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Football in Australia is entering a conversion phase

Roar Guru
6th July, 2014
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Frank Lowy will step down as FFA chairman in November. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Roar Guru
6th July, 2014
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3224 Reads

Football in Australia has a rich history stretching back to the 1870s. Yet since 1955, when a professional league composed of mainly ethnic-backed clubs broke away from the local district associations, football has never been capable of making itself mainstream.

In spite of this, football managed to attract a huge player base. The belief was that with so many players the game couldn’t fail, but fail it did.

Football failed because it failed to make itself mainstream.

When Frank Lowy took the reins in 2004 he understood more than most that to make football sustainable it had to become mainstream, and it’s pretty close in present day.

Sports reporting and public conversations all indicate that at the end of the last A-League season football was an accepted part of the sporting landscape.

But cracking the mainstream has largely gone unnoticed. One of the biggest and most important aspect is the league playing deep into the AFL, Super League and NRL seasons. Season nine finished in early May, and A-League 10 will play into late May. That means from late February to mid May, football is head-to-head with other codes, something deemed impossible even two years ago.

But the single most important aspect of the football growth over the past nine years was the development of a conceptual framework which everyone connected with the game could play a role in.

FFA identified and developed early on the broad concepts to operate. First was to take football to as many people as possible, second was to improve the technical standards and third was to develop systems and structures that were practical and would help unite the various warring football tribes.

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There is no distinct line in the sand signalling when football reached mainstream credibility. In fact it still struggles at times, but is very close.

Key to the conversion process will be the continual investment in the conception framework of technical improvement, spreading the game and system and structure improvements.

Another foundation block is the free-to-air coverage SBS is providing. Increased coverage and rating growth is critical moving forward.

I feel in many ways sorry for SBS, as they remind me of the team that fought and scraped its way from third division and now has the same players in the first division.

Do you show loyalty to all players or let some go? History has taught us to stay in the first division many of the players need to be let go for better players.

Given SBS’s investment in football and the overwhelmingly positive contribution made, you assume they know they need to lift the performance of their broadcasts. You cannot have a 12-week W-League winning the rating 25 per cent of the time.

SBS need to follow the advice they have given the A-League clubs. They need to treat the A-League as a commercial product and compete with Channel Seven and Channel Nine, and need to be ruthlessly study their audience.

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My fear is they won’t. SBS need to look at performances and look beyond keeping friends on as presenters.

The conversion phase is well placed in schools with the FFA’s Whole of Football School Strategy, and the success of the Socceroos will further influence its development.

Football in Australia has systems and structures in place, a national domestic competition and a national team with respect. The World Cup has also been reported in the media for what it is, and has featured on free-to-air as well as Fox.

The conversion phase is under way, with an estimated two million people connected to football. If football is capable of converting anywhere the percentage of its player base as rugby union, rugby league and AFL, then strong growth can be expected.

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