This September, the reason footy fans will fill the MCG won't be thanks to astute management by the AFL suits, but the fans' love of the game's traditions.
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Ditto the recent World Cup finals, where the toxic smell coming from FIFA head office would have killed off most living things.
But what happens when the stench from a sporting event comes from its own genesis?
That's what you have with the competition formerly known as the Empire Games. There's no escaping the uneasy symbolism of the Commonwealth Games, and thankfully some Aussie athletes are doing their bit for historic accuracy in Glasgow via their fists and ill-tempered comments.
Empire remains a tough concept to market. Even if Emanuel Phillips Fox's 1902 painting of Captain Cook's landing at Botany Bay were altered to depict the Captain's selfie photobombed by a curious blackfella, the awful truth of what followed remains.