The decision to select a new manager of the Socceroos has brought out suggestion from the likes of Craig Foster and Davidde Corran to have a “technical committee” to help select the new manager. However, is this idea feasible?
The main issue with this technical committee is that by having numerous people on a board with different opinions and philosophy on how the game should be played, and different visions on the future of Australian football, it would be hard to get a consensus and actually get any decisions going forward.
What would happen if we had someone like Craig Foster who advertised a certain possession attacking style of football favouring coaches from South America, and then someone like Craig Johnston who was advocating for route one football, and then another person who is a strong advocate for giving the coach to an Australian?
The most likely outcome out of this is that there will be more debates than progress. This could lead to situations where the national manager or technical director has to play politics in appeasing the technical committee before getting anything done.
So let’s have a look at who are the members of the five man FFA selecting committee, and responsible for selecting the next national coach of Australia. We have the likes of Phil Wolanski, Ben Buckley and John Boultbee. Now people may scoff at the fact that none of these people I listed are football people. However, there is more to selecting coaches then assessing the capabilities of the coach and their CV.
One of the things that FFA has to decide is the salary of the next manager of the Socceroos. The committee must have people with business experience to determine how much they should pay the coach based on the recommendation of the technical director as well as on the marketability of the manager.
I presume that Phil Wolanski and Ben Buckley would be given the business side of things in selecting the manager, whilst John Boultbee the head of national teams and football development who is responsible for the logistics of the Socceroos to assess the feasibility of any demands that the next coach would make on Australia.
We also have our national technical director Han Berger who is very much a football person, and had an experienced coaching career in the Netherlands who is responsible for the direction Australian football is heading. He will give the job of interviewing and assessing the manager on his football credentials, and then make recommendations to the rest of the committee on who is the best candidate.
However, the likes of Foster and co have always complained that there needs to be an Australian football legend to oversee and watch over Han Berger to ensure that the well being of Australian football is protected. Foster believed it was necessary “for Australians to reclaim responsibility for our own game’s future rather than handing over our game’s credibility to a foreigner.”
This then leads to the last member of the committee, Jack Reilly. He a member of the football hall of fame as he represented the Socceroos 35 times, he also played all three matches in the 1974 World Cup. He is a member of the FFA board which disputes Foster’s claim that there are no Australian football people running the game. He is the Australian football representative of the selection committee to oversee the process and to assist Han Berger in assessing the candidate.
In my opinion, I think there is a sufficient amount of football people running the game. One Australian former player and one foreign football player making the decisions. It ensures that Han Berger doesn’t get all the say on how the game is running, but also ensures that there isn’t a committee that can be obstructive in Han Berger doing his job.
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