Does NZ need a Frank Lowy moment

Does NZ need a Frank Lowy moment

Is it time for NZ Football to have a Frank Lowy moment�

You recently made the WC � Nix are drawing massive crowds� yet where are the forward plans the sponsors etc�

For mercy sake the All Whites can not even get first class seats�

Even allowing for the conflict of interest should Tony S be put in charge of Football in NZ � when he phones people pick up the phone�

He has ability far beyond those running NZ Football as I see it.

You mean Terry S?

My concern about NZ football is that NZ lacks a Lowy. Someone to keep giving it a proper poke after the World Cup, and someone to have a word in the government's ear to replicate what Australia does in terms of arranging trade & investment events around Socceroos matches in Asia (i.e. when the All Whites are playing future Asian Cup qualifiers etc - once our Lowy shares his grander vision).

Plus the money injection. Australia wouldnt even be anywhere near where they are today without it. People are going to get touchy about hearing that but its true.

Does NZ need a Frank Lowy moment?

YES! Independant review and action please or I feel opportunity will be lost, again.

Whooohoo!

"By your powers combined, I am CAPTAIN PHOENIX"

It is not touchy at all. You are right but that is the point. Unless Soccer NZ/gov.does put money in we have no chance.
This has been the beef for 30 years plus. Nothing has changed.

Boys, we did it with $A15 million in 2003. NZF have about $US 10 million from making it to South Africa.

Is the question now the cash, or the people managing the cash?

I am sure you know the answer to that.

So you never got anything for qualifying for the last world cup DS ?  Your national body don't take millions every year from the finals series ?  Lowy's contacts never raised more money on the back of that 15 million ?  There isn't a big TV deal underpinning the league and the Socceroos ?

That $10 million US may have to pay for the game here for the next 20 years.

HN, I was referring to the original Australian Government grant of $15 million when soccer was reformed here following the Crawford Report around 2003.

All the other money (2006 WC, TV with Fox etc) was a spin off of that original $15 million to reform the game.

And what's this business with the finals money with the FFA? Everyone here has put up with it for 5 years! Tony P and Terry knew of this before they entered the comp and it will be discussed officially at the end of season! Let the officials argue about it. They're paid to do that.

The point that has (unsurprisingly) flown over your head DS is that FFA have revenue streams that NZF can only dream of. Smithy2010-03-01 14:52:17

I think the point is the revenue generated from it... it's not as tho the FFA used the original $15m and built solely from that. We (NZ) don't have the capability to raise revenues any where near what the FFA has done (and good on them for doing so). It's not quite apples on both sides of the dutch. Far from. Our oranges (or our US$10m) will be the bulk of NZF's revenue... we have little or no opportunity to build on it as per the FFA, hence the need to make the most of it (and then some). Unless we do find a "Lowy" or three. Unlikely.
SurgeQld2010-03-01 14:56:18

I think the point here is that it's all well and good to take the finals money for Australian sides who then get a portion of it back to fund the NYL and the W-League but what do the Phoenix get in return ?

There is a return in it for the Aus sides but there isn't much in it for the Phoenix.

Snap.

you cant get sponsors without a product.

Hmmm, there is the ongoing right to participate which we shouldn't take for granted.

Smithy, Lowy isn't using his own money. In fact, if you check through history, I think for the 2006-07 Financial year, the FFA actually LOST money.

We calculate financial year to be 1 July through to 30 June each year here as a guide.

I'll offer another calculation.

Say in 2003, Australia's population was 20 million, using the original $A15 million to reform the game (money came in from sponsors and player rego's and all that jazz after that) then that leaves 75 cents per person to invest on them in football.

If NZ had 4 million at the end of 2009, then the (say) $NZ11 million from FIFA leaves $NZ2.75 per person to invest. That's without sponsorship, player rego's and all that as well. Just raw federation money.

That's not a bad way to put it.
diego's son2010-03-01 15:18:23

Look up above your head DS; the point is there... you just have to look harder. Forget the "kitty" for a moment, what you're missing is that NZF cannot generate anywhere near the same revenues as FFA as we do not have a product to generate it (ie: HAL and relative tv and sponsorships) anything like it. If we did, this forum wouldn't exist... perhaps none of us would?... hmmmm....

I get what you're saying Surge, and that's why I commented recently on here my surprise about the NZFC staying amatuer. HN and Smithy mentioned about pathways for NZ players to the US college system and so on.

Obviously 22 million versus 4 million affect the pure bottom line financialy, but it's all relative.

What are the options for NZF to improve its income streams? You don't want to become too reliant on the Australian system, surely? Is a professional league there in NZ viable, even a compact one?

In the foreseeable future, no. Simply not enough money and interest.

hmmm.

In fact, NZ is struggling to maintain a professional domestic rugby competition here, so that gives you an idea how difficult it would be to start up and develop a professional football league.

Don't you guys have a late season provincial rugby comp after the main Super 14 season. Foxtel shows the games here sometimes. Is that the comp that you are referring to?

Yup, the big Unions struggle through but most of them are run off the smell of a not very oily rag.

Yep. And it's not in great shape financially.

And the last season's grand final in Christchurch drew a massive crowd of 12,000.

The Socceroos are a product, around which the Australian trade people run events around Socceroos matches in Asia. I don't see why the same could not be done if the All Whites were playing in Asia, therefore financially slightly higher travel costs should be more than offset by increased income. However football people cannot do this alone. As in Australia it needs someone with vision to bang NZF and relevant people in the government's heads together and view the bigger picture beyond football.

Midfielder has been pumping in those stories a lot about the trade, I suppose it's too early to define the true benefits of that yet, but time will tell.

Does NZ have to play in Asia to sell its goods? That can be done globally you know... (Smithy will kill me but I'll throw it in).

Frank Lowy, Ben Buckley and Co at the FFA have done a good job to win the Federal Government's ear about our sport. Kevin Rudd was a diplomat to China for many years, so this stuff (diplomacy and world matters, particularly in Asia and the Middle East) was right up his alley, so Rudd's timing to become Prime Minister was good in that sense.

The trade stuff is 'good' but the true measurement of that will take a few years. In the meantime, look around the planet, that's my advice...

diego's son2010-03-01 16:27:24

I seem to recall somewhere around the traps that the original exemption to a NZ team in the old NSL was due to no professional football/soccer league in NZ.

I didn't think local NZ rugby would struggle (although I was surprised a year or 2 ago when I heard/read that the highest paid All Black was on about $A350,000 per year). 12,000 isn't a bad crowd in some respects, depends on the league's oerating costs really.

The All Blacks are a world renowned team.

While I agree with all of this, it wouldn't be enough to maintain the game on its own. It needs a strong viable domestic league which at the moment we don't have, the only sport whose domestic league is in all right shape is Cricket because it doesn't matter if that part of the operation bleeds money because they are getting it in such big figures from elsewhere.

I was catching up on an old comment which I forgot earlier...

I had to read that once or twice to click as to what you were saying there.

I don't think playing qualifiers in the Oceania region constitutes globally. And you would never get a government department cooperating on trade events when there is only a vague program of occasional friendlies elsewhere.

No no no, think about what I have said in this forum before, think 'globally'...