The photo from the offending story
In literally unprecedented scenes for the Blog, we would like to issue our first ever apology. We owe an apology to the Saigon Saints (who host a very successful AFL Grand Final Brunch in HCMC).
You may recall that the Blog ran a story on the 6 July entitled, Jumper sales to swamp Swans with the photo to the left. The story invited people to purchase one of our new Vietnam Swans jumpers for $65.
To demonstrate the clear value of our jumpers, the story then cheekily added that, “For those living on Struggle Street, Dimmeys in Richmond is selling unofficial jumpers for just $9.99 (see un-named girl wearing unofficial jumper). Your choice.”
The Saigon Saints have advised the Blog that they took considerable offence to this story, believing it was “quite tacky and disrespectful of the (Blog) to represent a (“Saigon”) Saints jumper and (to then add) ‘for those living on Struggle Street, Dimmeys in Richmond is selling unofficial jumpers for just $9.99′ “.
The source of the misunderstanding
The Blog sincerely apologises for any offence caused as this was not the intention or purpose. The story was feeding off an article that appeared in The Age newspaper on 19 June entitled, .
The Age newspaper’s article explained that the AFL will sue Dimmeys (a discount retailer in Melbourne) for selling unlicensed football products.
The article carried a photograph of a young girl wearing an unlicensed jumper that resembled St Kilda’s jumper (which is also similar to the Saigon Saints jumper). Being unlicensed, it does not have St Kilda’s, the AFL’s or sponsors’ logos.
The caption beneath The Age’s photo says, “A $19.99 unofficial AFL guernsey from Dimmeys (not $9.99 as reported in the Blog)”.
Given the Blog was wanting to promote sales of our new jumper, and the girl in the unlicensed St Kilda jumper had a similar pose to Captain Gus in the Vietnam Swans jumper, we thought it would be a novel intro to a sales pitch. We thought it would be topical, light hearted and different.
It was not meant to be interpreted as a story about the Saigon Saints in any way, shape or form.
Again, the Blog apologises to any Saigon Saint who mistakenly thought the story was either directly or indirectly related to them.