold lots of t-shirts and caps on the bus to up our image.
When the skies opened up 5 minutes into the first half, Scotty managed to keep his coaching notes from smudging, but was unable to gain heavenly intervention on the ground.
