How To Spot A Money Grab: A Beginner’s Guide For Newspapers

Some of the whitefella press has just discovered that the World Cup is “a money grab.” As First Nations people with several centuries of unpaid consulting experience in this exact area, we’re pleased to offer a free explainer.

Step one: a powerful organisation arrives and announces it’s here for something pure — the beautiful game, the great southern land, civilisation, take your pick.

Step two: it builds enormous infrastructure that mostly benefits people who already have everything.

Step three: it extracts staggering sums while the locals are told to be grateful for the exposure.

Step four (the masterstroke) it brands the whole operation as heritage, so that questioning it makes you the rude one.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is… We’ve watched it with land, with water, with minerals, with sacred sites that became car parks,

and now, apparently, with soccer. The only difference is FIFA gets a trophy and we got a public holiday celebrating the boats.

“Gammon outrage, this,” said cousin Davo. “Where was The Australian for the first two hundred years of money grabs?”

To our journalist friends: congratulations on your awakening. The course is ongoing. There is no certificate. There is, as ever, no compensation.