Buckley thinks we’ll be better than Argentina in four years
Columnist By Davidde Corran, 1 Dec 2011 Davidde Corran is a Roar Expert
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It’s been a busy few days at College St as Football Federation Australia re-elected its Chairman Frank Lowy (unopposed, naturally) for a third consecutive term and also released its intriguing four-year strategic plan.
These two events are of course interlinked as Lowy wishes to leave his role having overseen the game’s complete rebirth.
While there’s no mention of finding someone who can finally take over from Lowy at the end of this four-year cycle, the strategic plan was filled with lots of interesting “broad stroke” ideas.
After a disastrous 18 months in which the peak body got distracted by the bright lights of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosting rights, the focus is clearly on steadying the ship.
(http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/buckley-opinion-display/A-strategy-for-our-future/43129) In a column that’s been published on FFA’s website, CEO Ben Buckley explained the peak body’s plan “in the initial years of the Strategic Plan timeframe is to have 10 stable clubs and sustainable economic model for the A-League.
“However, in the Strategic Plan period to 2015 expansion will only occur when those economic pre-conditions of stability and sustainability exist.”
In other words – expansion is on the backburner.
So how does FFA plan to create this climate of “stability and sustainability”?
Well the watered down version of the strategic plan is lacking in detail – except for some pie in the sky stuff about becoming a top 10 FIFA nation by 2015 – but buried amongst all the buzz words and corporate speak are the kind of succinct and positive messages the game needs to be sending forward.
One of the best examples is FFA’s plan to use the 2015 Asian Cup on home soil to assist in “linking Australia with Asia”.
While the phrase screams “please give me a government grant”, it is also the exact point FFA needs to get across to government and business around the country. You want to get in on the growing Asian market? Well we engage with them constantly on and off the pitch.
This is also integral to one of the other themes the strategic plan keeps coming back to – money or as Buckley would say, “increasing revenue”.
One aspect of this is making the A-League financially viable and as the plan points out, “investment (will be) required” to achieve this. Considering the inherent structural problems the league has, this will be a very large task. (http://www.theroar.com.au/2011/11/17/whos-paying-the-price-for-a-leagues-problems/)
Making the domestic competition one of FFA’s “strategic pillars” should also end any hopes A-League club owners still have that the peak body may hand over control of the league to be independently run.
Finally, FFA and the consultants they hired to help prepare this strategic plan hope the war cry of becoming a “top 10 football nation” will energise the football community and catch the attention of the greater public.
It’s a noble goal, albeit a fanciful one given the short timeline to achieve it. But then again “To try and catch up to the bloody Japanese” doesn’t come off as quite as catchy. Anyway with Argentina currently sitting in 10th spot in the FIFA rankings, that’s some ambition. Then again, maybe it’s the ninth ranked Italians FFA is eyeing off.
However on the back of a modest loss of under AU$900,000 for the last financial year (a reasonable outcome for the first year of a World Cup cycle) the strategic plan is a promising, albeit lucid, step forward for the peak body.
FFA has made some bold statements, filled it with little detail, but also set the tone for the next four years. Now Lowy and Buckley must deliver.
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December 1st 2011 @ 7:36am
Lucan said | December 1st 2011 @ 7:36am | Report comment
I understand putting the brakes on further expansion, and think it s a very smart idea, but I’m disgusted that the Cup competition doesn’t rate a mention.
The FFA pulled MV and MH from the Mirabella Cup last season because it would steal the thunder from their own Cup competition. Now this mythical “Austalia Cup” doesn’t appear to be on the agenda again until after 2015. OUT!!!
December 1st 2011 @ 11:39am
Football United said | December 1st 2011 @ 11:39am | Report comment
This. i barely understanding about the pulling from the mirabella cup but now i’m livid again.
December 1st 2011 @ 1:22pm
PeterK said | December 1st 2011 @ 1:22pm | Report comment
Lucan, I hope you’re not correct — I hope that the Cup KO comp IS still a goer, and perhaps FFA simply left it out because it’s already such an integral part of their thinking. Am I being too hopeful?
With the special emphasis on being financially viable, the Cup comp is eminently suited to starting each year very “regionally” so that NO club has to travel very far. For amateur and semi-professional clubs, travel costs can be killers — travel costs are bad enough in Oz for the professional clubs.
Let’s hope it IS a goer eh!
December 1st 2011 @ 6:02pm
Kasey said | December 1st 2011 @ 6:02pm | Report comment
The release of the Smith report explicitly states two important and telling points:
Smith recommends that(amongst other things):
1) The federal government quarantine the Socceroos from the forthcoming anti-siphoning list for the short to medium-term, which could have a major impact on the value of the next broadcast deal, which is scheduled for 2013.
2) To delay the establishment of the FFA Cup until sponsorship and television revenue is secure.
December 1st 2011 @ 7:48am
Johnno said | December 1st 2011 @ 7:48am | Report comment
Yes and the Argentina rugby team will be better than than the ALL Blacks after 4 years in the rugby championship. DREAM ON Buckley.
December 1st 2011 @ 7:58am
JAJI said | December 1st 2011 @ 7:58am | Report comment
When you look at only a $900,000 loss when the ARU is reportedly going to report a loss of $11 million dollars thats not a bad result – especially given the FFA has to fork out alot for the A League Clubs in times of emergency and as we all know its very expensive to start a domestic competition from scratch…..
The TV Deal coming in the next 12 months is absolutely crucial
December 1st 2011 @ 8:06am
West syd said | December 1st 2011 @ 8:06am | Report comment
So in four years time we will have a player as near as good as Messi, top strikers like Aguero and Iguain playing for man city and real madrid,
if he didnt sound so serious about it it wouldnt sound so embarrassing
December 1st 2011 @ 9:41am
AGO74 said | December 1st 2011 @ 9:41am | Report comment
I think the Roar editors have been playing with the headlines here a bit. with these Argentina references…..
Regardless, whilst top 10 may be ambitious, what are FFA supposed to say at Socceroo level? Say “We’re comfortable. we think we’re ok and we don’t want to look to improve. See you all in Brazil for a 1st round elimination”.
December 1st 2011 @ 10:04am
Roger said | December 1st 2011 @ 10:04am | Report comment
Spot on AGO74.
Typical media sensationalisation. Buckley at no point said that we would be better than Argentina. He just said that we are aiming to be a top 10 FIFA ranked team, which Argentina currently holds. So, they’re effectively just putting words in his mouth.
December 1st 2011 @ 10:16am
Qantas supports Australian Football said | December 1st 2011 @ 10:16am | Report comment
AGO74 and Roger—-I’m with you guys 100% I don’t like the tone of this article one bit.
December 1st 2011 @ 11:18pm
jamesb said | December 1st 2011 @ 11:18pm | Report comment
Totally agree with AGO74, Roger and Qantas
Sensationalisation and the tone of this article is a bit far out.
December 1st 2011 @ 8:31am
Lucan said | December 1st 2011 @ 8:31am | Report comment
Not quite, folks. I think we’re taking the headline a touch too literally. The target is to be top 10. Currently Argentina are #10.
When we crack the top 10, Argentina will probably be top 5.
If we were to eventually get top 10, I would expect it to be at the expence of Croatia, England, or Uruguay (of the current top 10 nations).
December 1st 2011 @ 9:39pm
Rocktrap said | December 1st 2011 @ 9:39pm | Report comment
Has anyone seen these?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings#Top_60_ranking
According to these rankings we’re already ranked 15th (With Argentina sitting at 7th). If you have a look at where each team is ranked and then compare it to where your “gut feeling” would rank the teams, it’s usually pretty accurate.
15th to 10th in 4 years isn’t so fanciful. I’m personally eyeing off France, Sweden, Chile, Italy and Croatia.
December 2nd 2011 @ 8:25am
Kasey said | December 2nd 2011 @ 8:25am | Report comment
Anyone that follows football and understands how unrealistic the Official FIFA rankingsa re, usually
1) get a chuckle out of he slavish devotion of the Mainstream Media to reporting the ups and downs of the Socceroos in those rankings..recognizing that it usually just means we’ve played a few games(if we went up) or have been idle while a tournament has take place somewhere else in the world (if we went down.)
2)Believes that as a consequence of (1) the ELO rankings are a much truer reflection of the relative merits of vrious national teams in the world pecking order.
December 1st 2011 @ 8:59am
phil osopher said | December 1st 2011 @ 8:59am | Report comment
You have to aim high. But this ‘we’ll be better than argentina claim’, well as someone said, normally argentina are in the top 4 so their current 10 ranking is an exception and a bit of a beat up by media, not the FFA. Australia won’t reach the top ten though, sorry. The top 20 ranking we currently hover around is a bit rich in my opinion.
But there are some good players coming through for Aus, and I dont see that balck hole once the golden generation passes that they all feared a year ago coming to fruition to be honest. I actually think they should do a Brisbane Roar and cut off the old deadwood.
December 1st 2011 @ 9:37am
AGO74 said | December 1st 2011 @ 9:37am | Report comment
Top 10 is perhaps too much to ask for in near future, but why is current top 20 not accurate? In ’06 we made last 16. In ’10 – we beat Serbia and drew Ghana who I’m pretty sure are top 20. If we’d played smart and kept Germany to 2-0 rather than tactical suicide we displayed, may have yet played in last 16.
We’ve also had many wins over highly ranked opponents in friendlies like Holland, Germany etc. Plus we almost took out the Asian Cup.
So again I ask why isn’t the current ranking circa top 20 accurate? Because we’re not European?
December 1st 2011 @ 10:03pm
phil osopher said | December 1st 2011 @ 10:03pm | Report comment
yeah I agree. I think top 20 is probably justifiable statistically. We do pull off some victories agianst some teams I expect to beat us at times, and that always pleases me. But I dont know, last time I looked I saw teams that were below us and thought if we played them I’d fancy them to be honest. It’s not because we’re not european at all, but I think if we indeed were and we had to play there all the time, our ranking wouldnt be around 20, I reckon it’d be much lower because we wouldnt win as much I dont think. We rack up a lot of victories over these teams that really aren’t that great, and we often only just beat them too, take recent form for instance. But hey, sure, when we play big teams we seem to go a lot better too, play with much better quality. I think we used to be way under rated, but now slightly over rated.
For all this 05 v 11 debate there, for me the best Aus side Ive seen personally was the ’97 side, we were a genuinely good attacking team back then, Kewell was smoking hot and Dukes was too, Bosnich probably the best keeper in the world for mine, and we were way under rated.
December 1st 2011 @ 10:06am
Roger said | December 1st 2011 @ 10:06am | Report comment
In 2005, we were around 50.
In 2011, we are around 20.
Who’s to say we can’t be nipping at the heals of 10 by 2015? 4 years is a long time.
December 1st 2011 @ 3:16pm
West syd said | December 1st 2011 @ 3:16pm | Report comment
in 2005 we were around 50 becasue we were not in asia and didnt have the opportunity to consodolate our rankings
the 2005 team was way better than the current 2011 team
look at the quality of players and clubs they were playing with back in 2005 compared to this current 2011.
December 1st 2011 @ 9:06am
jbinnie said | December 1st 2011 @ 9:06am | Report comment
Buckley should stay out of prophesy,especially in world soccer for it is doubtful he even knows a good player from a bad player. He has put expansion on the back-burner,great, whose idea was it to expand in the first place and then go about trying to fool the public by giving one of those clubs 2 “home” games against the best supported team in the league to boost their average gate figures?.
What is he going to do about one of the best performed football teams in the last 3 years who cannot crack a regular 4000 to a home game? What has happened to the national cup competition that first raised it’s head 18 months ago and he and his off-sider were still trumpeting about just 6 months ago. How long does it take to initiate such a comp?. Was it ever really was an intention?. One could go on but if we are to overtake Argentine in the next ten years it’s high time the governing body had a long hard look at how our “under-age” teams are performing on their various world stages, for the under -17′s will be in their prime in 10 years and that is just a little frightening when one views their record over the last few years.
Now if all this sounds negative so be it for it is factual negativity. Despite the “howlers” made by the FFA in their short history the game does appear to be prospering despite these setbacks but BB would be better leaving prophesy to people who can be realistic about such things. World rating is like a golf handicap,the nearer you get to the smaller figure the harder it is to drop another digit. At 25 our Golden Generation has done a great job.Getting to number 20 is infinitely more difficult and 15 is another million miles away ,so back to stitching up TV deals Ben and sincerely wish you every success in that venture.jb
December 1st 2011 @ 9:09am
Kasey said | December 1st 2011 @ 9:09am | Report comment
To be honest, I’m just glad someone at FFA has sat down and come up with a strategic aim document. If you don’t know what you’re shooting for, how can you hit it? Strategic documents are usually filled with aspirational statements and short on details, that is their nature. So
“Improving the standard of the A-League so that it is recognised as the pre-eminent domestic league in AFC”
is just what you’d expect to read in a document such as this. There is nothing wrong with aiming high. You set out your 5 year plan and then every year, you plan your calendar to move closer to these goals. The biggest aim for me is mentioned and that is “to have 10 stable clubs and sustainable economic model for the A-League. ” sustainability has to be the principle goal for domestic football in this country. It won’t be long before UEFA’s FFP policy infiltrates the rest of the football world.
I must admit to being surprised that there is no mention of the FFA Cup, but I am pleased at the level of information regarding the AFC2015 tournament and how the FFA believes it can help the sport overall in Australia.
December 1st 2011 @ 10:01am
MelbCro said | December 1st 2011 @ 10:01am | Report comment
The FFA Cup it seems is now completly off the agenda for the FFA. I doubt they ever took the idea very seriously
December 1st 2011 @ 10:10am
Kasey said | December 1st 2011 @ 10:10am | Report comment
Personally I don’t really care about the FFA Cup. I see it as a ‘ nice to have’ rather than a ‘need to have’ . Given some of the attitudes of fans not supporting HAL teams(demonstrated not just here but on other forums), it looks like a big risk to take with the image of the game IMO. All it takes is one minor ‘flare up’ (swee what I did there;)) at a FFA Cup game and our sport will once again be dragged through the gutter of the tabloid media in this country. Do we really need that? Id be happy to concentrate on getting the HAL right for the next 3 years and reassess an FFA cup at the 3-5 year mark. If we can afford it, then the FFA will be able to supliment the travel of non-HAL teams as well as offer other inducements perhaps.
December 1st 2011 @ 10:23am
Qantas supports Australian Football said | December 1st 2011 @ 10:23am | Report comment
Agreed, I have totally gone off it as well.
December 1st 2011 @ 12:02pm
Griffo said | December 1st 2011 @ 12:02pm | Report comment
Yeah I think the FFA Cup would be nice to have: if thought out and organised correctly it could help link the lower tiers to the professional A-League.
I think economics has clouded it’s birth a bit as has the angst over how it will run.
I think that it will arrive when other concerns (like club stability) have been met.
I think an FFA Cup would be a good interim measure for promo-relegation, although I’m concerned reading between the lines over the past year that the FFA would want promo-relegation ASAP for that elusive 3rd ACL entry
December 1st 2011 @ 10:19am
Qantas supports Australian Football said | December 1st 2011 @ 10:19am | Report comment
Yes it’s a FFA conspiracy not to allow Melb Croatia beat up Melbourne Victory.. lol
December 1st 2011 @ 10:33am
Kasey said | December 1st 2011 @ 10:33am | Report comment
figuratively or literally;)
December 1st 2011 @ 10:34am
Lucan said | December 1st 2011 @ 10:34am | Report comment
FFA pulled MV and MH out of the Mirabella Cup because they claimed to have their own Cup competition forthcoming and didn’t want the M.Cup to overshadow it.
QSAF, you’re happy to be straight face lied to by our federation? I know I’m not, but each their own.
December 1st 2011 @ 10:54am
Qantas supports Australian Football said | December 1st 2011 @ 10:54am | Report comment
Maybe they have read the recent Roar articles and gee thought this is not such a good idea.. I have thought as much myself.. Change of mind perhaps not necessarily a lie. Put it down to one of John Howard’s change of minds that there will be no GST.
December 1st 2011 @ 11:17am
Kasey said | December 1st 2011 @ 11:17am | Report comment
Maybe it was a non-core promise;)
At least Howard took his change of mind to an election….too bad Dillard missed that memo about democracy(There will be NO Carbon tax under a govt I lead)
December 1st 2011 @ 11:30am
Qantas supports Australian Football said | December 1st 2011 @ 11:30am | Report comment
I can’t see any difference Libs lied or change of mind Gillard lied or change of mind pffft. In the end people change their minds about a lot of things. Howard only took it to an election because he played the race card on a number of issues before hand and was assured of winning it, damn disgraceful.
December 1st 2011 @ 11:46am
Tristan Rayner said | December 1st 2011 @ 11:46am | Report comment
Let’s keep it on sport fellas. Thanks.
December 1st 2011 @ 1:36pm
PeterK said | December 1st 2011 @ 1:36pm | Report comment
Lucan, the real problem was when FFA said initially that MH and MV could enter — they clearly hadn’t thought through the ramifications which later became clear to them. Let’s hope that FFA are fast learning to think things through BEFORE speaking!
December 1st 2011 @ 1:29pm
PeterK said | December 1st 2011 @ 1:29pm | Report comment
Well said Kasey — if we aim for the moon then we might at least clear the fence! and we should all aim for these targets TOGETHER!
I do so hope the FFA Cup happens, and soon — and its cost could be kept well down by having the early rounds played regionally, before State League clubs enter (and before A-League clubs enter even later).
December 1st 2011 @ 9:12am
Rusty0256 said | December 1st 2011 @ 9:12am | Report comment
Top Ten dreaming is a waste of time as the goal is too arbitrary in that the ranking is based on how other teams perform against other teams that may or may not be Australia.
It is also based on how many games are played and how many of those games are against higher ranked teams (as it is primarily these teams that will, if you beat them, give you leverage to climb the ranking). In effect Australia plays far more games against lower ranked teams than teams who are above us. That is always a recipe for slipping on a banana skin like we did against a much lower ranked Oman.
The FFA should be setting their goals far more precisely; qualifying for the World Cup and reaching at least the 2nd Round, winning the Asian Cup and consistently being the top ranked team in Asia. The latter I believe should be the biggest target as if we can keep up with and even surpass Japan and Korea (who are on their own upward trajectories), our World Ranking will more or less take care of itself.
Having said that, the next generation of Socceroos still seem to be a bit behind the 2006/2010 boys so until that changes it’s all a bit of a pipe-dream.
December 1st 2011 @ 9:18am
striker said | December 1st 2011 @ 9:18am | Report comment
I Think we can be a top 10 team why not if Croatia can be in the top ten were just as good as them if not better on our day. I think the future is rosier than people give us credit.
December 1st 2011 @ 9:44am
AGO74 said | December 1st 2011 @ 9:44am | Report comment
Croatia had an incredible team. Realistically, I think we can be a top 10 team but probably not for a good decade or so until the programs of changes that have been implemented over the last 5 years or so have gone through a generation of kids.