Crash Craddock: Australian Government made right call on deporting Novak Djokovic

The world is in crisis. Australians are becoming ground down by isolation and financial suffering. Entitlement is a dirty word. The Novak Djokovic saga never should have come to this.

Justice has been done. Novak Djokovic had to go. Not just for tennis but for all of sport.

If Djokovic had stayed in Australia it would have been a victory for loophole logic, preferential treatment, fame over fairness.

Justice has caught up with the man who gamed the system. The man who can remember shots he played 10 years ago but somehow forgot he was in Spain last month.

This decision should be a watershed moment for sport because it sends the message that enough is enough.

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Athletes can get the jab or catch the cab – there should be nothing in between.

The world is in crisis. In Australia the masses are becoming ground down by isolation and financial suffering. Entitlement is becoming a dirty word.

Australia got to the right decision eventually but there is no sense this is a moment of triumph for the government or anyone else connected with it because it should never have come to this.

The Immigration Minister has decided to cancel Novak Djokovic’s visa for a second time. Picture: AFP

Tennis Australia tried to frame a loophole specifically for Djokovic to play in the event.

TA has no need to apologise for their desperation to lure the game’s No.1 player to an event where he could have taken the title as the sport’s greatest Grand Slam winner away from Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

Had that moment happened in Melbourne it would have been enshrined in tennis highlights forever as one of the sport’s most significant moments.

But that doesn’t mean there should be one rule for Djokovic (and a couple of others) and one rule for the rest.

The Djokovic controversy hijacked the Australian Open. Players were reluctant to talk. Great stories like the return of Wimbledon winner Ash Barty have been underplayed.

People say Australia will be seen as a nanny state in many countries overseas but who really cares?

And don’t underestimate the recent change in sentiment.

When Djokovic was given an airport grilling on arrival public sentiment shifted in his direction.

For the first time in his career many felt pangs of sympathy for him and cries of “just let him play’’ were coming from voices big and small and it’s true that his Open matches would have been unmissable theatre.

But the revelation that he failed to declare his prior travel on arrival documents, the fact he circulated with children while supposedly still awaiting PCR test results and then did a media interview knowingly Covid positive were bridges too far.

The public tide turned. A News Corp online poll of more than 61,000 votes had a stunning 84 per cent in favour of deportation.

Had there not been a federal election looming who knows whether the government would have been so bold.

They crunched the numbers and the message was clear. It was time to take a stand.