The FFA seems to be determined to reduce the attendances of A-League matches, especially in Melbourne. As a result, many Melbourne Victory supporters are disgusted with the FFA.
Why? Because of a new directive of the FFA about seating and membership.
Following advice from a corporate risk management ‘business resilience’ consultancy called Hatamoto, the FFA have dictated that all active support areas and many non-active support areas will be reserved seating.
To access these areas, a person is obliged to purchase a ticket in this particular area, as opposed to the General Admission system where you can sit (or stand) wherever you like.
Ticket holders will be required to follow a similar system, where a seat is likely to be attached to their membership.
From all reports, there is very little scope for flexibility on the key aspects of this directive. It must also be stressed that this was not a decision made by the clubs or the various stadia and we understand that significant resistance to the proposal did exist, but was to no avail.
What this means is that the spontaneous fan activity that Melbourne fans are famous for will probably come to an end. That is because the South and the North Ends of the ground will be fully ticketed and this clearly has massive implications for the growth and artistic quality of active support and the independence and freedom of every club supporter in the country.
So many times the media and people coming to see a football match for the first time have mentioned how fantastic the atmosphere is that is created by the supporters groups. So why is the FFA is forcing A-League clubs into this scheme when things seemed to go well?
I suspect it is because while the FFA is a good administrator, it is full of people who do not have a football background.
The FFA seems to think that the A-League has to follow the models adopted by the AFL or the NRL, ignoring the fact that in football, organised support is part and parcel of the whole experience.
Being professional and packaging the A-League to make it ‘mainstream’ is one thing. But go anywhere in Asia and they know the importance of a committed group which shows support for a team.
As someone on the Melbourne Victory Forum wrote: ‘The FFA may be infested with clowns from other codes who think Terraces are just stupid irrational mobs, but what they don’t realise is that it is actually an art discipline in many respects’.
If the FFA forces this membership scheme on Melbourne Victory, or any other club for that matter, they will prove that are nothing short of a disgrace, just because they can’t hack the ‘business risk’ associated with not having control over something.
They will kill the atmosphere, they will kill active support, they will kill an element that made going to a football match in Australia an unique sporting experience.
In other words, they will kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
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