We consider ourselves in Oz to be the leaders in sport, we love smashing the Yanks and the Poms and reminding them of our sweet victories.
From the Americas Cup to the Melbourne Cup, Australia stops and watches as Aussies conquer the world sporting landscape with dignity.
Beyond our greatness and sporting fanfare there is, what I refer to, as a dirty undercurrent of disloyalty in sport trends that has us as the trendsetters in sports disloyalty.
We have released the tranquillity of the noise of the willow crashing the leather ball into the fence for four and replaced it with Logos of companies desperate to resonate within the Australian sporting landscape.
If you are wondering where I’m going with this, I'm referring to the changing role of player agents and the advertising money factor. When you think of the degeneration of sport I think of player movements and these night riders.
However if you take a closer look at the leading sports codes in Australia you notice the problems begin with the clubs themselves. If you watch some of the great clubs around the world you see the pride they place in their uniform.
The New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Lakers have built their franchises around the tradition that is the embodiment of their uniform.
At no place or time does this uniform have a logo of sponsors taking away the integrity of the club.
If you look at the games played in Australia you can't help but notice that betting agencies are increasingly having their name on the uniforms.
It baffles me that clubs who continually talk about children and families and the future of the game continues to play such an appalling role in being a role model to the community.
If you take a closer look at some uniforms you see there might even be up to five sponsors on a jersey and shorts combination.
We often hear about clubs whining about the disloyalty of players these days but you must ask, where are they learning this behaviour?
It's not often I comment that we could learn from the way Americans do things but perhaps in this case we should take notice.
Josh Hinds is a school chaplain and has written sport for Christian Sport since 2010. Josh is an experienced international sports writer.
Josh Hinds is a school chaplain and an experienced international sport writer, now in his 9th year as a Christian Today sport writer.
