I’d argue that if you are going to spend $1-1.2m on a player, they should be a playmaker in some capacity and have a positive leadership role on and off the field. Hayne ticks some, but not all of those boxes. Foran has the potential to assume that type of marquee role at Parra, but we all know what happened there. The Eels will hopefully gain a football operations and cap manager who can apply a bit of strategy to the Eels recruiting, as they have an opportunity to build on what they have at the moment. Rolling the dice on a guy who may move to Union on a whim (even if he is the prodigal son) is a big risk

SuperEel22 – all accurate points regarding the current Eels Board picking themselves off the floor, presumably from the terrible, low-base situation they inherited from the Spagnolo era. However, none of it is relevant to the argument.

The primary point (which you glibly say has been re-hashed) is that the current board, and several boards before it are not up to the standard of franchises it is competing with for fans, sponsorship dollars and players. Another point is that the NRL should at least have a think about fixing the situation if it wants to maintain the codes popularity in the West. If this has been articulated elsewhere, I apologize for the repetition.

In terms of your defence of the Sharp administration, being mediocre, not incompetent is hardly a convincing argument. Sure, the club in some areas is on the improve, especially in regards to members and Leagues Club profits.

But the Parramatta Eels are a huge football club with a large Leagues Club supporting it. The franchise SHOULD have that amount of members, it SHOULD be making a large profit each year from its leagues club. It is easy to quibble on membership figures, but I am not surprised the Eels are the third highest club. They should also be top 3 in attendance and making the finals too…. They have unlimited and untapped potential in the same way Richmond, Eseendon or Carlton (great Victorian Clubs down on their luck) do.

Just because the current Board is not sending the club bankrupt (something I would not put beyond the previous administration) or doing their best with their limited high-end management and administrative experience to undo the mistakes of previous boards does not mean that it should try and avoid a FULL independent review of its operations, its constitution, its management structures and administrators qualifications.
Just because the club is (barely) functional does not mean that considerable governance and management changes need to be imposed. Using the Moss-inspired slogans like “We don’t want to be privatized” as justifications against real reform is sad and predictable.

The instability being experienced by the current board will continue until the governance arrangements are changed – the Eels need a governance circuit breaker. Without it, the destabilizing actions against Parra boards with good and bad intentions will continue until there is real reform and more capable people in key positions.

In conclusion, there are lots of AFL, NRL, ARU and A-League Clubs who are better run than the Eels. Much better run. Anyone who argues against this based on the facts is kidding themselves. . The fact that only a handful of these other entities have the natural, historical and fan-based advantages as the Eels should make all of you supposed diehard fans demand change ASAP. It puzzles me that up to this point this hasn’t been the case, hence the ‘re-hashed’ article.

Looking at the situation objectively, I cannot understand why the NRL doesn’t move in and demand change – implement a new board, improve your business processes, or lose your franchise in the NRL. I imagine the NRL clubs would fall-in behind the Eels, but surely having a superpower in the geographical centre of the City is crucial? The Dogs are really the only club in the outer suburbs of Sydney without a major problem – good management, good support, very solid crowds and performing on the field.
You would imagine the NRL is banking on having Penrith, Wests and the Eels up to a similar standard in most of those categories ASAP. How this happens is what I find interesting.

Agreed that aspects of Essendon’s handling of the peptide saga has been terrible, but my criticisms are based on their defence of Hird and the program the football unit put together, not on the Board’s management of the club – the sponsorship deals, the administration of season tickets, the salary cap, recruitment – board level undertakings.

Quite simply, you will not see a budget blow-out or salary cap discrepancy (that is accidental / due to bad management) at a big AFL club (or even a club like the Broncos). That was my point. Take a look at many other AFL boards and you will see plenty of former executives of the caliber of Little sitting on them.

But I agree that not all AFL or NRL boards are elite, though they need to be if the Codes want to keep competing. A good mix of experience is useful for any Board, but I would argue from a distance that the Eels have the balance all wrong.

Have to agree with you KillaKanga on the PWC response from the Eels administration – an independent review would forensically analyze the operations of the club, determine what legacy issues the current administration is dealing with and then make objective recommendations on how to fix the problem.

I can only assume that the Board already know that they will not like what they are going to hear. Being the least unappealing administrative option for the club does not make Sharpe and his crew the best solution to run the club – not by a long shot. Deposing the previous group and clinging on to power against 2 other competing factions does not give the current administration the right to reject NRL recommendations that will reform the club for the better.
I would assume this is the view of all neutral Eels fans (versus those aligned with one of the warring factions).

Totally agree Towser. That, and the 1700 times the trolls have read/clicked on the article so they can pick holes in the comments and views of others. Where are your well-reasoned football articles?, I would love to learn from the master.

I think of all the trolling posts I have seen today, this is the 3rd most thought-out.

Deehboy – It definitely comes down to personal opinion, and it is impossible to say one sports is anything other than subjectively the ‘best in the world’. The fact only Australia plays AFL competitively (or only 10-15 nations play Rugby League) doesn’t lessen the sport as a spectacle to the fans of the given sport.
Someone who is a fanatical ultimate frisbee player might have the same experience as you did in Europe explaining their sport to an ignorant local.
That comment was more in relation to the positives that ‘would’ have come from football being the number one sport, not a put-down of supporters of the other major codes in Australia who think their sport is the greatest. I love all 4 major ball sports in Australia. Australia vs New Zealand in the netball is a great spectacle as well.

The investment in infrastructure and cutting edge training methods is what would change. AFL and to a lesser extent NRL and Union are all very good at implementing junior development programs, training programs, ‘academy’ systems to develop players and win premierships. If these talents and development resources focused primarily on the one code, the quality of the players would improve as would the style of football.
In terms of body size, Keiran Jack is an example. He could have played Rugby League like his father (Gary Jack) but would have had to bulk up considerably. He is a very good AFL player, though would also make a great footballer. If he was training and playing football as an 8,9,10 year old, there is every likelihood he would develop into a good footballer.
To have a fut-sol court in every neighborhood, junior competitions in 6 a side and other forms of the game, talent scouts and school development officers in every primary and high school teaching skills and a coordinated national style of play – these are the things that would lead to Australia being a more dominant footballing nation than it currently is, as opposed to the 120kg forwards in Union being forced to play football! 🙂

There shouldn’t be angst either way in my view, though nor should there be a regulation of what organisations chose to call their sport. Football fans should calm down if their sport is referred to as soccer, and AFL/NFL/ARU/NRL fans should take a chill pill when football is called soccer. Market forces will probably decide what the sport is commonly as well as officially called.
On an aside, Rugby League is commonly shortened to just ‘league’ and I personally bristle when it is referred to as ‘rugby’ (which is Union). The peculiarities of sporting nomenclature….

Probably too strong a description, I concede. I guess the language will settle as more and more kids grow up watching the A League, and football world cups, though I do sense more angst from AFL fans than Union or League fans (who still commonly refer to their sport as ‘footy’)

I disagree with you from the perspective that Australia has clearly been able to develop both ‘athletes’ and skilful players for over 100 years in many sports (regardless of our cultural alignment with England).
Don Bradman (the greatest batsman in the history of cricket and one of the most dominant players of their sport in world sport) was hardly a 6’4 110kg athlete, yet had elite mental and technical skills. Australia has incorporated basic skills and advanced skills into its training as it has done with several sports we are world leaders or top 5 in. The basic, innate kicking skills of numerous AFL players would easily translate into the football realm. Steve Waugh was not a ripped muscleman, yet was a representative soccer player as a kid. Provided our football culture was sufficiently focussed on attacking, passing, skilful football, we would produce hundreds of skilful players who were not athletes per se.

The comparison to the way Australia has traditionally played Rugby Union compared to England and the Northern Hemisphere is a clear example of this. Do we play set-piece, forward focussed Rugby, involving lots of kicking and penalty goals? not intentionally, Southern Hemisphere Rugby, particularly Australian Rugby has lauded and promoted the running game. As a minimum, we do not mirror English Rugby and if we did, noone would show up.

Just because football in Australia (as the marginal 4th professional sporting code) has been influenced by UK football styles (442, long ball, physical) and coaching approaches does not mean that in an alternative scenario it would not embrace skills and techniques that would elevate it beyond its population. Uruaguay, the Netherlands, etc have done it and I have no doubt we would too.

I wear a bowler hat and drink only the finest gin, and on game day switch to an East End mockney accent while downing a pint of Tetleys……. I also love AFL and the other codes as well as football. I didn’t want to make AFL the focus of the article as a majority of Australians play it, and we are the World Number 1 in a reasonably narrow field. I have had numerous proud conversations with tourists abroad extolling the virtues of all our sports. The article just poses a hypothetical, nothing more.

NFL, not NRL….

Sorry Towser – you fail to draw on Australias history punching above its weight in all sports due to its ability to lead the world at various stages in sports science, training and tactics. I would use Union, League and Cricket as examples where Australia has led the world (at various stages) in regards to the training and tactics in those sports, and if we did the same thing in football (as the dominant code) I would imagine our ranking would be higher.
In Rugby League, the quality of training (skills and physical) leads the world (albeit from a low base). The NRL is much faster, physical and skilful than the Super League. League coaches stretching back to Jack Gibson in the 1970s went to the NRL to see what their teams were doing, and adopted these approaches to great effect. I have no doubt Australian Football (if the dominant code) would do the same, going to Europe or South America to see what tactics and academys were working effectively and adopting them to great effect.
In Rugby Union, we arguably led the world in the 90s in terms of our levels of professionalism and innovation (turning to Rugby League to improve our tackling, and devising tactics under Macqueen that saw us win another World Cup and make another). All of this despite having a drastically smaller number of players to draw on than England, South Africa, New Zealand and even Wales.

There are numerous other examples where Australian sports organisations have restructured their training and development to ensure we are ahead of the game. Unlike football in the past, I argue we would not have blindly turned to the English long ball game if the top thinkers in the country were looking at how to gain a competitive advantage in the sport (unless they were doing their research in 1966!), and well ahead of many countries, we would have implemented an academy structure or at the very least invested millions of (largely private sector, club-based) money in football infrastructure, including elite coaches and training methods).

England has finally made the move that almost all major football nations have taken, and that is to develop a football academy (at St George’s Park). THIS is one of the reasons they have underachieved, and a simple population/passion analysis of us and England falls short as a result

Will have to agree to disagree with you Sheek. Editors insisting on calling football ‘soccer’ in Australia are the ones being politically correct. I love all of the football codes in Australia (sorry for the confusion), but am comfortable calling football what it is. As are many other non-aligned sports fans out there. It is a trend that will continue and I am glad it is irreversible.

This is a bigger deal for AFL fans than any other sports fans. The insecurity is palpable, though I note you are personally talking in practical and semantic terms. The Football Federation of Australia obviousl wants its sport referred to as ‘Football’, so why go agaisnt that wish, if not to protect AFL??

Thanks Mike. I agree that we would resemble England quite closely. We have a passion for sport and I can picture lifelong Geelong Cats FC fans following their team in an A League Second Division much in the same way fans of Nottingham Forest follow their team in the UK Championship (second Division).

Thanks Dylan, glad you liked it. I lve the diversity of sport in Australia myself, and am proud that we are so competitive at most of the sports we participate in. I would struggle without my fix of Rugby League. There is something about a contact sport that I will always love. I don’t need to make a choice though!

Thanks for your constructive contributions Brisvegas, George and J Binni. Glad you took the time out of your day to open the page and post a comment.

Hardly – you could pose the same question with all 4 winter sports (noting Football is played in summer, but would be a winter sport if it was dominant). More a question of ” if one sport dominated, how good would we be?” I chose football, but you could pick any of them. Union being an interesting one given our relatively amazing success in that code with it being arguably the 3rd/4th biggest code in only 2 States.