Dear Melbourne Victory
This letter was put together by a collective of Victory fans and members who all appeared as signatories on the final version sent to the club.
Dear Melbourne Victory,
We are writing to express how deeply disappointed we are with how the club has managed this year’s Pride Round. We have always considered the club’s involvement in the Pride Cup a point of extreme pride. It’s no secret that homophobia is rife within the football community, and so Victory’s dedication to its enthusiastic involvement in the Pride Cup has been so wonderful to see. However, this year, from the get-go, there was a widespread feeling that the club was starting to drift away from its commitment to the initiative.
The lack of a Pride Kit or Training Kit was the first cause for concern, but the Pride memberships (which many of us still bought) were depressing in how low-effort they were. It was just a rainbow chevron slapped onto some random items, two of which were standard items that came with a women’s membership, which many of us had no interest in paying more money for, only to double up. The T-shirts available on game day felt similarly low-effort and were only available in extremely limited sizes. Of course, some of us still chose to purchase these offerings as we are all too aware that if they don’t sell, they will stop being offered. Especially since it appears that, as each year passes, less and less is being done by the club to celebrate the Pride Cup.
There was also a lack of social media and email marketing advertising that it was Pride Round; instead, most marketing focused solely on the original rivalry. Several fellow fans told us they had no idea it was Pride Round until they saw Adelaide’s kits! (More on that later.)
Furthermore, the one email that members received that advertised ‘what’s on’ at the Pride Cup listed that there would be Pride Activations - none of us nor the other attendees we spoke to were able to locate any Pride Activations and the Aami Park staff had no knowledge of where these were either. While we tentatively assume they did actually occur, the fact that they were hard to locate or began only after the women’s game was well underway demonstrates a lack of forethought. After all, you must be aware that supporters of the women’s team are some of the most dedicated Pride Cup supporters as well. Ultimately, this gave the impression that, from the outset, the club was trying to minimise the attention given to the Pride Cup so as to not upset homophobic fans.
We are also aware that you made a statement to reporter Joey Lynch that “[your] plans for pride round centred on education sessions and helping players and staff further their understanding and that initial plans were captain armbands only, but the ALW players asked for rainbow numbers which [you] took steps to meet”. Additional statements were also made later that, “The men’s team didn’t ask to not wear [the rainbow kit]” and that these plans [the ALW pride numbers] “had nothing to do with the men’s team”
This statement is so deeply disturbing on several levels.
Education regarding pride, diversity and inclusion is the bare minimum that you should be doing every single year regardless, not ‘for Pride round’ – and choosing to focus ONLY on ‘in house’ education feels like a convenient way to excuse the lack of proper pride round celebrations, since the only thing planned happened behind closed doors and was only shared once online.
It is heartbreaking to know our ALW team had to ask for the rainbow numbers themselves because the club's plans were so minimal. Particularly given the fact that we have a number of openly ‘out’ players on the team, who presumably would want to properly celebrate the Pride Cup. Additionally, to not have the men’s team wear the rainbow numbers feels absurd and disrespectful. We are ONE club, and the vast majority of homophobia in football comes from the fans of the men’s team – the fine we paid in 2022 for the homophobic harassment of Josh Cavallo by Victory fans and the homophobic behaviour at this weekend's Shepperton NPL game, which included active and banned NT members and leaders, is perfect testament to that. This highlights the importance of the men’s team also wearing pride numbers to show they stand against these so-called fans and alongside both our women’s team and the wider LGBTQ+ community.
Despite your aforementioned comments, it’s clear that a decision was made to allow the women’s team to wear the pride numbers and the lack of a decision to have the men’s team follow suit is in itself a decision to have them not wear it. Even in the unlikely event the club had not previously considered it, when the women’s team told the club why wearing the pride numbers was so important to them, the club had the opportunity to recognise the importance of both teams standing united in this as BOTH senior teams competed for the Pride Cup trophy. This is also particularly embarrassing and disrespectful to our opposition since both Adelaide United squads fully committed properly to the Pride round, despite it not even being their home game.
To have only the women wear the pride numbers gives the impression that the club and the men’s team care more about getting backlash from ‘fans’ for being seen as a LGBTQ+ allies than they care about ending homophobia within football. We understand that there are often religious objections which (as many other sports do) can easily be respected by allowing those players to peacefully exclude themselves from selection for that game and not face any punishment from the club for doing so – since any objection to wearing the rainbow kits would surely mean these players would not feel comfortable even playing in a Pride Cup anyway.
Additionally, the club also made the statement to Joey Lynch that “nobody from the men’s side sought to prevent or voiced concern with the clubs efforts on pride” – which implies that there was no religious concerns that needed to be accounted for anyway.
It has also come to light through numerous sources that certain members of the North Terrace made it clear online and to the club that they would boycott the game to prove their rejection of ‘wokeness’ and ‘politics’ in sport – hence their decision to attend the aforementioned NPL game instead of a massive original rivalry clash with their ‘Ultras no Politics’ and ‘No more gimmicks! Soccer not circus’ signs.
While we have no doubt the club will deny our suspicions, this boycott coupled with the club’s inaction lead us to believe that the minimised recognition and effort into the Pride Cup was an attempt to appease this section of the North Terrace despite their homophobic vitriol. Any claim you may make that reducing the celebrations was for the sake of LGBTQ+ fan safety will not be acceptable, because in distancing so much from the Pride Cup the club has ensured that games will be less safe for LGBTQ+ fans going forth because this all makes it clear you don’t have our back. These fans have made it clear they believe they have ‘won’ and have bullied the club out of supporting the initiative that you actively initiated participation in.
On top of all this, at the game on the weekend a group of signatories to this letter were sat at the North End (where they elect to sit every double header) and had security come warn them to move. This is their statement regarding the incident -
“To be clear, the members of security management did not force us to move, were very kind, but were very openly concerned for our safety once members of the North Terrace arrived. They informed us that despite BEING Victory members, sitting there in Pride gear would make us targets for violence/harassment from certain North Terrace members and that it would be safer if we moved to the South end (which we did). We hold no ill will for the AAMI park security and are grateful they made the right decision and cared enough to help us avoid being targeted. However, it’s embarrassing that the culture within Victory’s active end is so bad that there’s a real fear that fans would physically and verbally attack other Victory members for wearing the Pride Victory kit. This is the culture that has been fostered within the clubs fanbase by a small group of people whose views are not consistent with the large majority of Victory fans (Shown clearly by the fact that the North End still filled up and was active during the men's game, even without these so called ‘leaders’ being present). It is deeply concerning that in attempting to minimise the backlash from this small, vocal and violent minority and by not enthusiastically and vocally throwing yourselves behind the initiative, you have given this group more power”
We want to be extremely clear when we say this. We all love this club, some of us have loved it for many, many years, while for others it’s a more recent love. But regardless of our time spent with the Vuck, we all have in common a deep desire for this club to succeed, for us to play an integral role in the continued growth of our A-League and in turn, Australia’s international football reputation. It is from this love that the deep desire for this club to do better is born.
We are saddened to say that some members are now questioning if it is even safe to continue holding a membership with the club and attend games if the club will not denounce these people and actively work to minimise their power within the NT. These individuals, whose tantrums not only resulted in reduced Pride festivities but who are also actively stunting the growth of this club and the game as a whole in Australia by giving the entire A-League a bad reputation.
We would also like to acknowledge and thank Arthur Diles’ for making the one statement regarding this matter that felt genuine. His recognition that the absence of a certain group of NT supporters/leaders went unnoticed due to how lively both the North and South End still were shows that these toxic individuals are irrelevant and replaceable. Our active fan culture does not thrive because of them but in spite of them, however, spite can only get us so far.
We aren’t interested in hearing any explanations or justifications but we hope this feedback serves as a wake-up call that these half-hearted and insincere money-grabbing attempts at inclusivity will not be accepted. Perhaps a google of the term ‘Pink Washing’ would be helpful. We hope that going forth you keep these concerns in mind. We need real change, and we hope that next time we host the Pride Cup (should we even actually commit to doing so), the club has the strength to enact some.
We will end this letter by being clear about what we'd like to see from Melbourne Victory in the future:
The club initiating both senior teams wearing a proper Pride kit next year
More thought put into Pride merchandise
More visibility of Pride round in member communications and club marketing
More and more visible 'Pride activations'
Education regarding pride, diversity and inclusion as BAU, not just for Pride round
Make it safe for LGBTQ+ fans to sit anywhere in the stadium
Denounce homophobic fans, ban those who cause issues and actually fully enforce those bans.
We know you are well aware of the general public's perception that Victory games are unwelcoming events, rife with violent and unsafe behaviour that the club isn’t doing enough to curb.
It’s sad to think that perhaps the general public’s perceptions are right.
