Talk:John O'Neill (businessman)

NPOV
This page needs some serious WP:NPOVing. Jpeob 07:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Not in my opinion. It was superlative until you attempted to rename soccer football. Where were you when this page needed expansion? But you do not like a fair and balanced approach? well make fair changes but do not corrupt it, because it is all cited. --Ehinger222 07:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Ehinger222, your edits reek of POV. Also I have never heard any of those nicknames used for John O'Neil.Tancred 09:11, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Use of footnotes, NPOV problems
G'day. Quite a number of claims on this page are unfounded and plainly unencyclopedic. Namely these:
 * "he also offended many in the rugby union community with his extravagant approach."
 * "he was whiteanted from within the ARU by Flowers, Kilip and others who had gradually made their positions within the organisation more powerful." - '''This is an especially disturbing addition as the source cited to supposedly support this claim (here), does not mention him being "whiteanted", let alone "undermined" and there is no mention of a Kilip. Such claims are unfounded, and, really, make it hard for me to assume the good faith of certain editors.
 * "Rugby Union has since declined in Australia"
 * "Many have criticised his tenure despite its economic success as destroying the fabric of Australian Rugby Union"
 * "Soccer Australia was at that point creating debts of over A$16 million a year and its national competition had an average attendance of little more than 4000"
 * "Among continually publicly attempting to demean it (Rugby League), his competitions have been based in a deliberate attempt to undermine support for Rugby League in Australia." - '''This is yet another bad faith addition. The Source supposedly supporting this claim, yet again, does not even mention John O'Neill, let alone some concerted attempt to destroy or even give bad remarks towards Rugby League. In my opinion, this is not in good faith, and as such I have removed the link and the claim.
 * "O'Neill offended many duing his tenure as head of the Australian Rugby Union making increasingly bizarre claims about rugby union's international reach, which is qualitively very weak, and also very limited." - this claim is also unfounded, and certainly not WP:NPOV - offended? - bizarre? - weak? - limited?:
 * "He was also accused of plotting when he suggested that there was nothing stopping rugby league from rejoining rugby union, suggesting that rugby league was nothing more than a game that began when a few guys in a pub made a deal and was accused by some of plotting against Rugby league in Australia." - this needs a legitimate source.
 * "He attended St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill, which might explain his animosity. Joeys has a strict policy refusing to allow the game of Rugby League to be played" - if they do not play it, does it mean there is a strict policy?... this is unsourced yet again.

I will endeavour to clean up some of these claims, or try to verify them if I can. I ask all editors to try to do the same and remember to write from a neutral point of view, and try to write with good faith so that we can assume that very same faith and have a better community for it.

Further, it would also help if editors did not merely revert back to their own last version, but look constructively at the additions and changes of others.

Cheers, Jpeob 06:19, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * "Among continually publicly attempting to demean it (Rugby League), his competitions have been based in a deliberate attempt to undermine support for Rugby League in Australia." - This is yet another bad faith addition.
 * This article was discussing the link between football and Irish-Australians at one point, it did not have to do specifically with his animosity, but to do wth the fact that paddys traditionally support football in Sydney so therefore it is strange that he would not. Your claims of bad faith are all mostly similar to this and I would encourage you to rewrite your objections. It is compulsory to play either Union or soccer at private schools, football is not permitted etc. etc. etc. He made many references to Union having an International stage. A bizarre claim when New Zealand are the best in the world and Union's sphere is only slightly larger than footballs. He was accused of plotting by www.concreteboots.com but that site has since collapsed. His extravagant approach was noted in some of the articles there, claims of the world cup becoming the "john O'neill show". His sport's administrationship has been based on attacking football's traditional areas, if Wollongong get in the A-League, that will be 4 teams in NSW against only one in every other state. I did not see the need to reiterate it. RU has gone down in the Sweeney support, which I know is a discreditable organisation, but it has gone down everywhere else too, cable ratings etc. t.v. ratings- the Kangaroos game are now rating higher in last year's football tri nations.He was whiteanted, he controlled the whole organisation but essentially had his control seized from him by places that nevr formally existed within the organisation. Ehinger222 08:54, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I you suggest you get out and travel a little more before trying to state "Union's sphere is only slightly larger than (Rugby League)". League gets almost no print media coverage in the UK, and in Scotland I have not seen the game mentioned.  Rugby on the other hand gets a lot of coverage, though a lot less than football.  In Europe the game played with the egg shaped ball is Rugby, not Rugby League. A quick trawl of wikipedia shows some of the national League teams are made up of Australian's, hardly showing how strong the game is locally.Tancred 19:50, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * see here is part of the animosity to football link


 * Here is a good example of the animosity created by the exaggerated claims of RU to being international http://www.concreteboots.com/league.htm NB this is strictly domestic and does not include super12. NRL is now also much more popular now with average attendance in excess of 17000 in 2005.


 * This was former Australian football captain Gorden Tallis responding to O'Neill[]. Notice the game never took place and RU ran scared. Ehinger222 09:05, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand your point. However, Please remember that Wikipedia is not the place to engage in ideological disputes however, but an encyclopedia based on simple rules. It is not a Publisher of Original Thought nor a soapbox. Thanks, Jpeob 09:30, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * i've half a mind to go through and delete a whole bunch of this text. it's not about john o'neill at all, it's about pushing a point of view. Dibo 23:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This is a fair and balanced encyclopedic reference to John O'Neill. His character needs to be discussed because it was influential to his sacking from the ARU. Oh and please stop trying to call soccer football. Wikipedia adheres to most commen usage. So by all means, add to it, but do not delete it in an ignorant haste. p.s. what pov is being pushed? that O'Neill is renowned for his talents with the business side of sport bringing him both success and dislike? That is commenly accepted. Ehinger222 14:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * 'Oh and please stop trying to call soccer football. Wikipedia adheres to most commen usage.' - surf the pages, it's called 'football', or 'football (soccer)', so your common usage claim is bunk. quit pushing a wagon.

and terms like 'renowned' and 'commenly [sic] accepted' are not encyclopaedic. you don't look something up in an encyclopaedia to read 'everybody knows that $$x$$' because that simply means the author thinks $$x$$ and wants readers to think everyone else does too. third party verifiable claims or nothing. Dibo 23:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

POV etcetera
Tancred, your edits reek of pov. Soccer is the commen usage term in Sydney for soccer and football is the commen use term in Sydney for Rugby League.

Secondly, there is nothing ideological here, just a record of O'Neill's animosity to Rugby League. I am not the creater or contributer to that site, but it is a record of the animosity that he created among football supporters.

Thirdly I have no soapbox or point I wish to pursue, all I hope for is a fair and balanced article. There is a lot more that needs to be admitted considering the huge effect that he has had on Australian sport, like firstly that he was a bank manager, secondly his ARU tenureship was from 1995 to 2003 and oversaw the ARU's growth as a rival to Rugby League and AFL, thirdly his style of management and directorship etc. etc. which are widely documented.

Ehinger222 12:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Football is Football and Rugby league is Rugby League. Go and look at the official names, or the usage in the media.Tancred 19:38, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Usage in the media? You will notice in the daily telegraph (which has the highest circulation in Sydney) that it is soccer []. The Sydney Morning Herald changed it last November to call soccer football when Alan Oakley took it over. But you will notice that he is an English immigrant [] and so it is therefore useless to use that as an estimation of anything but the decadence of capitalism and foreign imperialism. This guy wants an Anglo monoculture to replace Australian multiculturalism and Australian football, so he is useless. Channel Nine refers to it as "friday night football". The vast majority of media usage sure as hell does not call soccer football, but refers to rugby league as 'football'.

Official names? [] It was only 20 years ago that the football was dropped as part of Rupert Murdoch's influence on football. This however was only dropped as a marketing name however, and they still retain the rights to the term "australian rugby football league". As you will notice 2/3 of the way down this page under criteria for coaches from the official Work in UK page [].

Most junior clubs in Sydney are JRLFC. [] [] [] [] []

Even the women's clubs call it football [].

The official name is RL football or football administered by the Rugby League and played to their rules. I could go on with these links to infinity but why bother...

In England, the official name is [] rugby football league. Clubs like Hull FC play football by the rules of the Rugby League.

In Sydney, noone but an angry, thankfully small and aggressive Anglo monoculture refer to soccer as football. It is Rugby League that is referred to as football or "footy".

And John O'Neill changing it does not make it different. Ehinger222 13:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I lived in Sydey for 20 years and League was the common term. Your pushing of your idea that Alan Oakley is the person you should blame for the change at the SMH is interesting. I'm sure he also somehow convinced SBS, ABC, Foxtel, Sportal, NineMSN, Yahoo and others to use the term football. I also suggest you look for your "Football Fever" in Tuesdays daily telegraph. Tancred 12:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I have lived in Sydney my whole life and "league" is only a term used by white collars and professionals. Everyone calls it football. Nobody calls soccer football except for a tiny minority that has emerged in the past half year. Certainly not nommen usage. ABC has a policy of calling a sport by what its administration wants to call it. Foxtel owns the t.v. rights, hardly a creditable source for commen usage. Nine as you saw also calls football football. You soccer guys should stop pushing such a blatent agenda. Ehinger222 08:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Linking problems
I think the problem with my links were from how they were presented by Tancred's edits which diluted their original usage. I implore tha you set them up Jpoeb against my original version and I am sure that they will make better sense. Ehinger222 12:38, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Unjustified Reverting
It seems that Ehinger has just reverted this page back to your version of 01:59, 12 August 2006, before my and other's' changes to the page due to legitimate concerns. This is unacceptable without discussion on the talk page as you have previously advocated. Such unfounded action - "Look I can think that we can all agree that this version is better, and O'Neil is a fat cat" - is not in the interests of Consensus. Jpe|ob 12:46, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I just reverted back to the consensus page. We must all make sure that 3RR is not breached, however difficult that may be. Jpe|ob 12:50, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Look my point was that Tancred had destroyed the validity of the links and I was trying to show you that. Look through them before the corruption and I am sure they will make more sense. NB Tancred's edits need a massive NPOV re-edit. I will explain each of your objections very soon. Ehinger222 21:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I did not "destroy" any links, I changed your links to the shorter link style. I find your POV comments rather interesting.  I have used the official name of the sport/sporting body and corrected some broken wikilinks.Tancred 22:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Big Edit
have just given the article a big going over. there was much that was not NPOV, or sourced, or even syntactically or typographically correct. the article is therefore trimmed quite a bit, for anything going back in there should be sources attached. this is not assuming bad faith, this is simply in recognition of the fact that we're talking about a living person here about whom we need to be careful to not provide false or misleading information (this includes skewed information based on pushing a particular POV). cheers, Dibo 00:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Your sanctimony is admirable. I will go through from the grossly flawed current copy to seek to change it for the better. p.s. I remember that O'Neill fell out with George Gregan badly. After the defeat of the All blacks in 2003 WC semis, O'Neill was so happy he hugged many Wallabies players and later whoever was hugged had to scull a beer. His extrvagant approach is well documented. You soccer people who are trying to rewrite his history because he is now the soccer administrater have to understand this. Ehinger222 11:01, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * there are two things that need to be shown before that goes in -


 * verifiable truth - this means you need more than to say it's "well documented", and;
 * demonstrable relevance to what is essentially a mini-biography - if it's simply trivia then i don't think it's got much of a place, other than perhaps under a specific trivia heading.

from my eyes, i'm really happy to see the content be added to, i just want to see the article be _good_ rather than _big_ and i especially don't really want to see material aimed at a particular conclusion Dibo 11:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Merchant banker
[]- Reference to his career as a merchant banker. Where his nickname the merchant comes from.

You will notice here that he was soccer association chief before he dubiously created the title of "football federation" to the revolt of most Aussies. [] Therefore it should state that he was picked up by soccer Australia and the heading should be soccer.

His bias against football is already documented further up the page.

etc. etc. Ehinger222 11:24, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * ^^and you wonder why people keep reverting your edits for NPOV reasons. wikipedia is not here to cast judgements or put arguments, it's here to report unarguable fact. "john o'neill is the head of the FFA and was the head of the ARU." can go in, "as you can see from this article, this article and this article, john o'neill hates rugby league" can't. Dibo 11:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Page protected
This page is now protected and we need to work the problems out on the talk page. Ehinger222, just reverting the page to your original edits does not help develop the topic. It's very clear you have an axe to grind here. You need to start providing evidence for your claims. For example, the nicknames you claim John O'Neil has. How about some evidence. It in not enough to show the O'neil has been a merchant banker, please show were people are using this term as a nickname. Tancred 11:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

No axe
I have no axe to grind. I think O'Neill's record shows that he is a superb sports administrater. However his dislike of football is well documented. His extravagant style is well documented. His corporatisation approach to sport is well documented. Ehinger222 08:30, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * "well documented" does not cut it for inclusion in wikipedia. present credible, relevant sources or it will be deleted. Dibo 12:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I have already presented sources for the bias against football. This was inexplicably deleted. Ehinger222 13:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Evidence of Kilip
I remember somebody asking about the involvement of Kilip in O"Neill's whiteanting. Here is a reference Ehinger222 14:41, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * ...thanks, but I can't see the word "Kilip" anyway in that said article reference! Jpe|ob 23:59, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are quite right. It would have helped if you had clarified it earlier but that mistake of typing Dilip as Kilip was an incorrect one from me. But perhaps you entirely missed the error yourself and were looking for specifically Kilip. Whatever, it requires inclusion. Ehinger222 10:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * This is all it says about "Dilip":"What goes around, comes around," former Australian Rugby Union chief executive John O'Neill said yesterday from Leipzig, Germany, following the decision by ARU chairman Dilip Kumar to stand down." Jpe|ob 10:19, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

there is Dilip's role defined. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 60.225.216.113 (talk • contribs) 06:35, August 31, 2006.

Age etc amid resignation
After updating the article re: his resignation, i have also added his year of birth and the fact he was head of the state bank...this is sourced in his comment here: :
 * "I was 35 when I took over the State Bank and I'm now 55. It's been a fantastic 20 years of running things and I'd like to continue to run something."

Jpe|ob 11:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

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