Premiers or Champions

While voicing over the highlights (www.footballwest.tv) of the last round of the Footballwest State Premier league I called the Western Knights, who will now finish top of the League Ladder “champions.”

I received an email advising me that they are the Premiers not the Champions, and that whoever wins the top five play offs will be the Champions.

Now I know that this is the way other sports in this country do it, I also know that this is the way the FFA want it, but just because everyone else does it, does it make it right?

The Asian Football Confederation regard the winners of the league season as the Champions, and had strong discussions with the FFA on this issue as the FFA were going to send the finals series winner to the AFC Champions league. The end result was Australia received two Champions League spots.

First of all, all around the world, and football is a truly world game the Champions are the team who win the league title. As they have beaten all before them and have earned the right to be called Champions. This is where the Champions League threw the cat amongst the pigeons by having teams who come second or third playing in a league that is supposedly for Champions.

If you check the meaning of the word Champion in the Oxford Dictionary, it states “athlete, beast &c that has defeated all competitors.”

For Premier its states: “ foremost, leading, having precedence of all others, of earliest creation.”

Now under that explanation any club has grounds to claim to be the Premiers, as Perth SC are without doubt the leading semi-professional club here in Western Australia, Cockburn City – formed in 1929 could call itself the Premier as it is the oldest club in the competition, as for which club has precedence over the others I am not going there.

I know I am being pedantic, but let us not bastardise the language. Let us not devalue what it takes to win a league over 22 games, rather than win a finals series of five games. Surely the league winners are the Champions?

They always will be in my book. How about in yours? Please vote and let us know.