Koch's response, published in Tuesday's edition of The Advertiser, is below:
Passion is commonly defined as a strong feeling of fondness and enthusiasm toward something you care about. That is exactly what the Port Adelaide community has shown toward their football club since 1870 and it was again shown on Saturday night at AAMI Stadium with our team, for all intents and purposes, heading for defeat.
But as the Power trailed by 41 points midway through the third quarter, not one of us left the stadium. Port Adelaide supporters and members stood by their team chanting and screaming themselves hoarse until their heroes orchestrated a famous victory.
There was no ripping up of seats, obscene behaviour or violent acts in the grandstands. All the Port Adelaide supporters wanted was to play their role in willing their team over the line.
So that is why I, along with the entire Port Adelaide community, took offence to a social media reference on Saturday night, via an AFL smartphone application, labelling our supporters as ‘feral’.
We’re not being thin skinned, we thrive on good natured taunts and we give as good as we get. But we draw the line at the use of “feral” as a general description of us in an official AFL media outlet.
Passion, loyalty and mateship, whether it be toward your football club, your family and friends, your religion, your country, whatever it might be, is so quintessentially Australian. It should be encouraged and embraced and not defined by some vulgar, throwaway reference such as ‘feral’.
We are proud of our club and its long history of success, our development programs of fostering young local talent through our local and junior grades, our vast work in the community (through Power Community) promoting healthy living in schools, our partnerships with charities and our Aboriginal Power Cup program.
This passion is infectious. We’ve had our best start to an AFL season and we’ve broken our previous membership record and we’re on the way to cracking 40,000. People want to be part of the Port Adelaide Football Club because of our passion and, as illustrated by their on-field performance again on Saturday night, our players thrive on this passion.
Passion is something that should be encouraged and embraced and never be denigrated as ‘feral’.
The club was disappointed to learn of the derogatory comments made about its supporters, but accepts the apology from the company responsible - Sportal.
Sportal released the following statement tonight:
Sportal.com.au currently provides the editorial match commentary for all AFL games on the site afl.com.au.
In the Round 5 Port Adelaide versus West Coast game, the text commentator made a comment in relation to Port Adelaide supporters which was outside the current editorial guidelines for this service.
Sportal.com.au wishes to apologise for any offence caused by this posted comment.
James Rushton
Managing Director
