ONCE, the fiercest rivalries in football were between clubs. Now they are between codes. None of the old borders are identifiable any longer, none of the old verities certain, none of the old fiefdoms safe.

Two weeks ago, the AFL announced it was fast-forwarding its plan to stake claims in the Gold Coast and western Sydney. Provoked, the National Rugby League foreshadowed a future competition that would include teams from some or all of the Central Coast, Sunshine Coast, Wellington, west Brisbane and Perth.

Then the A-League announced new clubs next season on the Gold Coast and Townsville. Not coincidentally, soccer unveiled an ambitious, Government-backed bid for the 2018 World Cup, ensuring — if nothing else — headlines and funding until 2011.

In this battle for hearts, minds, bodies and dollars, the world game was enlisting the world. Rugby union, having lost its turn-of-the century glamour when the Wallabies had a national profile matched only by the Test cricket team, says that it is starting again, so with more modest ambitions.

It is seeking to grow in another medium, by adding another half-round to the Super 14 competition, consisting of derbies between the Australian teams. But talk persists of future expansion into Melbourne, the Gold Coast or elsewhere in Sydney.

"We’re in the most ferociously competitive football market in the world," said John O’Neill, now in his second stint as chief executive of the Australian Rugby Union, broken by three years revolutionising Football Federation Australia.

Rejoined Ben Buckley, once of the AFL, now in charge at FFA: "I can’t think of another country in the world that would have such competition between codes."

Inevitably, as the codes rub up against each other, in one another’s backyards and on new frontiers, frictions have developed. AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick ventured that the NRL had been "lucky that the stars suddenly aligned" to bring success to the Titans, the club that started on the Gold Coast last season.

Piqued, NRL chief executive David Gallop branded the AFL, "frankly, arrogant". This week, Gallop stood by his remark. "I thought that comment lacked appreciation of the effort we put into make that thing successful," he said.

Titans boss Michael Searle was even more blunt. "The AFL has shown itself to be a sport that wants to cannibalise," he said in an interview last week in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail. "It doesn’t want to co-exist."

He urged the NRL to gird its loins. League is, as ever, most ready to speak its mind. Gallop tried last week to spook AFL clubs by invoking memories of how the Swans drained finances and energies for two decades until they at last made good in Sydney, saying: "There is a real danger in a code looking to put dots on a map without considering the impact on your existing teams."

Gallop also is suspicious of O’Neill’s bearish assessment of the state of rugby union. Asked if he thought it was an attempt to lull rivals, he replied: "Yes."

O’Neill, for his part, sides with Gallop on the perils of rushing headlong into brave new worlds. In soccer, he learned that 44 teams came and went in the old National Soccer League in less than 30 years, some several times over.

Rugby league failed with three previous enterprises on the Gold Coast before the Titans. "News Limited have propped up a lot of rugby league clubs," he said.

O’Neill does not see the Gold Coast as others do, as a promised land. "When you go to the smaller regional cities, you’ve got to careful that you’ve got the revenue sources to pay your way," he said. "If you use the Sydney Swans as a test case, how many iterations did they go through before they made a profit? And that was in Sydney."

But AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou says each time the competition has expanded, it has succeeded ultimately, resulting in more of everything for the code: money, crowds, ratings, participation.

Last year was the league’s biggest yet, on figures released yesterday. Demetriou is confident the AFL has done its due diligence. "We’ve asked ourselves, ‘What happens if we don’t do this?’" Demetriou said.

"The downside is that the other codes will continue to grow, and that will make it even harder for us down the track."

He is borne out by anecdotal evidence suggesting that AFL numbers on the Gold Coast have tapered since the advent of the Titans. There are two principal fronts in this undeclared war: the Gold Coast and western Sydney.

There are many spoils. The most prized are watchers and viewers, the hearts and minds. "There’s no doubt we’re in competition," Gallop said. "I’ve always liked that John Paul Getty saying that there’s only three secrets to success: ‘Get up early, work hard and find oil.’ Oil for us is seven-year-old kids getting involved in our game and hopefully making a lifelong connection."

On the question of whether competing codes will unwittingly help each other win new fans, or merely slit each other’s throats, they divide.

The AFL position has softened. "I think it’s possible to follow more than one code," Demetriou said.

"People follow the Melbourne Storm and Collingwood, and I'm sure some also follow Melbourne Victory.

"I suspect there are people in Sydney who are rugby league diehards, but who have a part-interest in our game and would become attached to a club situated in their area.

"I've got no doubt on the Gold Coast that people can follow the Titans and an AFL team. I suspect the same for soccer. But it is competitive."

Gallop is less ecumenical. "We expect these days a lot of people are going to sample all the codes," he said. "But the people we love are the people who don't go to anything else but rugby league, become season ticket-holders, talk about it over the water cooler every day and come up to you in the summer and say, 'Can't wait for the footy to start'." Those people, said Gallop, were also the likeliest to be volunteers in junior clubs, and so the code's truest apostles.

O'Neill is not convinced there is enough pie for all, and fears that the codes will drive each other out of business. "I think that's a real risk," he said. "As well as the Swans have done, I wouldn't like to add up how much the AFL has invested in Sydney and NSW. I have enormous regard for the AFL. But probably the return on investment, in a strict clinical sense, hasn't been that good. But they're not going to go away. So I want to protect NSW, ACT and Queensland."

If it were a matter of size alone, the AFL would reign supreme. It has the most money, the richest television deal — likely to grow again at the next round of negotiations, perhaps to $1 billion. The AFL's poorest club has a greater turnover than the NRL's richest. The AFL is more protective of its Melbourne stronghold than the other codes, has the furthest reach and is the most nakedly aggressive.

Gallop affects indifference. "We're not scared of them," he said in Sydney media. "Frankly, it's time to take the AFL's threats with a grain of salt." Buckley is more diplomatic. "Obviously, I have a pretty good understanding of the broad strategy of the AFL because I worked there for eight years," he said. "They're a very formidable organisation when they go after something."

But it is not simply a matter of size and clout. The AFL is up against entrenched positions, home and away. In Melbourne, it has never managed to convince clubs to merge, nor to budge one since the Swans; North Melbourne was the latest to reject the idea. It accepts now that it can expand only via new clubs, which are necessarily more costly and disruptive of the status quo than relocations, and arguably will make the competition so big as to be unwieldy.

Also, necessarily, it will be seen as hostile. "Our game is part of the fabric of this city," said Gallop when the AFL put its cards on the table. "It is in the bones of millions of Sydney families, and I have faith in their passion."

NRL culture is radically different to that of the AFL. The action is more concentrated, so the game works better on television than the AFL, and the schedule is designed around Friday nights at the pub and Sunday afternoons by the barbecue. Fans are more fluid in their allegiances, and so are players and coaches. Sydney has accepted mergers in a way Melbourne would not even countenance. The Swans notwithstanding, the AFL in Sydney is like another language, recognisable, but scarcely comprehensible.

"We all have our points of difference," O'Neill said. "Some are advantages, some disadvantages. Our biggest disadvantage is that we don't have anywhere near as much content as the AFL and NRL."

The rugby year consists to 15 weeks of Super 14 competition, much of which is played overseas at unfriendly hours, and some Test matches. Super 14 television rights fetch a good price in France and the UK, keeping the competition viable. But this has a double edge. "England and France have leapfrogged the three southern hemisphere countries because their economies are so much bigger, and now they've got their act together," O'Neill said. "If we don't do something, we're going to lose more players overseas."

O'Neill proposes to lengthen the Super 14 competition to 25 weeks by introducing a second round of matches, consisting of derbies in each country, and introducing a six-team finals series. He also wants to loosen restrictions on foreign players.

Soccer, as long has been acknowledged, is the awakening giant. It has broken out of its old ethnic boundaries and — unlike the other codes — was never contained by geographic boundaries, so has no natural limits. It remains the smallest and leanest sport professionally, but Buckley said that would work to the code's advantage as it expanded. "The cost of establishing a team is lower for us than the other codes. That makes us more flexible, adaptable and nimble in the decision-making process."

Of the eight founding clubs, only Victory is turning a profit now. "(But) all the clubs are trending towards profit," Buckley said. "The context is that we are only in our third year, these are start-up enterprises, and it's not uncommon for start-up enterprises to operate in loss-making territory for a period of time."

Soccer is the most international of the codes, which is both a strength and a weakness; it gives the game here great moral force, but concentrates players and attention elsewhere. O'Neill noted that around 150 Australians play overseas. "Probably only 30 or 40 make really good money," he said. "A lot are like Hollywood waitresses, waiting to be discovered.

"The perception is that you've got a better chance of being discovered over there than here, although the A-League is starting to change that. It's been a fantastic three years. I'm really proud of it. Every other sport has to look at football. It used to be the sleeping giant. It is well and truly awake now."

The common and crucial denominator among the codes as they jostle for patronage is television, which provides funding and exposure, both potentially on a vast scale. Perversely, this is best illustrated by rugby league's belief that Channel Seven won the ratings in Sydney and Brisbane last year by not showing AFL in prime time! Television executives will help to shape the course of this war, if not its outcome.

But the quarry all codes cannot do without is young, talented, ball-playing athletes. The supply is not inexhaustible, and the chase is on. The A-League and the NRL both announced the formation of youth leagues this week, and the NRL's will be televised. The AFL has a scholarship scheme for footballers from Sydney, and is setting up an academy there.

"Historically, we've struggled to attract talent from rugby league and union," Demetriou said. "We've been successful against other codes, like cricket and basketball. We're successful in south-east Queensland. We haven't really made progress in the greater part of Sydney." Presently, there are only two Sydney-raised players on AFL lists, compared with 17 from Queensland.

"On that front, we have to be far more radical and far more innovative. That supports the (Swans chairman) Richard Colless theory, that if you want to be in the race for talent in that market, the conventional way won't suit. We've got a bold agenda, but we might have to accelerate our thoughts on that front." In what direction, he would not say.

Gallop acknowledged that the AFL could and would pay plenty for young stars. But he was confident rugby league still had much to offer, including a healthy living, the chance to play for Australia and, in the meantime, the new under-20 league. "It's exciting for kids to think they're going to be on television, and they're going to be playing on the main stage, just before the biggest names in the game," he said.

Soccer, the most widely played of the four codes among juniors, suffers more from defections at the threshold of senior competition. Buckley said this was changing.

"We now offer an opportunity for the young athlete who has played football throughout his youth and childhood, and can now see a rewarded professional pathway," he said. "It's something that didn't happen in the past. There was a significant drop-out of athletes playing football, who probably didn't think there was a professional career ahead of them. Now there is, and for the very best, an international career."

O'Neill said the landscape was changing as the codes evolved. Previously, league and union recruited similar types of players. As union became more free-flowing, it looked for rangier athletes. "Ironically, some of the body shapes we hold dear, the AFL are now after," he said. "The John Eales of this world.

"So we are on alert that the competition at the talent identification level is red-hot. We are yet to understand whether there's enough talent to go around. We may have to open the gate to foreign players."

The football codes are foreign players to one another, known but not always understood. All are on the move, as characterised by the bosses this week when contacted by The Age: Demetriou was touring the country, Buckley was bound for Kuala Lumpur, O'Neill for Hong Kong and Gallop for England to watch the Storm in the World Club Challenge.

But, unavoidably, deliberately, increasingly, they and their codes will be in one another's way. It's not war, they say, but vigorous competition.

"Competition is good," O'Neill said. "I was a banker for 24 years before I went into sport. Competition is about survival. It really makes you have a good hard look at yourself. You can't be complacent. You cannot take anything for granted. It makes you innovate and reinvigorate the way you present your sport.

"So I don't think of it as a war. I think of it as genuine, red-blooded competition. And only the strongest will survive."