text:
User:Ahmed Almrhoon/Saudi Swimming

السباحة Swimming السِّباحة نوع من النشاط الرياضي يتضمن التحرُّك في الماء باستخدام الذراعين والرجلين. والسباحة نمط شائع للترويح، ورياضة عالمية مهمة فضلاً عن كونها تمارين صحية. يسبح الناس في الأعمار كافة من صغارهم إلى كبارهم بغرض المرح. ففي كل أرجاء العالم يستمتع ملايين البشر بالسباحة في البحيرات والمحيطات والأنهار ويسبح آخرون في أحواض سباحة إما داخلية مغطاة، أو خارجية مكشوفة في الهواء الطلق. وتؤمِّن آلاف الجمعيات أحواض السباحة لمنسوبيها. كما أن كثيرًا من العائلات لديها أحواض سباحة في حدائق منازلها أو في الأفنية الخلفية. وخلال القرن العشرين الميلادي، أصبحت السباحة رياضة تنافسية رئيسية؛ حيث يتنافس ألوف السباحين في مهرجانات تنظمها المدارس والكليات ونوادي السباحة. ويشارك أفضل السباحين العالميين في كثير من مناطق العالم في مسابقات السباحة السنوية. وتشكل تلك المسابقات جانبًا مهمًا من دورات الألعاب الأوليمبية الصيفية. وقد حاول كثير من سباحي المسافات الطويلة تحقيق بطولات في عبور القنال الإنجليزي، أو خليج الكوك الواقع بين الجزيرة الشمالية والجزيرة الجنوبية من نيوزيلندا. ويستمتع السباحون الممتازون بألوان أخرى من الرياضات المائية وتشمل: الغطس من على المقْفَز، أو من على المنصَّة، وركوب الأمواج، والتزلج على الماء، والإبحار باللوح، وكرة الماء، والغطس العميق بجهاز تنفس، والسباحة المتزامنة. تخدم القدرة على السباحة الجيدة رياضات مائية أخرى مثل الصيد، وركوب الزوارق حيث تجعلها أكثر أمانًا ومتعة. وفضلاً عن ذلك فإن القدرة على السباحة قد تنقذ حياة شخص إذا ما تعرض للغرق. والسباحة أحد أفضل التمارين الرياضية للمحافظة على اللياقة البدنية، فهي تحسِّن عمل القلب، وتسهم في تنشيط الدورة الدموية، كما تساعد على تقوية العضلات. الماء يمثل مقاومة للعضلات حينما نمارس السباحة، لذلك فإنها تعتبر من أفضل الرياضات لصقل العضلات والحفاظ على قوام رشيق. - تدل البحوث الصحية والرياضية على أن ممارسة السباحة لمدة نصف ساعة يوميا، تخفض من ضغط الدم وتقوي القلب وتقلل من معدل الكلسترول في الدم كما تزيد من كفاءة الدورة الدموية. - ممارسة السباحة لمدة ساعة تحرق ما بين 250 و 500 سعرة حرارية، حسب قوة وسرعة السباحة، لذلك تعتبر تلك الرياضة من أفضل الرياضات لتخفيض الوزن. - السباحة مفيدة جدا في التخلص من الضغوط النفسية، واسترخاء الجسم والعقل، ورفع الروح المعنوية. - الماء يجعل الجسم يبدو أخف مما هو عليه فعلا، لذلك فإن رياضة السباحة من أنسب الرياضات للأشخاص الذين يعانون من زيادة الوزن. - السباحة تعمل على تليين العضلات في الذراعين والساقين. - السباحة تجعل القلب والرئتين في حالة هوائية جيدة. - السباحه مفيده للتخلص من الجروح والتزلغات الباطنيه والظاهريه مخاطر السباحة : لا تسبح بعد الأكل لأن السباحة ستؤدي إلى تدفق الدم إلى الأطراف ويقل الدم المتجه إلى المعدة والجهاز الهضمي.. مما يعطل ويؤخر عملية الهضم ويتسبب فيما يسمى عسر الهضم. الشد العضلي من مخاطر السباحه حيث من الممكن ان يؤدي إلى الغرق

أنا أحمد المرهون ادرس في كليه الرياضه في جامعه كانبرا - أستراليا و موضعي هو عن السباحه السعوديه وتأثيرها على السياحه I'm Ahmed Almrhoon from Saudia Aribia I doing m 1] الهدف العام للمركز: نشر قواعد ومبادئ لعبة السباحة وفق أنظمة الإتحاد الدولي تنظيم المسابقات والبطولات الداخلية إعداد المنتخبات الوطنية

[2] الأهداف الخاصة للمركز: 1 – المركز هو مشروع تعاون بين الإتحاد العربي السعودي للسباحة ومدارس الأندلس الأهلية0 2 – يقوم المركز على نشر رياضة السباحة. 3 – تعليم أصول وقواعد السباحة للنشأ من سن 6 إلي 12 سنة 4 – توفير البيئة المناسبة لتشجيع الفرق الخاصة بالتدريب وتطوير المهارات لرياضة السباحة حتي سن 18 سنة

(3) مكان المركز: مسبح مدارس الأندلس الأهلية بحي الزهراء بمحافظة جدة وتكون بواقع ( 4 ) أيام في الأسبوع من السبت إلي الثلاثاء ويستمر المركز طوال العام وفقا لجدول دورات التعليم وبرامج المدربين المشاركين

(4) نشاط تعليم السباحة: يقوم المركز بجدولة دورات لتعليم السباحة على امتداد العام ومدة كل دورة 12 ساعة على امتداد(3) أسابيع تحدد الفئة العمرية للمشاركين من 6 سنوات إلي 12 سنة يتم تطبيق البرنامج الفني لتعليم السباحة ( 3 مستويات ) والذي وضع من قبل الإتحاد العربي السعودي للسباحة عدد المشاركين بكل دورة لايقل عن ( 8 ) ولا يزيد عن (12 ) عند نهاية الدورة يحدد موعد يتم الإعلان عنه لعمل إختبار إجتياز المستوى يتم منح شهادة إجتياز المستوى معتمدة من الإتحاد العربي السعودي للسباحة

Outline
Swimming is a dynamic combinations between physical and mental faculties in which the body smoothly glides without touching the bottom of the swimming pool in a lateral position. Swimming is for everybody; women, children and men- for those old, strong and even for those who are weak as well as; special needs. Swimming is powerful; it helps you to strengthen your heart, maintain your body and blood temperature, burn fats quickly and tone muscle. There’s no limit in swimming because t help you to move every single muscle part in order to improve your health.

Goals
To give the people knowledge of swimming techniques and it’s physical, mental and social importance for their lives. Conduct a water safety course or life saving techniques and rescue for the people.

How to reach the goals
Provide awareness, workshops for the instructors and swim schools.

Compare and contrast
Compare and contrast the swimming system in Australia and the system is Saudi Arabia (funding, political, business and results). You might go even further and explore the provision of swimming opportunities for indigenous children and consider some of the health and education outcomes. See, for example, http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/indigenous/progserv/families/Pages/remote_pools_2010.aspx and http://www.ichr.uwa.edu.au/media/791 I wondered if you could think about Saudi too and what role swimming education plays there. I think we can find a fascinating topic out of this area.
 * 1) Why is it important to provide swimming lessons for young children?
 * 2) Is this a commercial activity or a state responsibility? Do schools provide opportunities?

title: User:Ahmed Almrhoon/Saudi Swimming


text:
User:M.Finemore/Can Money Once Again Buy Success in the AFL

Video Presentation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hNwyutiTlM

Abstract
This essay will investigate the effect a limitation put on football department spending will have. The AFL has pride in the equality of their competition and has fairness stabilisers such as the salary cap and the AFL national draft in place to ensure all clubs have a fighting chance each season. However recently the differential in football department spending between the more affluent and poorer clubs is increasing exponentially, leading many to believe this is the new divide between clubs and AFL intervention is required to ensure that the competition’s fairness is still intact. It was found that in season 2011 that the top six spenders in the football department all finished in the finals whereas the bottom six spenders all finished outside the finals. An advantage of putting such a cap or limitation on football department spending is that it will bring the competition to closer the fairness. There is also an argument that this discrepancy in football department spending is compromising the effectiveness of the fairness stabilisers in place. Disadvantages of capping football department spending include the punishment of clubs administering a successful business, stifling of entrepreneurial activity and the stagnation of growth of the game. Such a debate has political precedence as it is effectively a capitalist versus socialist debate. It was concluded that one season of correlation does not equal causation and the consequences of such a limitation would outweigh the benefits at this point in time.

Introduction
The Australian Football League is arguably the biggest sporting code in Australia. An imperative part of the AFL module which has bred this success is the fairness of competition amongst the competing teams. This is evidenced through the major changes made in the past 30 years where the AFL has implemented a salary cap and a national draft to promote equality of competition. The salary cap puts a price ceiling on the total player payments, the total player payments is the addition of every player’s salary and this cannot exceed $8.22m. The salary cap reduces the capacity for the wealthier clubs to acquire the better players through their financial superiority which happened during earlier decades in the previous Victorian Football League (VFL). The national draft is a process used to allow teams to obtain young players who have nominated their eligibility. This occurs through an order preference system where teams finishing lower on the standings acquire the early picks in the draft, designed to give them first chance at choosing the best young players. Despite these fairness stabilisers in place there is a new divide inequality, that of football department spending. Football departments include hiring additional specialist coaches, the cost of high tech training, player development, medical and rehabilitation facilities. There have been proposals put forward to the AFL to cap football department spending in the same way they have capped total player payments to ensure the continuing fairness of the competition. This essay topic was chosen as it is a major point of conjecture in the AFL at the moment and has influences of all three spheres of business, politics and sport. The essay will discuss the advantages, disadvantages and possible repercussion of any changes to football department spending allowances as well as offer recommendations towards a fair resolution for all stakeholders.

Advantages
The most advantageous outcome of putting a cap or ceiling on football department spending is that it brings the competition closer to complete fairness. As stated above the AFL prides itself on the fairness of competition and the governing body believes all teams have an opportunity to win a premiership within a player’s generation cycle (8-12 years), this is unlike prominent European football leagues like the English Premier League and Spain’s La Liga where the same teams continually compete for the title. This fairness is arguably now being compromised due to the wealthier clubs increasing their football department spending. To illustrate such a point Collingwood the 2010 premiers spent $20 million compared to North Melbourne who spent $14.5 million. This nearly 40% differential in spending allows Collingwood many luxuries that North Melbourne are unable to obtain, such as mid season overseas preseason camps for high altitude training. Masters 2011 wrote that the budgets of the football departments of the wealthier AFL clubs ensure that money can still deliver finals places. His reasoning cannot be faulted on the 2011 results. The top six spenders on football departments being Collingwood, Geelong, West Coast, Essendon, Carlton and Hawthorn all made the final eight. Whereas the bottom six spenders North Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Adelaide, Richmond, Western Bulldogs and Melbourne the clubs that spent the least on their football departments did not make the finals. While there are no guarantees the more you spend the higher up the ladder you finish, to say that this occurrence is completely coincidental would be naive.

There is also the argument that the difference in the spending between the clubs undermines the fairness stabilisers already in place, the salary cap being the best illustration. The purpose of the salary cap is to spread the quality of the players over the teams by not allowing the best and presumably the highest paid players to conglomerate in a select few teams. If one team has too many star players they will be unable to pay them the salary they are worth while still adhering to the salary cap and will be subsequently forced to offload the stars or more likely sacrifice their mid range players, allowing increased salary cap space. However the players from the wealthier clubs have been reluctant to move to a different club despite the larger salary offered elsewhere. Chris Dawes from Collingwood is the most recent example. (Windley 2011). Masters (2011) points out rich clubs hire coaching specialists, build high tech training, rehab facilities, dress players in smart suits and put on lavish entertainment for the wives. There is a powerful incentive to remain at a club where the player knows he is working in a five star hotel situation. This wealth of resources also gives the richer clubs an upper hand when recruiting established players. A great example was Collingwood’s recruiting of Luke Ball. Ball was recruited second overall by St Kilda in the 2001 draft ahead of Chris Judd.

Ball struggled with a debilitating groin injury towards the end of his St Kilda tenure. Gleeson (2011) wrote that Ball would appear an exercise in illustrating where and how the money is spent by a well-resourced football department. That department was able to identify, entice, recruit and then rebuild Ball, turning him back to the player that resembled his lofty draft pick.

Disadvantages
When analysing the disadvantages that would be incurred as a result of placing a cap on football department spending, the obvious one is it that it punishes the clubs that administer a profitable business. Other possible repercussions of such a cap would include the stifling of entrepreneurial activity, the stagnation of the growth of the game, the lack of incentive for clubs to increase profit and in turn unintentionally reward the mediocre financial management of certain clubs. It has to be remembered that the AFL is a competition and hand outs and free rides go against the ‘strive to be the best’ ethos of professional sport. Management that work within clubs do so with the intention of providing the best resources to their players and coaching staff. If clubs have succeeded in amassing enough revenue through sponsorship, investment, membership, merchandise and attendance at game ticketing then many would argue that they are entitled to continue to reinvest in their football clubs as long as it is within the AFL rules and clubs don’t over exceed themselves. AFL clubs are run as a business with the primary objective being to win the premiership. Many would argue that the competition is fair enough already and the automatic stabilisers in place at the moment with the salary cap and draft are doing enough. While we have seen periods of domination from teams in the past such as the Brisbane Lions in the early 2000’s and the current Geelong team, these are rare occurrences in the modern era. History proved that the Brisbane team slipped down the ladder shortly after this dominant period and were forced to rebuild and the Geelong team will have to do the same reasonably soon as well. Sustained dominance is extremely hard to achieve due to the salary cap and draft. Positions on the ladder over years tend to behave in a cyclical manner. Clubs finishing lower on the ladder gain preferential draft picks and are able to build their playing list up to become a premiership threat. To illustrate such a point outgoing Collingwood coach Michael Malthouse proposed the theory of the premiership clock back in 2005. This is where your team can only win a premiership if you are situated in between 11 and 1 o’clock on the clock face. While this seems to be an obscure analogy, it complements the fairness of the competition. Once your team surpasses 1o’clock their chance to win a premiership or premiership window is over. This is where the team slips down the ladder due to retirements and other factors and the rebuilding phase commences and the team eventually works itself around the clock face progressing towards 11 o‘clock and a another shot at the premiership.

Political Relevance and Discussion
This debate about whether to put a cap on football department spending has political and economic precedence and can be categorised into a capitalism versus socialism debate. Capitalist promoting the free market economic system will despise the thought of businesses and in this instance clubs having limitations thrust upon by a governing body. As the belief is that the free market system allows innovation and growth usually resulting in benefits for greater society. Socialists would argue that wealthier clubs spending is only going to increase exponentially and it will be the people inside the club that benefit most rather than the greater AFL community and the redistribution of wealth will be very limited.

Which argument people side will usually dependent on self interest. This is why it will be extremely difficult to reach a compromise where the AFL clubs and their hierarchy of management will all be satisfied as they all will subjectively determine the merit of the idea. The wealthier clubs will give the idea a resounding no, whereas the poorer clubs will be excited by the proposal.

Recently the AFL has been accused of making knee jerk reactions to potentially short term problems. Football department spending is the latest topic and has been highlighted only by recent by the success of the wealthier clubs as Masters mentioned. However if the AFL truly believe in their system and the current equalisation scheme there should be no tampering and the system should remain as is. Only five years ago there was talk of the demise of the Melbourne based football teams based on the interstate teams dominance of the final series and subsequent calls for the AFL to interject. Due to the cyclical nature of the AFL fairness stabilisers this has turned around with the Victorian teams similarly dominant in this year’s final series.

Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that while there is cause for concern in the differential in the spending amongst clubs, there is not sufficient evidence for change. The realisation is that there is no proven causation between football department spending and on field success. One season of correlation does not equal causation. However, if the disparity in football department spending between the clubs reaches upwards of 100% then the problem will need delving into. A possible recommendation for such an occurrence would be the clubs are only allowed to spend a certain percentage of their revenue. This will continue to provide the incentive for the financial sustainability of clubs without putting the poorer clubs at too much of a disadvantage where they are unable to compete all together and the AFL have a similar trend to European Football where the same clubs are competing for the top honours.

If the AFL is truly worried about the complete fairness the competition there are issues that need to be addressed before a cap is put on football department spending. This includes the fixturing of games. With 18 teams and 22 rounds there are bound to be some inequalities as the fixture is designed by the AFL and not drawn at random. Similarly not all teams get equal amounts of exposure, as the more popular teams play in the free to air timeslots to increase the amount of revenue for the television rights and as a consequence limits the exposure and reach of several other clubs.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
User talk:Ahmed Almrhoon/Saudi Swimming

Good to see you in here Ahmed, and we're excited to explore the logistics of you submitting this in Arabic. I am seeking advice on the University policy for this, and ways we can encourage and support you doing this.

Regarding the content of your outline and essay. I thought the following notes I made from our meeting today, would help you develop this outline and your essay.

We discussed you writing in the first person. A story, from your own perspective and experience, as a Saudi swimming coach now living in Australia. The idea was you would write about swimming in Saudi Arabia, from a family's first experience, to the elite competitors. You mentioned to me the issues of pool managers discriminating on what people can use the Government pools in SA. You also mentioned the Government project to encourage swimming, link recreation to elite training, and to win medals at the Olympics. I suggested to try to incorporate all this into your story, linking Australia in based on your own move to here, and what you are observing now.

We also discussed the problem of referencing. I advised that, where ever you make a claim in your story, you must support it with evidence, and/or a reference to reliable (primary or secondary) content. For example, The Saudi mainstream media reports very little on elite swimming, but extensively on Soccer. You could support this claim with a reference to site search results for swimming compared to soccer. The other example we discussed, was the SA Government's project to encourage high performance competitive swimming. You showed me a Government webpage, that appeared to have very little information and background to the project. If it turns out that there is very little information for you to reference, consider contacting the people directly, perhaps through email, explaining your essay, and that it is publicly available on Wikiversity, and that you'd like to quote their email responses in your essay.

Hope this helps. Leighblackall 04:46, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Ahmed Almrhoon/Saudi Swimming


text:
User:Caitlin~enwikiversity

/BPS2011 Essay/

title: User:Caitlin~enwikiversity


text:
User:Caitlin~enwikiversity/BPS2011 Essay

Presentation
This is the supplementary presentation for my essay. It is on the same topic as the essay, with a bit more depth in terms of pictures and the way the presentation is shaped. I used power point slides and exported them to movie maker and then recorded the narrative. You may need to turn the sound up as the recording devices I had weren't ideal. The presentation is focussed on the expansion of Rugby Union in Australia, and why it hasn't had the developmental success that sports such as AFL have had in Australia, as it is still considered to be a sport that is big in Queensland and New South Wales, while other states lag behind. A lot has been done in recent years to counteract this idea, however as the Australian Rugby Union doesn't have a national competition similar to the National Rugby League or the AFL, and instead must co-operate with the peak bodies of rugby in South Africa and New Zealand, they are restricted on what they can do. This is demonstrated in the broadcasting agreements, as they must agree with the other unions of SANZAR (South Africa, New Zealand and Australia Rugby) before they can sign any contracts. The presentation suggests that the best way to move forward and develop the sport so that it can be considered the dominant national sport (such as it is in New Zealand) is to move the focus away from a NSW/QLD dominated developmental structure and to concentrate on expanding the game into new markets, as the AFL have done to great success.

[Why isn't Rugby Union the Dominant Sport in Australia? Presentation]

Outline
Rugby Union in Australia is considered one of the four major sports. Its popularity at the elite and grassroots level is unquestioned, and despite having major participation in New South Wales and Queensland, the game is expanding to become a nationally supported sport. The recent expansion of the Super Rugby competition to include a fifth Australian team (the Melbourne Rebels) and the creation of an Australian ‘conference’, where each local team plays each other twice in a season, have seen the sport expand its reach around the country further. The release of the Crawford Report in 2009 emphasised the need to focus on sport at a grassroots level and that the major football codes, who have the highest participation rates of any other sport in Australia, should receive more funding as the Australian sports system shifts its focus to involve preventative health and community fitness values. The Wallabies have had a history of success and their matches are broadcast nation-wide on free to air television and on pay TV. The ARU in 2010 reported a $1.07M surplus, and following the professionalism of the sport in Australia in the mid-90s, the sponsorship deals and TV rights are huge. Despite this, it can be argued that Rugby Union is still not a national sport. A combination of competing sports such as AFL, Rugby League, etc, a lack of Rugby culture in certain states and primarily a lack of support for regional areas in terms of funding and education may be the reason for this. States such as Tasmania have a very small but passionate rugby union following but the Tasmanian Rugby Union, when contributing to the Australian Rugby Union’s 2010 annual report, complained about this lack of support. This article will discuss the above issues and what the ARU needs to do to become a truly national sport in Australia.

Introduction
Rugby Union in Australia is considered one of the top four commercial sports, however it has not been able to match the dominance of the Australian Football League in terms of national reach, or been able to match the fanatical following that the sport enjoys in New Zealand. The sport began in Australia in New South Wales, with Sydney University being the first rugby club in the country. This was followed by the first inter-colonial match between Queensland and New South Wales in 1882, which established the sport in these two colonies. Over the next 75 years, New South Wales dominated the sport, and were the de facto peak body for the country. It can be argued that this is one of the reasons why even today the sport’s participation numbers and following comes from New South Wales, closely followed by Queensland, but cannot be viewed as a truly national game.

The Beginning of Rugby Union in Australia

The first rugby club formally established in Australia was Sydney University Rugby football club, in 1865. The founding in 1874 of the Southern Rugby Football Union, which became the New South Wales Rugby Union (NSWRU), was the beginning of the institutionalisation of the game in Australia. The first inter-colonial rugby match, played in 1882 in Sydney between NSW and Queensland, not only provided an avenue for the promotion of the game in the colony of Queensland, it also offered a focus for rugby football in New South Wales, and may well have offset the further encroachment in NSW of sports that would later compete with rugby for players and spectators, such as Australian Football and Association Football.

In the 1900s officials of the NSWRU, supposedly the guardians of the game, assumed the position of ‘owners’ and ‘controllers’, following years of dominance of the game by NSW teams, until the formal establishment of the Australian Rugby Football Union (ARFU) in 1949. As a result the custodians of the game in Australia were for the Australian game’s first 75 years, New South Welshman. It can then be claimed that this discouraged the expansion of the game throughout the country, up until this time, as NSW were in control of the sport at a national level but their primary focus was the success of their team against others in Australia.

The establishment of the ARFU was an outcome of the struggles and rivalries between the NSWRU and all other states’ rugby unions, particularly Queensland’s. However, much of the momentum came directly from the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB), as global controllers of the game. In 1949, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa became full members of the IRFB. This recognition of the allied ex-colonial territories was expedient and necessary, as collectively they had already become very powerful and internationally successful rugby playing nations.

Despite this, the period from 1950 to 1980 still saw control based in Sydney: NSW dominating on and off the field as it had during the previous 50 years. The negative effects of this domination and control were demonstrated in 1962 when NSW refused to play Queensland on the grounds that the Northern state players were just not competitive enough: the previous season they had lost heavily to NSW in Brisbane and in Sydney. Even more embarrassingly, Queensland had been defeated by the rugby union minnow state of Victoria.

Even with an increase in loyalty, intensity and parochialism of rugby union in Queensland, its state team could not match the power of NSW until the late 1970s. Sydney remained the rugby union capital of Australia.

The Development of Rugby Union in New Zealand
Conversely, in the case of New Zealand, it was the sending and receiving of national teams that provoked the establishment of a truly national governing body, the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU) in 1892, 57 years before Australia. Once formed, the New Zealand national body quickly sought to subordinate provincial unions, control local competitions and punish any infringements of rugby’s original amateur principles. This early establishment of a centralised New Zealand organisation in the amateur period, in which the tensions between ‘clubs’ and ‘country’ were resolved through the control of provincial unions by the NZRFU, served two national purposes: the development of popular and strong competitions that could produce competitive national teams, and protection against professionalism (which at that time was seen as vital to the success of the sport).

Gallaher and Stead (1906) stated that:

‘Clubs are not organised promiscuously in New Zealand as they are in Britain, the Union decides what clubs there shall be, and supervises their management. In doing so it particularly desires to ensure the thoroughness and effectiveness of the working of each club, the equality of all of them so far as conditions and opportunities are concerned, the maintenance of strict amateurism throughout, the prevention of one club being completely overshadowed by another by reason of superior financial resources, or by any social or other non-financial inducement that it might offer to players to belong to it, and too easily facilitates for changing clubs'.

The success of this (at the time in the sport) ground breaking system of ‘organisational efficiency’ highlights that centralised power and local subordination characterised the New Zealand rugby governance model, and that the sport benefitted greatly from this management system.

The NZRFU also established the grading of players into first- second- and third-graded club competitions, restricted players to only the competition-grade to which he was ‘classed’. The provincial union committee decided any promotion of players and a player could not play in the grade from which he was promoted. This ensured that the lower grades were are competitive and ‘scarcely inferior in point of interest to those of the grade above’. This again ensured that there was continued competitive competitions at all levels of the sport, which ultimately led to the success and eventual dominance of the sport in New Zealand.

In 2011, rugby union is unquestionably a national obsession in New Zealand, which puts it in quite a different situation to that of rugby in Australia.

Development of AFL in Australia
Australian Rules Football on the other hand is widely regarded as a truly national sport in Australia, and is in direct competition with rugby union, particularly as the Australian Football League expands further into the traditional rugby territories of Sydney and Queensland with the inclusion of the Gold Coast Suns and Greater Western Sydney teams into the national competition.

Since the mid-1960s, the AFL has undergone a wholesale process of economic restructuring. This process commenced with the commercial downturn of the former VFL, which ultimately was the catalyst to the formation of the national competition league in the 1990s. in 1990, the expanded VFL was renamed the Australian Football League (AFL) and currently spans five states, comprising seventeen clubs (with an eighteenth to enter the competition in 2012), which are overseen by a central administrative body.

The sport moved to one national body much later than rugby union did, however strong competitions had already been established in each state, so when a national body was developed there was still enough strength in the local competitions that there was no individual dominance from one area.

In 1982, the league first moved to expand its geographic broadcasting coverage by allowing the south Melbourne Football Club to play games in Sydney. The South Melbourne Football Club was eventually relocated to Sydney, where it became known as the Sydney Swans. This expansion policy was extended in 1987 with the inclusion of the Brisbane Bears from Brisbane, and the West Coast Eagles from Perth making up a fourteen-team league competition. In 1991, the competition was enlarged to fifteen teams with the introduction of the Adelaide Crows. Until 2011, the competition was sixteen teams with the Fremantle Dockers from Western Australia being admitted to the league in 1995, and in 1996 Port Adelaide (South Australia) replaced the former Victorian-based Fitzroy football club which merged with the Brisbane Bears to become the Brisbane Lions. The current framework for the league is nine teams from Melbourne (with Geelong comprising number ten from the State of Victoria), two from both Perth and Adelaide, and as of 2012 two each from Queensland and Sydney.

This rapid expansion of teams in the national competition has also contributed to the success of the AFL at a national level, particularly in the era of globalisation. Rugby has been expanding as part of the super rugby competition, however it has not expanded at the rate or in the number of locations as the AFL has, which is why it cannot be recognised as a truly national sport.

Rugby Union in Australia Today
Regardless of what football code or sport, broadcasting has emerged to be the singularly most important revenue source to most professional sporting leagues and events, in Australia and around the world.

The major direct revenue source for the ARU, the state rugby unions, and the Super 14 franchises in New South Wales, Queensland, ACT and Western Australia, comes from the allocation of funds from the television broadcasting rights. The difference between the AFL and the ARU however, is that the AFL is a national sporting competition who has complete control over the sport and the broadcasting rights. The ARU, however, participate in the Super Rugby competition through SANZAR (South Africa, New Zealand and Australian Rugby), and therefore do not have complete control over the broadcasting rights, or even over the competition as it is an international clubs competition between the three countries. SANZAR control the broadcasting rights, which means that the matches are broadcast on pay tv rather than free view in Australia. This limits the game’s accessibility, particularly in comparison to the AFL, whose matches are on free view every weekend of the season.

However, the Wallabies’ television audience in metropolitan markets grew by 2.2% in 2010, but was offset by a decline in regional markets. Significantly the wallabies grew the male 18-24 years market by 42%. Super Rugby audience was up 20% on 2009 with all key metropolitan markets showing strong growth.

In terms of community rugby, according to the Australian Rugby Union’s 2010 annual report, there were more rugby players in Australia last year than at any time since the game was introduced in the mid-1800s (ARU Annual report). Participation numbers for 2010 were at record-breaking levels and went over the 200,000 mark for the first time in history (209,571 in 2010). This was an increase of 16,990 (8.8%) in 2009. 2010 was the second year in succession that Rugby has registered an increase in playing numbers, which underlines how the code is expanding in Australia.

Conclusion
Rugby Union has had a strong history in the states of New South Wales and Queensland, however from errors made in this history, the sport has not been able to develop into a national pastime. The sport is slowly starting to expand into new markets around the country, with the development of the Melbourne Rebels Super Rugby team, and participation numbers have been increasing around the country; however it has not moved as rapidly as other sports in this area, and may soon be left behind. If rugby union is to continue to develop in Australia, and be able to appropriately handle threats from other sporting codes, particularly with the expansion of the AFL into the Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney, it needs to address the short fallings of the past and look to other sports and countries to be able to develop into a truly national sport.


text:
Motivation and emotion/Book/2011/Forgiveness

Overview
"To err is human, to forgive is divine. ~ William Shakespeare"

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. ~ Lewis B. Smedes"

"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies. ~ Nelson Mandala"

"You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well. ~ Lewis Smedes"

Forgiveness is easier said than done! When someone has wronged us how do we forgive them? Is it possible to conjure up feelings of forgiveness to replace the terrible feelings? Should I even bother forgiving them?

Forgiveness is a complex emotion that does not always come naturally. Once we learn to forgive and do it often we will find ourselves feeling free of heavy burdens and more at ease. Feeling forgiveness does not just happen because we tell someone we forgive them, it involves an internal change of heart. If we ruminate on our offenders' faults, they may be blissfully enjoying life... so forgiving is in our best interest.

While forgiveness is not our first reaction it is a process that occurs from our interpretation of a situation and a restructuring of our defences. This leads to feeling forgiveness.

So sit back, have a cup of tea, and enjoy reading about what forgiveness is and how we can learn to forgive.

What forgiveness is
Forgiveness is a mix of behaviour, cognition, and affect but before forgiveness can be expressed outwardly in a sincere way it is an internal process (Webb, Robinson & Brower, 2011). Forgiveness involves a decrease in negative feelings towards someone who caused hurt or towards self and to no longer desire revenge (Pronk, Karremans, Overbeek, Vermulst & Wigboldus, 2010). The opposite of forgiveness can be a combination of Anger|anger, rage, injustice, resentment, bitterness, and fear. The wrong that is perceived can be real or imagined. For example, you can be angry at thinking someone has ignored you when they may not have known your presence. Forgiveness involves more than just reducing aggressive feelings, it also involves feelings of acceptance towards a person despite his/her error.

Is it an emotion? Forgiveness theory explores forgiveness as a behaviour, an emotion and a decision. Although forgiveness can be expressed by all of these aspects it heavily relies on emotion particularly for a feeling of inner peace and rest to occur. The feeling of forgiveness includes a dissipation of negative emotions towards something and a gained presence of positive feelings. Forgiveness can be felt towards someone without needing to outwardly inform them, it is often needed to be felt first before a person can outreach and express this feeling of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not based on what is deserved. When someone has done wrong they do not always deserve to be forgiven. When someone forgives they know the wrong done was unjust but despite this they let go of their anger and overlook the wrong.

What forgiveness is not
There are many misconceptions about what forgiveness entitles. By coming to an internal state of feeling forgiveness a person does not support the wrong that has been committed. Forgiveness is not allowing wrong to be considered as right. Justice is not ignored when forgiveness occurs. For example, a women abused in a relationship may forgive her partner but this does not mean she need return to him.

In the case of murder, forgiveness may be expressed towards the murderer but it does not release the murderer from serving their sentence. The father of one of Garry Ridgeway's victims, an American serial killer, expressed forgiveness to Garry at the trial. While others verbally expressed their hatred, this father expressed pain yet forgiveness. His forgiveness did not excuse the murders but it did signify a letting go of wishes for revenge and an expression of compassion. What is interesting to note is the act of forgiving provoked a strong emotional release from Garry Ridgeway, who was emotionless to the hateful words but had tears at the forgiving words. You can watch a short video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjkM2YKqYMU.

Another thing forgiveness does not include is reconciliation. Forgiveness is definitely a step within this and helps to provide a solid foundation to reconcile with someone but it does not mean reconciliation must occur with forgiveness. Forgiveness is coming to peace within about wrong committed and may also then produce an outward display of this forgiveness.

Forgiveness does not mean trust is restored. A person may forgive another but they do not need to trust them. A parent may forgive their child for stealing money from their purse but this does not mean they will assume the child will never commit the crime again! Instead the parent may keep a close watch on their purse.

Who said what - some theory
Forgiveness is a relatively new research topic to psychology. Only recently has it become a topic to talk about and mostly within the positive psychology field. Originally forgiveness has been seen as a religious of philosophical topic but psychologists have discovered that forgiveness can play a powerful role in therapy and has psychological benefits. So how does forgiveness work? As forgiveness is a complex emotion the biological theories have less application in this area. Forgiveness has been found to be a product of cognition and unconscious motives.

Cognitive Theory
The cognitive perspective of emotions best describes forgiveness and how it occurs. Forgiveness can be classified as a complex emotion in that it is a mix of other more basic emotions. The emotion of forgiveness is preceded by cognitive appraisal of a person's own current emotions and the offender. When forgiveness occurs it can be assessed as beneficial to a person as they no longer will be consumed with heavy negative emotions. On the other hand, forgiveness does not occur when a person assesses their negative emotions as just and better than letting go. The interpretation of what is best in the situation helps elicit forgiveness (Orathinkal, 2008). Best may not mean easiest as it can be hard to let go of anger towards someone but this interpretation helps produce a forgiving emotion.

Richard Lazarus’s model of emotions best describes the emotion of forgiveness. In this model, first comes the interpretation or appraisal of an event. The emotion then follows depending on the interpretation (Reisenzein, 2006). A situation is assessed by weighing up the personal benefit and the potential harm. Lazarus’ theory also includes self goals as part of assessing a situation (Lazarus, 2006). So if someone recognises themselves as a good person then s/he may assess anger with belief s/he should forgive so s/he will continue to view him/herself in a positive way.

Primary appraisal is the personal well-being that must be assessed and secondary appraisal is assessment of how they will handle the situation. Questions that may be asked when assessing forgiveness are:
 * Will I be worse off if I forgive them?
 * Will people think any less of me?
 * Will they continue to do wrong?
 * Do they deserve forgiveness?
 * Is it worth letting go of my anger that I feel they deserve?
 * Will any more harm come to me if I forgive them?

Before forgiveness is felt, usually forms of negative emotions such as anger or sadness are felt which arise from appraisal of harm from a situation. Forgiveness appraisal recognises this harm was present but assesses that ruminating on this will be of more harm or achieve no good purpose and so letting go is beneficial. Other cognitive theorists build on this theory adding more complex appraisal processes to reach an emotion. Ellsworth and Smith build on this add to this by adding an explanation that any emotion is a product of a complex process of interpretations from a situation (Keltner, Elssworth & Edwars, 1993).

Defense mechanisms and forgiveness
 Un-forgiveness is often the first initial reaction to internal feelings of hurt. Worthington and Scherer (2004) describe un-forgiving emotions as an initial stress reaction to a situation. Evoking feelings of forgiveness can help reduce these negative feelings and the stress reaction. This theory explains un-forgiveness as an injustice gap. This is the difference between the current feelings and the ideal resolved feelings towards an offence. The bigger the gap, the harder it is to feel forgiveness. So if a person has extremely hurt feelings and this is far away from the feelings of peace then they will find it harder to close the gap because they feel there is a bigger injustice.

Worthington and Scherer also said forgiveness is one of many ways that may be used to cope with situations of feeling hurt. Other more negative coping strategies were revenge or defence mechanisms such as denial and avoidance. By avoiding dealing with anger the person is trying to protect him/herself from further negative emotions that might be caused by further exploring their hurt. Forgiveness therefore plays of the role of bridging the injustice gap and reducing negative emotions back to normal.

Freud’s Id, Ego, and Superego have been used to describe the process of forgiveness (Gartner, 1998). The ego must learn to replace initial negative emotions with more balanced ones. This occurs as a person puts into perspective their own wrong doing and accepts that people are not perfect. By doing this the ego balances negative and positive emotions and can forgive the wrong doer.

Is forgiveness necessary?
Research continuously shows that forgiving has more benefits than negatives. Although it can be hard to let go of emotions such as anger, it has been found to make people feel much better. Those that forgive are even found to have better physical health (Kaplan, 1992). A group of people were asked to imagine seeking forgiveness (van Oyen Wityliet, 2002). The group who imagined seeking forgiveness and a positive response were found to have improved their levels of sadness and anger even though it was only an imagined situation. Forgiveness has a powerful ability to provide release from internal disarray.

Forgiveness in close relationships
Random fact: Marriage and forgiveness

Forgiveness is a key part of steady relationships (Kachadourian, 2004).

In close relationships, such as family and friends, forgiveness provides an initial path to reconciling. Married couples report more satisfaction in their relationship when they forgive their spouse (Pronk, Karremans, Overbeek, Vermulst & Wigboldus, 2010).

Ingroup identification increases forgiveness. Hockey players were more likely to forgive a hockey player who had aggressively injured their team mate if the aggressor had an affiliation with their club (Schimel, 2006). This is thought to be due to common ground shared by both hockey players of the same club affiliation. Schimel did find hockey players more readily forgave outgroup members with no common affiliation when they were reminded of their own aggressive acts. Grudges did not occur when the other player had been forgiven.

Those who avoid a person who has offended them generally do not do so out of fear of further getting emotionally hurt. It was found that those who avoided facing their offender do so out of anger, hostility and a way of getting revenge (Barnes, Brown & Osterman, 2009). This method of avoidance led to exaggerated ruminating of the original offense and caused even more negative feelings. So when a friend or family member hurts us, ignoring them out of spite will only make us feel worse.

It was found that those in secure marriage or dating relationships forgive more readily and more often (Kachadourian, 2004). This helps to reduce tension and continue to foster loving feelings. Those that were less secure in their relationship were also less likely to forgive often.

Forgiveness for strangers
The court system deals with punishing those who commit crimes and this is where victims often face their offender. While un-forgiveness is often understandable in certain situations it has been found that forgiving leads to better psychological health (Karremans, Lange & Ouwerkerk, 2003). This is supported by the theory that defence mechanisms are a stress reaction so by letting go of anger and revenge emotions more positive emotions can experienced.

A group of people who were the primary victims from a crime had better mental health and coping abilities when they forgave their offender (Cooney, 2011). The reason for forgiving in most cases was it was more helpful to forgive than harbour negative emotions. None of the victims felt their forgiveness was a representation that the punishment should be lessened in court. Here, forgiveness is purely an internal change from negative to positive affect. A key characteristic was no more desire for revenge or hate towards the offender.

Imagine you were a victim of genocide in Rwanda. You had your hand cut off, were badly beaten until thought dead, and all your family killed. Years later your attacker approaches confessing and begging for forgiveness. What would you do and how would you feel? Would you forgive?
 * Alice

This is the real experience of Alice (Moore, 2009). It may surprise you to know Alice did forgive her attacker and even became a friendly acquaintance of his. This process of internal forgiveness was not an easy task. Although Alice had decided she would forgive her attacker if she even met them again, her first reaction was to run away from the meeting. A week later she confronted him and forgave him.

Understanding played a large role in feeling forgiveness for Emmanuel, her attacker. She understood the context of the genocide. There was a corrupt government in place and many people deeply regretted their actions - Emmanuel was one of them. She also felt the forgiveness that Emmanuel asked was a way for her move forward from the devastating events. This forgiveness helped Alice to thing about the horrible events less. While not everyone in Rwanda forgives their attackers, those that do tend to find peace.

Process of forgiveness
Secrets to Forgiving
 * 1) Empathy - understand the other person’s perspective
 * 2) Time - take time to deal with negative emotions
 * 3) Ruminating - try not to ruminate on the negatives
 * 4) Denial - do not pretend nothing happened
 * 5) Positives - focus on some positives in the situation

Forgiveness involves a reduction of negative emotions and can also include replacing these with positive emotions. The more severe the offense, the more cognitive control is involved in the process of forgiving (Pronk, Karremans, Overbeek, Vermulst & Wigboldus, 2010). Knowing forgiveness is important helps to undergo a change of emotion and experience the freedom of forgiveness.

Role of empathy
Empathy plays a large role in the capacity to forgive. A school intervention program in teaching children about forgiveness found those who forgave used empathy as the first step in the process (Hui & Chau, 2009). In understanding another person’s perspective, children were more likely to decide to forgive. From this decision, the feelings of forgiveness followed next. Without seeing things from another person’s perspective forgiveness is very hard. Empathy allows wrong actions to be seen as external to the person and reduces belief the other person is intrinsically bad. Context of wrong doing also helps the forgiveness process. Understanding the background of a person, or the stress they were under, allows the forgiver to experience empathy and then forgiveness.

Time
Experiencing genuine emotion is a process that takes time. Feelings of anger or sadness do not immediately disappear. Time is needed to sort through all the negative thoughts and process how to deal with the situation (Kiefer, 2010).

Role of ruminating
When we have received injustice we talk about, we tell others the story of what happened and continue mulling on the bad event. This may feel good at first but it does not do any good in the long run.

Denial
Forgiveness cannot be fully experienced if the situation is forgotten and not processed. Forgiveness involves understanding the wrong that was done and coming to terms with it. When denial or avoidance is used to deal with negative feelings, forgiveness cannot be experienced (Gartner, 1998). This process may involve feeling angry, then sad, then regret and so on before these emotions can be let go of and replaced with forgiveness.

Understanding these defence mechanisms are barriers to forgiveness and knowing they may need to be worked through significantly helps to forgive.

Staying positive
Forgiving someone isn't much use if there is nothing good that comes from it. By understanding what forgiveness is and the purpose it achieves helps a person to feel forgiveness (Wade, 2010). By cognitively addressing circulating negative thoughts and countering them with positive will help the process of letting go.

Summary
Forgiveness is a complex emotion that does not just get rid of negative emotions towards unjust treatment, but replaces them with positive ones. Coming to a place where forgiveness is felt is more relieving than holding onto the negative emotions. Forgiveness is not our natural reaction to feeling hurt and so must be worked on to feel. By doing so, many benefits are gained, including psychological health and well-being. Forgiveness does not have to include physical reconciliation with the person; it is an internal process and emotion. Forgiveness can be felt when empathy is used as part of the process.

Forgiveness is worth the effort.


text:
User:Liam Kelly

/Tennis in Australia- Where has it gone wrong? A look at the Downfalls of Australia’s once most successful sport and an eye to the future/

title: User:Liam Kelly


text:
User:Matt Irons

Gambling and Sport/

title: User:Matt Irons


text:
User:Matt Irons/BPS2011 Essay

This paper for the Journal of Sport and Exercise studies will be focused on “Gambling and Sport”. It will take into consideration many sources of information, opinions and articles to present a well informed and educational piece of work, which is aimed at bringing to light the negative impact gambling is having on sport at a number of levels. The identification of how gambling has evolved in recent years and the negative impact this evolution has had on the worlds sporting culture is central to this paper. Gambling has been a widely accepted pastime for generations, but with societies transition into a world were gambling has become more prevalent on the back of media exposure and heightened financial gains. The influence that gambling has over sporting events is too changing.

Business and politics has always been associated with gambling and at times the legitimacy of an outcome, the impact of which is felt both personally and professionally by those involved. The conclusion to be reached at the end of the paper is, that currently the relationship between gambling and sport is weighed heavily in gambling's favour and that without detailed regulations, education of players and officials on gambling and an agreement of transparency between gambling agencies and institutions than their relationship should be scaled back significantly. This will be achieved through detailed research and quality discussion with an aim to encompass the various aspects of business, politics and sport in the association held between gambling and sport

Introduction
Gambling and sport have always had an association where one side of their relationship benefits far more than the other. This can be seen on many levels, from the massive financial gains gambling institutions make on the back of sporting games and events, the influence that gambling is having over sport and those involved in it as well as the detrimental impact it has on players life’s, whilst playing and also after their career is finished. It cannot be denied that that gambling and its various promotion tools have reached epidemic proportions in the last few years. This paper will look into the negative impact that gambling is having on sport from a number of perspectives The purpose of this paper is to expose the many issues gambling brings to sport on a global scale both personally and professionally for those involved, and to identify options to curve the influence that gambling has over the many games we love.

Gambling in the Sporting Landscape
Gambling‘s position in the global sporting landscape has changed significantly in the past decade. Gone are the days where a person can watch a television broadcast of a sporting event without the mention of the odds of the games result by the commentator or enjoy a casual punt on the Melbourne Cup without the promotion of some form of exotic bet. The change in the nature of betting in society and sport can be put down to the heavy influence betting agencies have over organisations related with sport. This has been caused by the professional relationships which have been agreed upon between sporting teams and the financial investments that betting agencies are willing to make to promote their brand. Teams have their uniforms adorned with their various sponsors, many of which are now gambling related, including the St Kilda Football Club, who are “proudly sponsored” by Centrebet (Official St Kilda FC Website). The other most direct channel to market to fans is through the use of commentators and media outlets. This form of professional relationship is one shrouded in controversy through the use subliminal messages by broadcasters to their audiences about current odds and ways to bet, as the International Cricket Committee identified in Channel Nine’s broadcast. Below a statement made by the king of commentary, Richie Benaud during a Channel Nine Broadcast:

"Just a note about the major turnarounds in Betfair trading today. We've taken a first innings lead, Australia were $1.24 at the start of play and they're now $5, so the draw might still be a decent bet"

The role of gambling agencies in organisations affiliated with sport brings into question a number of moral issues including their access to information which the wider public don’t have as well as the influence they have on operations in these organisations. The relationship between media broadcasters and betting agencies is impacting on society in a negative way in that children are being exposed to this way of life from a much younger age and the impression given to audiences is that betting should encouraged or at least considered each time a sporting event is held. The phrase “gamble responsibly” has lost all meaning as it’s used so regularly these days. Sporting organisations need to take steps towards being more socially responsible when it comes to gambling.

Gambling Inside the Sporting Arena
Time and time again the reputation of various sports are tarnished due to the actions of its athletes and organisations in relation to gambling. When the credibility of an organisation or association is lost due to allegations of gambling based issues it can be very difficult to regain, each action of a player or team will come into question as to whether what they did was of their own accord or influenced by an external factor (Saltau, C, 2011). Much of the on-field issues associated with gambling include match and spot fixing. Match fixing is fuelled by one’s ability to gamble and make money by already knowing the presubscribed result of a contest (Hogan, J, 2011). This presubscribed result is achieved by people who bribe, entice or coheres players and or officials into actions which will affect the result of a match in a predetermined way. In recent times match fixing has reached epidemic proportions, with a constant cloud hanging over the outcome of many sporting events. Unfortunately there are a number of examples in international sport where the external influence of gambling has negatively affected the on field result of games and therefore the professional life of many athletes.

Italian Football Scandal
This scandal embroiled a number of the Seria A (Italian First Division) premier clubs including giants Milan and Juventus. It involved various coaches and officials becoming involved in the selection of referees for certain games through illegal means including bribes and placing undue pressure on those who do the selections (Callow, J, 2011). The consequence being that a games result was unfairly influenced by those officiating and people external to the games were able to make large amounts of money through this. Eventually those involved were caught and punished, with the champions Juventus stripped of two league titles and relegated to the third division of Italian Football. The actions of those involved brought huge questions and pressure to a game which already has it issues throughout its own governing body of corruption and illegal dealings (Scott, M, 2011). Although it can be conceded in that, this being the biggest betting scandal in the history of the sport, brought some good to the game. The harshness of the penalties for some involved included jail time, this acts as a major deterrent for the future and sets a great precedence. This partnered with a stricter regulation of betting on sport as well as transparency of officials dealings are the right paths to take, unfortunately it doesn’t seem to deter people from being caught up in this form of corruption.

Pakistan Cricketers Match Fixing
Allegations of match fixing unfortunately are not new to the game of cricket with many high profile players being linked to the practice. The most recent example involves three players of the Pakistani Cricket Team and the new fad of exotic betting based around spot fixing. Former captain Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammah Amear have all been convicted of match fixing in a test match involving Pakistan and England (Lord, R, 2011). Spot fixing involves interfering with a certain period of play, this case was achieved through the use of “no balls”. Punters can bet on things as specific as this in the subcontinent. With massive betting plunges on certain predetermined events certain people were able to make millions of dollars. The external influence on players to be involved in match fixing is said to start from a very young age, where players are targeted and brought up in an environment where this not only accepted but expected from them (Holding, M, 2011). Once again the credibility of play is brought into question and will continue to be brought into question as long as potential gamblers are able to bet on certain match events. With all of the players looking at jail time for these injustices one would hope this facet of the game is behind us and some integrity can return to the game of cricket (Lord, R, 2011).

Gambling Outside the Sporting Arena
The negative effects of gambling are not only limited to the sporting arena, some would argue that the role of gambling in the private life of athletes is more relevant and far more damaging. The life of a sportsperson is often associated with inflated salaries and more free time than is healthy for a person with a large dispensable income. Given that the professional life of an athlete can be quite short many are willing to take unnecessary risks to further themselves. Whether this be taking a pain killing injection or wagering $10,000 per hole of golf with mates. This form of social interaction with a need to outdo one another or to just push the limits and try and maximise their finances while they can is systematic of many professional athletes (Simmons, B, 2006). This is unfortunately the case for many athletes where addiction has become part of their life. The most detrimental facet of this is when players are in the twilight or aftermath of their career, they are no longer earning what they used to and tend to live beyond their means. There are a number of quite high profile players who have fallen at the mercy of gambling including NBA legends Michael Jordan and Charles Barclay (Torre, P, 2009). This fact is quite alarming but not so rare for many former professional sportsmen especially in the USA. This issue will presented in conjunction with an example of an Australian athlete who battled with a gambling addiction throughout his career.

Former Professional Athletes in America
The wages of professional athletes in the United States of America are massive, there is no questioning that, what can be questioned is, what are these players doing with their money? A recent study showed that 78% of former NFL players are having financial issues within two years of retirement, whilst 60% of former NBA players are broke within five years of retirement. There are a number of reasons for this issue in the USA, one of which is the tendenecy to gamble coupled with a gross amount of expendable income athletes have (Torre, P, 2009). It can be assessed that a number of former athletes fail to find perspective when they are gambling, they don’t fully understand the financial damage they are doing to themselves. There is a distinct need in the professionally sporting community of America to break this cycle of players gambling beyond their means and ending up with nothing or having to resort to illegal activities just to get by in life. But when players such as Charles Barkley who have gambled away millions of dollars (ESPN.com), are now the face of media organisations and openly state that they don’t care about their loses are still justifying that way of life, what chance to the next group of sporting superstars have. This situation is relevant for all athletes not just those from the United States.

Brendan Fevola
One of the AFL’s most talented yet controversial players, Fevola has battled with his addiction to gambling for much of his career. It can be stated that Fevola has made an incredible amount of mistakes in his personal life which in the end dramatically impacted upon his professional career. A driving force beyond many of these mistakes was his risk taking and addictive personality, which Fevola openly admits. Gambling was a central part or Fevola’s life, this lead to the accumulation of massive debts, the breakdown of his marriage, his dismissal from two football clubs and sadly a failed attempt on his life (Balym, T, 2011). Fevola’s debts were said to exceed $200,000, with his gambling habits of betting thousands on horse racing and poker were standard to him, he knew no better (Rothfield, P, 2010). Had Brendan been further educated and monitored in terms of his personal spending he may not have faced the issues he has so far in his life. The management of professional sportsmen is key to not only their success but also the success of the sport they are involved in. Fevola was the face of the AFL for all the wrong reasons throughout his career. Had he earlier in his career has some form of financial management system in place he may not have spent these amounts of money on the high risk high reward activity of gambling.

Recommendations/Conclusion
It can been seen that the impact the gambling and the various forms of corruption and addiction it leads to, provides no benefit other than the financial injections through various marketing and promotional partnerships. The detrimental effect of gambling is sure to increase unless a wide range of strictly governed regulations and policies are implemented across all sporting codes. Many organisations already have regulations in place but unfortunately these haven’t seemed to deter players and officials from breaching these gambling based laws. The use of harsher penalties like in the Pakistan Cricket Case may be the path organisations need to go down to deter these illegal dealings. Social responsibility is key to the successful and even relationship of sport and gambling. This can be achieved through creating limitations on exposure of betting agencies and their product through the use of promotion as well as scaling back the involvement of technology as a marketing tool. The latter will prove the most difficult to monitor but not impossible, as the current trend toward social media is only bound to increase. Education is also essential for players, with the use of financial management and other avenues of guidance to ensure that a player’s financial wellbeing is taken care of particularly after their professional sporting life. In closely, gambling is a time honoured part of sport and with the proper regulation and control it can continue to remain that way, as long as everything possible is done to ensure that the integrity of sport, it’s players and officials remains intact so that we may enjoy the many games we love.

Video Presentation
A short video presentation has been made to accompany this paper. It can be seen using the link below, enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pch0fTeSFYU

title: User:Matt Irons/BPS2011 Essay


text:
User:Liam Kelly/Tennis in Australia- Where has it gone wrong? A look at the Downfalls of Australia’s once most successful sport and an eye to the future

'''Tennis in Australia- Where has it gone wrong? A look at the Downfalls of Australia’s once most successful sport and an eye to the future''' Tennis in Australia has been an institution for over a hundred years now with the popularity of the sport; then known as Lawn Tennis originating from the British Influence. Since these early beginnings the game of Tennis has gained remarkably in popularity throughout the country to the point at which Australia now hosts one of only four grand slam tournaments in the world. Over the past decade though, it has become noticeable that the effectiveness of Australian Tennis has declined with the output of elite professional players in both men’s and women’s world class competitions. Also severe destabilisation has occurred in the administration of the game with controversial appointments along with infighting which has severely damaged the once thriving administration model. This article will look at a history of the once successful breeding ground for elite players that was Australian Tennis and look at both the governance issues that have managed to affect the effectiveness of the game, both on and off the court. A focus on the business element of Tennis Australia’s (TA) functions will also be made, looking as to how Tennis Australia is now a big business organisation and what role the Australian open plays in the profitability of the TA brand.

Here is a link to my presentation:http://www.archive.org/details/bps2011

Introduction
Since word of a new game known as lawn tennis made it through to Australia in the late 1800’s, the nation has fallen in love with the sport, to the point where it has become a staple of the Australian culture. This love for the game has most definitely transferred to the success of so many Australian players throughout the years, with many of the games greats including Margaret Court and Rod Laver coming from our own ‘backyard’. Although in recent years the amount of ‘world-class’ talent being produced by Australia is severely declining to the point where in recent years Australia has had a singular men’s player in the top 100 professional players of the world, in comparison to the French who have consistently had six or more men in the Top 100 at any single time over the last few years. Statistics show that tennis is still in the top 10 for sport and recreation in terms of participation rates so the question must be asked, where are the elite tennis players? This article aims to uncover the reasons as to why the high rate of participation in the game does not equate to elite talent, along with looking at the current administrative structure and uncovering what has faltered of this once incredibly effective model. Also an insight into the business that is tennis in Australia will be highlighted, looking at how the sport has become a part of the professional sporting landscape.

History of Tennis in Australia
Although an exact date is unknown, it is believed that tennis first came to Australia in the early to mid 1800’s, with the game then known as lawn tennis gaining popularity off the fact that many British were taking up the sport back in the homeland and word quickly spread to the colony of Australia and from then on the game took off. The first recorded tournament of tennis in Australia happened in 1880 at Melbourne Cricket Club Courts. The first form of governance of tennis in Australia was formed in 1904 and was known as the Australasian Lawn Tennis Association (ALTA), the following year the first national competition was created, known as the Australasian Men’s Championships, a historic occasion as this event would be later known as The Australian Open. The first national women’s competition of this kind was formed in 1922, marking an important step in tennis in Australia. As popularity of the sport grew, so did the talents of our national players, and by the 1960’s Australia had some of the most talented group of individuals to ever compete in world tennis. Legends of the game such as Ken Rosewall, Rod Laver, John Newcombe and Margaret Court were all dominant players of the 1960’s winning the Australian, French and U.S Open’s along with dominating the ever prestigious Wimbledon Championships. Since the glory days of the 1960’s and early 1970’s Australian tennis has competed admirably on the world stage, producing a constant flow of talent who could match it with the world’s best, most recently these players include Pat Rafter, Mark Philippoussis, Lleyton Hewitt and Australia’s most recent Grand Slam winner, Sam Stosur. At a participation level, tennis has always been a popular sport for all age groups, with many children playing in competitions and undertaking coaching and many adults and even elderly persons taking up the game at a social level. With its ability to encompass participation by all age groups and gender, tennis has been etched into the fabric of Australian sporting culture.

Decline in the elite Australian Tennis Players Competing on the world stage
In recent years it has become apparent that there is a severely lacking amount of Australian players competing on the world stage in the WTA tournaments. Whilst there is still a small group of players consistently performing well such as Sam Stosur and Lleyton Hewitt there is not enough depth coming from the junior ranks to support them. So the question must be asked, why are Australian players faltering? This debate has been raised over the last year or two by many of the Australian tennis’ most influential figures and came to a dramatic climax after ABC’s Four Corners (http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20100301/tennis/) investigated the obvious disharmony in both the development area of Tennis Australia and the political issues that were happening in the administration at the time of the investigation. These political issues that have troubled TA will be raised further into the article. Four Corners found that there was a “my way or the highway” style of approach by TA and its development programs, with talented players being forced rather than encouraged to move to the Australian Institute of Sport to train and play with other talented players and be coached by several experts of the game rather than just one. Scholarships were offered by TA for players who would uproot their lives and move to Canberra to train where as those who chose not to move were not given the opportunity of monetary help even though they had the same, and at times more chance of succeeding at an elite level. This clear inequality in development ranks must not be tolerated simply because a player is hesitant to leave home and a coach who they were accustomed and programmed to. It is essential for all prospective junior talent to be nurtured and embraced by TA so that they are given every opportunity to succeed as the more players that are challenging the world’s best, the better state the game will be in Australia. Recent Participation figures show that Tennis is in a healthy state in terms of participation, with it being in front of soccer for gross number of participants. (http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/4177.0Main%20Features52009-10?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=4177.0&issue=2009-10&num=&view=) What needs to be taken into account when interpreting these figures, is that they do not highlight the different demographics that participate in the sport and recreation activities listed. As tennis is very accessible to adults and the elderly as it can be played at a less physically demanding rate than a sport such as soccer, this could well explain why the figures show a higher rate of participants than sports like soccer. This then highlights and obvious need for TA offer tennis in a larger capacity to children in a younger capacity than what it currently is, such as offering school clinics for children to try tennis and hopefully pursue the game in a larger capacity from then on.

Tennis Australia Political Issues
Tennis Australia has usually had a harmonious and relatively uncontroversial administration, with the former President of TA, Geoff Pollard having a 20 year reign of the position until last years retirement. As spoken about previously, a Four Corners investigation which aired on March 1 2010 uncovered a story of backroom deals and various conflicts of interest involving TA officials. The first political issue which was uncovered was the November 2009 vote at the Annual General Meeting to elect a President for the following year, where Geoff Pollard the incumbent at the time was being challenged for the first time in several years by former player Paul McNamee who had support from several former and current players. It was found that various voting members such as Tennis Victoria and Tennis Western Australia were warned off voting for Paul McNamee, firstly by John Newcombe who previously went to school Geoff Pollard, and more extraordinarily by Russell Caplan the Chairman of the Melbourne Olympic Parks Trust (MOPT) (http://www.mopt.com.au/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1/) who warned Tennis Victoria that a vote for McNamee could severely jeopardise the proposed multi million redevelopment (http://www.mopt.com.au/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-36/46_read-21/) of Melbourne Park. It can be noted that Geoff Pollard was also a member of the MOPT. This represents clear back room tactics and conflicts of interest coming into play with a pending election, and as this comes to light the integrity of not only the individuals involved in the election, but the whole administration of TA is jeopardised. Another issue explored was the appointment of Todd Woodbridge as the TA Head of Men’s Tennis and Davis Cup Coach. The fact that Woodbridge had many side projects such as commentating during the Australian Open and a spokesperson for a car company means that there is the worry with so many other commitments, Woodbridge would not be able to complete the requirements of his job to his highest capacity. Especially during the Australian Open when each day during the tournament he is contracted to Channel Seven, as this makes him less accessible to the male Australian players competing in the tournament, which his role as head of men’s tennis dictates he should be.

The Business of Tennis
Tennis Australia has gradually transformed from a primarily volunteer based association to a multimillion dollar professional sporting association with Revenue just below $160,000,000 for the 2010-11 financial year. This figure represents how huge the Tennis Industry is in Australia and also how important the roles of Tennis Australia are in developing the game throughout the country. The organisation has nine business units under the President Steve Healy and CEO Steve Wood, those units being, Commercial, Tennis, Communications, Human Resources, Legal and Melbourne Park Redevelopment, Finance and Administration, Marketing and Information Technology. These nine business units are represented by currently 201 staff along with various casual employees, mainly in the tennis area. TA has various commercial agreements which bring in much needed revenue, most notably ‘Optus’ and ‘Wilson’ along with government sponsorships from the Australian Sports Commission and the Australian Paralympic Commission. These sponsorship agreements help fund the various activities that the business units of TA undertake. According to the 2010-11 Annual Report (http://issuu.com/tennisaustralia/docs/ta2010-2011annualreport?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222), around 38% of all revenue made by TA came directly from ticket sales and another 24% from TV rights, both these sources of revenue directly relate to the Australian Open as the TV rights deal is mostly involved in broadcasting the tournament. This highlights how important the Australian Open is to the running of organisation as it is the showcase event of Tennis in Australia and reflects on how well the TA organisation is run. Not only does the Australian Open reflect the TA organisation and act as a major revenue raiser, it also acts as a major driver of participation rates for the upcoming year in community and junior tennis.

Conclusion
This paper shows that more flexibility must be shown to both talented players and their coaches, as for some players feedback can be best given by one distinctive individual who have a unified goal rather than several coaches giving different feedback. Also an increased level of tennis programs to primary aged school children must be given to ensure that they are at least given the opportunity to enjoy and pursue the game of tennis. As for the political issues that have happened in the TA ranks, clear conflicts of interest such as Todd Woodbridge’s situation must be rectified because if you choose to take up a high importance job such as his, you must be committed for the full year, not miss two of the most important weeks of the year because of another lucrative contractual agreement. This paper also gave an insight into the importance of the Australian Open and commercial sponsorships to the business side of TA, and if political factors come to light such as they did on March 1 2010, commercial sponsorships and the integrity of the organisation can come into jeopardy.