Don’t sell your soul to China: Malthouse

Coaching legend has urged the AFL to permanently abandon the Port Adelaide-St Kilda Shanghai match.

St Kilda’s Rowen Marshall and Port’s Paddy Ryder during the match in Shanghai last year Picture: Getty Images

Coaching legend Mick Malthouse has urged the AFL to turn its back on China and permanently abandon the Port Adelaide-St Kilda Shanghai match because of the country’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Malthouse, the game’s longest-serving coach, said returning to play games in China was “the last thing” the league should be doing.

To return to the communist nation to play matches would be selling football’s soul, the three-time premiership coach added.

The Australian government has joined the US in calling for an inquiry into the origins of the deadly virus — believed to have originated in a Wuhan wet market.

Malthouse said he would be “very, very reluctant” to play a game in a country that “has put us in this position”.

“In the present predicament, and what’s come out with the spat between Australia and China and probably most of the world, let’s face it, certainly the Americans … I’d be very, very reluctant to go back to China,” he told The Australian.

“You can’t sell your soul.

“They’re only going to be going there for one reason (money) — you sell your soul.

“The last thing we need to do is sell our soul, and I think most people are seeing that. I’m not anti-Chinese. Am I anti-Chinese government? Yes I am. Any regime that suppresses free opinion, free voice, free religion automatically riles me.

“But I don’t think we should be seen to be selling our soul to a regime that clearly has different values than we do.”

The AFL has staged three matches at Jiangwan Stadium in China since 2017, involving Port Adelaide, Gold Coast and more recently St Kilda, which were attended by government and business officials from both countries.

The league has previously claimed that it is a “break even” exercise and that “no dollars” are taken from other areas of the game to fund it.

Port — which initiated its “China Strategy” in 2014 — walked away with about $1 million from last year’s venture, as did St Kilda, which agreed to sell its Round 11 “home” game to Port Adelaide and the Chinese super city.

Both clubs are contracted to play there in 2021 and now face the task of finding ways to make up the shortfall.

Broadcasters pay an estimated $500,000 to produce and televise the game — five times more than a standard home-and-away match — on top of TV rights fees.

Games proposed for Los Angeles and India would have incurred similar production costs.

The league also opened an office in Shanghai where it said two full-time staff would be housed.

Malthouse has long advocated for grassroots football to take precedence over international jaunts, and said that the coronavirus could be a “wake-up call”.

Additional reporting: Glenn McFarlane