Behind pay wall so here is the lot
SEPTEMBER 05, 2018
FRIDAY is looming as a crucial point in the bitter battle for control of Australian football, as FIFA tries to steer the warring parties to a final armistice.
A series of teleconferences will be held on Thursday as the world governing body seeks to placate concerns of a handful of state associations threatening to torpedo reforms supported by a broad coalition of states, A-League clubs and the players union.
Under the FIFA-defined timeline to reform Football Federation Australia’s annual Congress, and widen its franchise, an extraordinary general meeting must be called by Friday to debate the blueprint put together by the Congress Review Working Group to spread power more widely around the game. Otherwise it raises the prospect once more of FIFA stepping in to suspend Australia’s membership, more than two years after it first directed Football Federation Australia to widen the franchise in its Congress.
The blueprint gives the A-League clubs, the players union and the women’s game more votes, but has been fought against by FFA’s board which claims the plan would weaken the games grassroots and give too much power to the professional side.
FIFA officials are to speak directly with a number of key stakeholders in the next 48 hours including the four state associations who have indicated they will oppose the reforms put forward by the CRWG.
If three of those four vote against the plan at the EGM – likely to be on September 28 - it will fail, and FIFA will be forced to step in – possibly imposing a normalization committee of its own handpicked members to run the game, or simply suspending Australia’s membership.