Port Adelaide Chairman David Koch says Power never agreed to a ‘once and done’ deal to stop wearing the prison bars jumper
Port Chairman David Koch says the Power never entered into a handshake agreement to never wear the prison bars jumper again. TAKE OUR POLL
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Collingwood president Eddie McGuire might rant and rave, but the Port Adelaide Football Club will not sway from its plight to wear the iconic prison bars in future Showdowns.
As tens of thousands of people signed an online petition backing Port’s push to wear the historic guernsey, McGuire called in the lawyers.
“Earlier this year we sat down in good faith, we shook hands and we wished (the Power) all the best and we said, ‘OK, one more go. One home showdown and that’s it’,” McGuire said on Footy Classified this week.
“The AFL own the copyright. I’ve referred it now to the AFL chairman and to the CEO and to the legal department of the AFL.
“They must defend the copyright because that is the central tenant of the commission when we put them in place, otherwise they will be in breach of their own copyright and the constitution of the AFL.”
But Power chairman David Koch the club would deal in facts only, and the facts were that there was no handshake agreement that Port Adelaide would sign a “once and done” agreement on the jumper.
“In fact, the Collingwood Football Club were prepared for Port Adelaide to wear this guernsey in both 2020 Showdowns, on the condition that we would sign off on it being the last time and no more … we refused to sign off on anything preventing us from wearing this guernsey beyond 2020 with ‘the parties agreeing to defer further consideration of that issue to a later point in time’,” Koch said.
“Therefore, we are doing exactly what was agreed, picking up the conversation.”
Koch said there was a 2007 agreement with the AFL that gave Port Adelaide the right to apply to wear the guernsey in games of heritage significance.
“Our belief is that Showdowns are of heritage significance,” he said.
“The climate we’re in and the passion of our people in supporting us through these tough times and the AFL saying we need to recognise our histories and our heritage … we’re simply asking that because this guernsey means so much to our people, that we elevate it to the national stage for two games a year which are of heritage significance to our club and it will only ever be worn in Adelaide and only ever against the Crows.
“I can’t see any issue with it, frankly.”
Port Adelaide’s general manager of football Chris Davies agreed, describing the club’s request as “reasonable”.
“This isn’t club against club, this is about the heritage of the game here in SA and I think that Collingwood, I’m sure people outside of Eddie, are mindful of that,” Davies said.
“You can trademark logos and those sorts of things, but I can’t imagine you can trademark specific colours.”
Koch said the club’s petition – which in the first day had 1000 people sign on every hour – proved that it was not just a noisy minority of supporters who wanted to return of the “bars”
You can sign the petition online.