Football Today - Opinion
FFA Congress
It was more or less the only story on football social media (aka #sokkahtwitter) yesterday.
As eveyrone who reads this will know, the 10-member FFA Congress comprising nine state federations and one A-League representative voted for reform of the Congress (as we have reported and commented upon extensively over years). However, even despite the 11th hour agreement of all parties late on Friday (other than FFA), still two state federations managed to renegue on the Friday Agreement and vote against resolution 1 for an expanded Congress but in favour of resolution 2 for an A-League restructure working group: Northern NSW and Northern Territory. By the way, well done to ACT and Tasmania.
Second, there was the media conference from the 'loser', Steven Lowy and the FFA Board. This could have been SLowy's opportunity to be statesmanlike, but he went out carping to the end, sounding every bit the entitled son of a billionaire that he is and "fearing" for Australian football now that his family is no longer involved.
SLowy said he will not stand for the FFA Presidency next month, and Ray Gatt suggests that close Lowy colleagues ($), Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and Crispin Murray, will also not return. They were both part of the 'global search' conducted by Egon Zehnder, that also suggested SLowy as the only possible successor to his father FLowy. Gatt picks up on social media suggestions that either Stephen Conroy or Mark Arbib, both former Labor Ministers, will be anointed as the new Chairman - or perhaps existing Board members, Chris Nikou or Danny Moulis.
We do hope that's not how this new era of 'democracy' is going to work
As Michael Lynch writes here "no quarter sought, none given" in SLowy's departing media conference in which he reminded us of all that he and his father have done for the game over the past 15 years, and once again speaking of his "fears" about foreign influence - see the video via Fairfax here.
We've written this so many times before ... but, putting aside the basic grasp of maths, we don't buy the argument that the 'foreign' owned clubs - which the Lowy's attracted to the game in the first place - are stupid enough not to look after (a) their 'supply chain' of the grassroots or (b) their 'shop window' of the national teams. We think SLowy has this wrong.
Emma Kemp refers to it as a "bright new dawn" - which, to be fair, most people said in July 2003 also when FLowy was voted in to the game - and mentions FIFA's well-timed letter to stakeholders of Monday night.
The irony that SLowy would take a shot at 'governance' issues when it was a massive 'governance' issue at stake with his ascendancy to the chairmanship of FFA was not lost on most people in the room.
Both Tom Smithies and Ray Gatt have followed-up with a 'what next?'
Smithies says football is "moving into unchartered waters as the Lowy era ends" with suggestions that there needs to be a "conciliation Board", and that ultimately, there should be more talk about what goes on on-the-field. Amen. Back to groins and hamstrings we say.
Gatt gets it right when he says it's now time for the 'reformers' to "put up or shut up" ($). He writes that "they need to take the game forward, to unite it, find new revenue streams and sort out the A-League." And he notes, in relation to the Lowy family that:
"Their positive influence on the game in the initial stages of their tenure surely cannot be diminished. Yes, they made mistakes — the handling of the World Cup bid, the disenfranchising of “old soccer”, the lack of transparency regarding FFA’s finances and allowing the A-League to fall into disrepair, the biggest of them. But the increased revenues, the record television broadcast deal, the introduction of the A-League and admittance into the Asian Football Confederation are among some of the good things they have done for the game. It’s a shame, however, that in their quest to rule with supreme power they failed to get involved in consensus and to recognise the feelings of the fans. They lost the goodwill of the people who mattered most. And now they have paid the price."
Well said, Ray.
A-League
Expansion
- There is talk that A-League expansion may be delayed due to the governance changes, with the PFA - now with a seat at the Congress table - imploring that doesn't happen, and SLowy saying things will proceed as planned. A very top-level summary of the reforms, for News Corp readers, is also provided in the same piece.