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There’s been a bit of a palaver in the News Limited press in recent days over the latest instalment of Pimgate. Our Socceroos boss has been at it again, damning the A-League with faint praise and riling up the likes of North Queensland chairman Don Matheson in the process.
I wrote about the issue for The Roar last week.
Yesterday he continued with his verbal wrecking-ball routine at a press conference to announce the squad for Kuwait in Canberra, responding to one question about how he could improve the A-League with a curt: “Do you have an hour?”
Anyone who knows Pim Verbeek or has been following his career since he arrived in Australia can tell you he is a no-bullshit sort of guy: he speaks as he sees it, and if you don’t like it, well, on your bike.
And he’s entitled to have that kind of attitude. He’s been brought in, and paid well, to do a job.
In doing that job, though, he hasn’t won over everybody. Criticisms abound over Verbeek from his dour approach to football (5-5-0 is a favoured term coined to describe his ultra-defensive style) to his refusal to learn the national anthem.
I don’t always enjoy what I see in Verbeek’s football but I will defend his right to call the game as he sees it. News Limited, on the other hand, perhaps because they have a heavy commercial stake in the sport through Fox Sports, have been urging Football Federation Australia to take action against Verbeek for expressing his opinion on the merits of the A-League and the realistic prospects of A-League players becoming Socceroos.
On the weekend just gone Daily Telegraph sports editor Paul Crawley, while strikingly qualifying his comments with “no doubt [Pim’s] right”, called Verbeek “clueless when it comes to selling his sport to mainstream Australia … could he have done any more harm? Probably not.
“It’s just what Australian soccer needs right now – another stink. As the dust settled on Adelaide coach Aurelio Vidmar’s outrageous attack on the people of Adelaide, labelling it a ‘pissant town’, now the national coach goes one better by spitting in the face of all who support the domestic league.”
Stirred into a response, the FFA’s chief executive Ben Buckley was not fussed: “Verbeek’s comments are related to what he sees as areas for improvement and there are many leagues around the world where there is scope for improvement.”
Which is absolutely correct.
Buckley is right to back his most prized employee – yet conversely it does set an interesting precedent for free speech in the game. If a coach in the A-League dares call into question the standard of refereeing in the competition, he is called into account and heavily fined.
But how is that not an example of identifying, like Verbeek, an area of “improvement”?
If Verbeek has carte blanche to say what he likes about Australian football then those under him – his assistants, the ten A-League coaches – should also have the right to express their honest opinions about all aspects of the national game without fear of being heavily sanctioned.
As it is at the moment the heavy hand of the FFA comes down far too inconsistently. – and consistency is not too much to ask for, is it?
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