Jump to content
Melbourne Football

The APL/FA Management Thread


thisphantomfortress
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • 1 month later...

ANALYSIS

Details of Australia's 2022 World Cup bid shed light on the game's current woes

By Offsiders columnist Richard Hinds

 

When you occupy a sports market where the competition is fiercer than at the $5 undies table at the Boxing Day sales, a mid-season dip in media visibility, crowds and TV ratings is understandable, perhaps even inevitable.

But to vanish completely from the sporting radar as the A-League has done for long periods is a cause for deep concern.

Particularly when the lack of headlines and sound bites is reflected in the grandstands, where average A-League attendances have dropped to 11,101 — a decline of about 1,500 from last season and 2,400 from three years ago.

Cristiano Ronaldo has not spent as much time in front of the bathroom mirror as Australian football fans have spent attempting to solve the great dilemma: Why has a game with such healthy grass roots participation, passionate local club support and, since the 2006 World Cup, consistent global representation, struggled to build a stronger and more profitable national league?

Especially when the standard of the A-League, and drama of the games themselves, has steadily improved — as anyone following the epic recent performances of Sydney FC will attest.

Significant clues are contained in the long awaited book Whatever It Takes: The Inside Story of the FIFA Way by former Football Federation Australia head of corporate and public affairs, Bonita Mersiades.

Those who have tracked Mersiades' path from World Cup bid insider to passionate anti-corruption campaign will anticipate a compelling and intricately detailed account of Australia's deeply flawed attempt to host the 2022 World Cup and FIFA's dark machinations.

Mersiades has not disappointed. Her personal story of expert engagement with the bid team, gradual disillusionment and, upon her sacking, relentless attempts to expose corruption across FIFA is an entertaining, enlightening and also somewhat depressing tale.

In Mersiades' case, it also exposes the lengths both FIFA and the FFA took to discredit and ostracise those who dared expose their murkiest dealings, and the hefty price a whistleblower can pay.

 

In the seven years since Australia's tainted bid gained just one vote, many of the details explored have been laid bare by Mersiades and others.

The millions spent on shady foreign consultants with dubious connections and unknown motives; the expensive trinkets given to FIFA officials; the enormous "development grants" awarded to influence voting; the two sets of bid accounts keep secretly by the FFA — one for internal use, the other to justify the $45 million of taxpayer money to government officials.

And so it went.

The most remarkable part of Mersiades' account is the personal dealings between those in the FFA's chain of command from then chairman Frank Lowy through to his three handpicked foreign consultants, FFA chief executive Ben Buckley and, until her sacking in late 2009, Mersiades and those whose votes or influence they sought.

There is arrogance, hubris, double-dealing and an addiction to privilege and wealth — encapsulated by the red-faced rage of FFA consultant Peter Hargitay when he is dropped at the rear entrance of a five star hotel and deprived of a glad-handing stroll through the swish lobby.

Mersiades details the full engagement of Lowy in every element of the bid.

This makes a mockery of Lowy's attempted legacy restoration in the ABC documentary Played in which he cast himself as the naive bidder blindsided by nasty FIFA politics.

Beyond the dirtiest FIFA deal-making, Mersiades explains her greatest source of disillusionment: "It's because we (Australia) played the game the FIFA way. We were diminished. My country, and the game I love."

No doubt, those eager to forget the failed bid will wonder what good even the most detailed account can have now.

The obvious answer for a country bidding for the 2023 Women's World Cup: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

As significantly, football in Australia was not just diminished spiritually by the World Cup bid.

As Mersiades reveals, the amount of money, government goodwill and executive hours concentrated on a task she and others were told by FIFA insiders was futile long before the vote took place left the local game neglected.

Even after losing so abjectly, Lowy devoted time and resources to "Project Platinum" in which he hired spooks and various international men of mystery to gather dirt on the Qatar bidders in the hope of having the 2022 World Cup removed from them.

Such intrigue might appeal to fans of James Bond movies. But not so much to fans of Gold Coast United or Northern Fury who were going belly-up while Lowy was again being outwitted by FIFA, whose report on the bid process shovelled dirt on Australia while clearing Qatar and Russia.

As well as Australian football's stagnation, Whatever It Takes helps explain, indirectly, the resignation of national coach Ange Postecoglou.

The constant distractions, Machiavellian politics and subsequent failure to drive growth in Australian football left an environment unsuitable for someone hoping to use the Socceroos to elevate the game as a whole.

Coincidentally — or possibly not — the FFA announced the appointment of Postecoglou's replacement Bert van Marwijk on the same day Whatever It Takes had its international launch in London.

Lowy and a few others will hope this damning book doesn't fly off shelves in the malls he recently sold for $32 billion.

No doubt FFA's eager cheerleaders will view Mersiades' attempt to shine a light on the game as more "football bashing" and "negativity".

It is this failure to learn from the past and to go forward with wisdom and passion that helps explain why Australian football is still struggling to fulfill its vast potential.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
6 minutes ago, Forever City said:

Yes, but as you said they had sell there best players (like every A-LEAGUE club).

Ohhhh. I meant that they those teams in question from Griffen would be fine once they sell players at the end of season.

I actually think that Roar are close, who is going to buy a bunch of 30+ year old players from the Australian league

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, haz said:

Ohhhh. I meant that they those teams in question from Griffen would be fine once they sell players at the end of season.

I actually think that Roar are close, who is going to buy a bunch of 30+ year old players from the Australian league

IMO Roar and Nix are in the most trouble.

But weren't Roar bought out by a rich investment group or something?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Forever City said:

IMO Roar and Nix are in the most trouble.

But weren't Roar bought out by a rich investment group or something?

Roar have been owned by the Bakrie family for about 5 years. They are an extraordinarily (theoretically) wealthy and definitely very powerful Indonesian family. 

How wealthy? Why theoretically? Well a lot of their wealth was in coal and when that took a downturn so would have their finances. They were rumoured to have several billion dollars US of debt and if that’s true they’d be very vulnerable To downturns, like coal experienced. This may help to explain Roars alleged appalling history of paying people and creditors on time in recent years.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Shahanga said:

Roar have been owned by the Bakrie family for about 5 years. They are an extraordinarily (theoretically) wealthy and definitely very powerful Indonesian family. 

How wealthy? Why theoretically? Well a lot of their wealth was in coal and when that took a downturn so would have their finances. They were rumoured to have several billion dollars US of debt and if that’s true they’d be very vulnerable To downturns, like coal experienced. This may help to explain Roars alleged appalling history of paying people and creditors on time in recent years.

My mistake.

Edited by Forever City
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/23/2018 at 9:08 PM, Forever City said:

I guess you could of said the same thing about Heart back in the day.

Then you would have been mistaken. Former Heart Chairman Peter Sidwell is on record as stating that the Heart owners' syndicate was able to fund the club indefinitely (my paraphrasing).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, jw1739 said:

Then you would have been mistaken. Former Heart Chairman Peter Sidwell is on record as stating that the Heart owners' syndicate was able to fund the club indefinitely (my paraphrasing).

I was more referring to the fact that Heart had to sell there best players. On the podcast Munn said that the sale of Curtis Good keeped heart going for a while.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Forever City said:

I was more referring to the fact that Heart had to sell there best players. On the podcast Munn said that the sale of Curtis Good keeped heart going for a while.

I'm not sure that the "selling players" is a valid argument. The alternative to selling a good A-League player for actual cash seems to be either  1/waiting until the player either reaches the end of his contract and then letting him go for nothing or 2/ the player asking for a mutual termination "to pursue another opportunity" and again the club getting nothing out of the deal.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Forever City said:

I was more referring to the fact that Heart had to sell there best players. On the podcast Munn said that the sale of Curtis Good keeped heart going for a while.

As has been said numerous times, the club was never at a stage of going broke rather, the owners of Melbourne heart were tight arses. It gave the illusion that the club was poor but we just had owners who never wanted to invest anymore then bare minimum into the club and expected to experience the ultimate success

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, kingofhearts said:

As has been said numerous times, the club was never at a stage of going broke rather, the owners of Melbourne heart were tight arses. It gave the illusion that the club was poor but we just had owners who never wanted to invest anymore then bare minimum into the club and expected to experience the ultimate success

JvS was a pretty expensive coach. And perhaps their approach was fair enough, given that they could see Central Coast being successful on pretty much a shoestring? It is true that our results have been better under City Football Group, but for all CFG's investment the improved returns on the pitch have been marginal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

JvS was a pretty expensive coach. And perhaps their approach was fair enough, given that they could see Central Coast being successful on pretty much a shoestring? It is true that our results have been better under City Football Group, but for all CFG's investment the improved returns on the pitch have been marginal.

I understand by seeing CCM that you can be successful on shoe string budget however it happens so rarely, throwing more money at your club then less is always going to equate to more success (or a better chance of success even).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, kingofhearts said:

I understand by seeing CCM that you can be successful on shoe string budget however it happens so rarely, throwing more money at your club then less is always going to equate to more success (or a better chance of success even).

Also I think the league quality has much more improved and less equal then before you could suceed on a shoe string

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, kingofhearts said:

As has been said numerous times, the club was never at a stage of going broke rather, the owners of Melbourne heart were tight arses. It gave the illusion that the club was poor but we just had owners who never wanted to invest anymore then bare minimum into the club and expected to experience the ultimate success

100%, I was just making the point that every A-League club had to sell some of there best players at one point or another. Especially young players.

Edited by Forever City
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, haz said:

Gallop has been given a contract extension until 2020..... was signed in October but never announced.

Remember this is the guy that came out yesterday and said the HAL has no money

That'd be right. Considering all the pressure FFA is under to clean up its act and introduce change, it's exactly what I would expect - the top boys get themselves watertight contract extensions. What better way is there to obstruct change than that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, mus-28 said:

sparklers get hot, glow sticks for sure

LED ones, glow sticks are dangerous with the glass and chemicals inside. Furthermore spectators wishing to become authorised FFA Visual Atmosphere Enhancement Officers will be required to take a 12 week safety course. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, malloy said:

LED ones, glow sticks are dangerous with the glass and chemicals inside. Furthermore spectators wishing to become authorised FFA Visual Atmosphere Enhancement Officers will be required to take a 12 week safety course. 

...and MFB will be in attendance

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
50 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

WTF has "gender equality" got to do with it? What we need is the best structure and the best people to do the job.

If doing the job includes giving a voice to all the stakeholders in the game then how could an all male or all female board do this?

It's like having a board without a players rep on it

Edited by belaguttman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, bt50 said:

Seems a bit off to me that the state federations are so well represented. From what i can tell they've been the chief reason FFA's hands are always so tied financially and lead the crusade of self interest.

 The State Federations represent and manage the vast majority of stakeholders. The problem is the vast majority or revenue comes via the A League. 

The new structure has to find a solution to this fundamental flaw.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Jovan said:

 The State Federations represent and manage the vast majority of stakeholders. The problem is the vast majority or revenue comes via the A League. 

The new structure has to find a solution to this fundamental flaw.

IMO the A League simply has to be independent or it will continue to hold the game back here. FFA then manages the national teams and the FFA Cup.

I'd love to peak at the books one day and find out exactly where all the FFA money goes tbh.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • jw1739 changed the title to The APL/FA Management Thread
  • jw1739 pinned this topic

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...