Will all go quiet on the western front?

Banks collapsing, Kevin Rudd hijacking the start of Neighbours, my brief foray into the share market being totally butchered...

The times are certainly changing, and not for the better.

For some time now we all thought the biggest change confronting the football codes was the much-hyped expansion wars. With economic downturn in the backdrop, and a sheer lack of enthusiasm on the front lines at the forefront, the “wars” may not end up being all they were cracked up to be.

The Gold Coast battleground is still what it was before the recent crisis. The AFL is arguably in too deep and certainly has the cash reserves to support their push. One would assume the same logic applies for Gold Coast United backer Clive Palmer – a billionaire, no less.

However Western Sydney is starting to look more pessimistic.

Football has been inundated with support for bids in Canberra and New South Wales’ South Coast. But the same excitement has not been replicated in the region the FFA desires most, Sydney’s west. At the same time, curiously, a second Melbourne-based team has been rushed through for approval without the same troubles.

The AFL meanwhile, initially pushing for its new Western Sydney club to be introduced at the same time as the Gold Coast, has been having second thoughts. Whilst the “GC17” consortium is now ready to face the AFL Commission, the 18th team is yet to even have such a consortium established.

Of course not knowing what’s around the corner comes hand in hand with the situation the world now finds itself in. But it is seriously hard to imagine, with the economic uncertainty that now lingers, that we’re about to see a resurgence in support for either push.

What is starting to seem more and more likely is that we’ll see the war over Sydney’s west put on the backburner for the time being. The football codes would no doubt love to weather the storm as best they can. Now they have the opportunity.

It seems the only thing standing in their way may be their egos.

After all this year’s hullabaloo over who would win the west, no code wants to be the one to back out first. No code wants to be seen retreating.

This attitude was exposed during the past week, with both the FFA and the AFL announcing to the world they’ll be pushing on. Can’t wait to hear the statement after the next Wall Street collapse…

The other obscure fear that may have to be overcome is that of having an odd number of teams. Both codes don’t deny it gets on their nerves. In times like these, they may just have to deal with it.

The most important thing for both forms of football is that the game’s good standing is not compromised by squabbling over territory they shouldn’t have been anywhere near in the first place.

In a normal world, the push into Western Sydney would be warranted. But this isn’t a normal world anymore.

May the smartest code win.