I, like many Victorians, enjoy a holiday footy blockbuster. I have done so since the day I travelled by train with my Dad and sister to watch my beloved Collingwood battle Richmond in front of a huge crowd at the MCG on Anzac Day 46 years ago.

To this day I wonder how the crowd of more than 92,000 affected Kevin Sheedy as he lined up in his usual back pocket position.

He must have been impressed by the turnout, because in 1995 he placed his finger on the Aussie pulse and cast a flirtatious glance in the direction of the Shrine of Remembrance in the hope of enticing the dawn service congregants to join him in creating an emotionally charged Australian sporting event. And he succeeded, because since that day the words footy and digger come together to kick off the “traditional” Anzac Day football clash between Essendon and Collingwood.

It was precisely at this moment in AFL history when the distinction between heroism on the battlefield with the heroics on the footy field became blurred. And it’s through this that I have come to appreciate why the RSL resisted for 45 years the push to have football games played on Anzac Day.

It was in 1960 that the RSL allowed games to be played on Anzac Day after a number of Saturday games had been washed out. It agreed to this on the condition that all gate takings went to the war veterans. But, as we know, all goodwill gestures are prone to exploitation.

Note the advertising hype in the lead-up to this year’s Anzac Day clash and you will see how marketing strategists are attempting to conflate the Anzac spirit at Gallipoli with the fighting spirit on the football ground. Football supporters ought to be wary of clubs attempting to reduce the Anzac spirit to a jingoistic token that can be stitched alongside the numerous corporate logos on the modern footy jumper. If the AFL really believed it’s rhetoric, then it would have no hesitation in passing tomorrow’s purse to the RSL.

Some educators insist that anything that inspires children to take a deeper interest in our cultural heritage is a good thing that must be encouraged. Others argued that staging an important football event on Anzac Day is a fitting tribute to the diggers who made the ultimate sacrifice.

A few years ago I read Fallen: The Ultimate Heroes (Jim Main 2002). The book tells the stories of 115 VFL (now AFL) footballers who never returned from war service. I particularly remember reading the story of Melbourne champion, Joe Pearce, who was killed in the Gallipoli landings, and wondering what he would have made of the Anzac Day football match.

No doubt, many scenes at tomorrow’s game would be far more pleasing to veterans and their families than the ones that they were presented with in the early 1980s when crowds at commemorative services were dwindling and the Anzac parade seemed to be losing its impact as the number of marchers declined.

I particularly remember the 1980s as a time when anti-war groups regularly disrupted the Anzac parade for the purpose of bringing all that was wrong with war to the public’s attention. No matter how genuine their intentions, exploiting an important cultural event for political ends is deplorable.

No more deplorable than big business exploiting Anzac day for commercial ends.

By the mid-1990s the Anzac story captured the hearts and minds of young Australians for the right reasons. Many school children began to take an interest in Australia’s military past and became especially interested in the personal stories of those who fought at Gallipoli. The Anzac Day service was once again recognised by schools as an important cultural and educational event, and ordinary Australians expressed their respect for the fallen by attending ceremonies at home and abroad.

Retired General Peter Cosgrove states in his forward to The Last Anzacs (Tony Stephens and Steven Stewert 2009) that the reasons for the ‘soft miracle about the modern story of Anzac’ are numerous. Difficult as it is to pinpoint specific reasons for this revival, a football game played between Collingwood and Essendon on Anzac Day is not one of them.

Given that the words ‘footy’ and ‘digger’ are often uttered in the same sentence by sports journalists and media personalities in the lead up to Anzac Day, you would think that the so called traditional Anzac Day football clash was as an integral part of the official commemorative services.

This probably has a lot to do with the efforts of the AFL, footy coaches, club officials and certain sections of the media to conflate heroism on the battlefield with the heroics on the footy field.

When I attended the Anzac Day dawn service a couple of years ago, I was surprised to see many kids standing around in football scarves and jumpers in anticipation of something much bigger. For some kids, the dawn service seemed to be nothing more than a curtain raiser to a much more exciting event that was to take place at the MCG later that day.

No doubt, many diggers played and followed footy in their day.

What is unacceptable is for the AFL to swathe a football game in sacred symbols and expect the public to buy it out of a patriotic duty. What is even more unacceptable is for the AFL to use the war dead to sell a product.

Does the AFL really want a footballer’s jumper to be stained with the blood of a soldier?

The real meaning of Anzac Day has been grotesquely distorted by slick promotional campaigns designed to imbue a football code with the Anzac spirit.

Chris Fotinopoulos is a Melbourne writer and teacher, whose work has been published by The New York Times, The Age, Neos Kosmos, Crikey, and The Herald Sun.