That's some imagination you have there, onthebeach.

>>Carlton United Breweries and Cricket Australia are too smart to volunteer as targets for the activism of the politically correct. Imagine the *bleep* stirring and online petitions of the serially upset if they had done otherwise. Especially in an election year where protest parties are desperate to find grievances for headlines.<<

There is no way that CUB would have been forced into a situation where they would have to insist on the player's de-selection. Business simply does not work that way, as anyone associated with club sponsorship can explain to you.

Nor would they withdraw sponsorship from the team, simply because one player declined, for personal reasons, to sport their logo. Take for example the situation with Hashim Amla of South Africa, currently top of the ICC batting rankings in both Tests and ODI, who asked Castle Brewery if he could be exempted from precisely the same logo-wearing requirement.

"He is a man who stands up for what he believes in and as a believer in the Muslim faith, he proved this when he appealed against having a team sponsor, an alcohol brand, embroidered on his kit. However, there was no big hoo-hah or toys thrown when Amla opposed it, no fireworks or arguments, just pure grounded class. Castle Lager accepted his request and Amla does not carry the logo on any of his South African apparel."

http://clearcricket.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/hashim-amla-and-the-south-african-race-conundrum/

No fuss. No bother. And that was back in 2010.

I would wager that it was exactly the same at CUB. All parties concerned come out as winners.

Pericles,

Humility and fact require me to giver any credit for "imagination" as you say to you because it is your invention not mine that puts words in my mouth.

Show me where I ever wrote or inferred this, "CUB would have been forced into a situation where they would have to insist on the player's de-selection" or that CUB would withdraw sponsorship.

I reckon it is you yourself who doesn't understand how risk management works and what treatments senior management might rely on first and foremost. Simply put, the risk where activists are concerned is embarrassment and its effect on the public's perception of the company. Management is required to waste valuable hours on the media circus.

That happens regardless of the rights or more usually the wrongs and misstatements of activists. Activists know this, which is why the usual modus operandi of the usual suspects is to use media hacks to build a storm fast. Sensationalism that gives a headline, whereas later as it becomes very obvious that their case was flaky in the extreme, there is no retraction from the activists (Retraction? Say what?) and the real facts are relegated to page six, a tiny column.

In this case it was far more effective and easier for CUB management to give the likely media sensationalism the big swerve from the start, a side-step, by not taking a ticket for the game (and it is a game) in the first place. Why give attention-seeking activists a leg in?

Well done senior management, step up fast and deny the publicity seekers, the professional activists and protest party, a foothold. The activists who constantly whinge about 'corporate media'/'MSM', but are adept at manipulating the media. For the hacks and current affairs shows, it is all about making the news. Again, the activists take advantage of that.

Just as well Fawad Ahmed wasn't a member of the Independent Order of Rechabites and had made the same request... there's no knowing what the Brotherhood (that's the International Temperance Brotherhood, BTW) might have done if it had been refused.

Regards, Certificate of Abstinance, IOR Victorian Branch Recipient, 1965, WmTrevor

WmTrevor,

That rather depends on whether the IOR is recognised by the ratbag political correctness of the 'Progressives' wouldn't you think?

Political correctness, 'Winning the Culture War'

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/charltonhestonculturalwar.htm

It would appear that we are only discussing motivation here, onthebeach.

>>In this case it was far more effective and easier for CUB management to give the likely media sensationalism the big swerve from the start, a side-step, by not taking a ticket for the game (and it is a game) in the first place. Why give attention-seeking activists a leg in?<<

You say they avoided the problem out of fear of adverse publicity.

I say they accepted the request with good grace, and acted accordingly.

I'd be interested to hear whether you have any basis for your assessment - or is it merely a reflection of how you would react in their position?

"I say they accepted the request with good grace..."

Would that be WG Grace?