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Football Federation Australia CEO Ben Buckley during the launch of the A-League season in Sydney, Monday, Aug. 2, 2010. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Football Federation Australia was already having a bad week before former A-League boss Archie Fraser stuck the knife in with a remarkable attack on the governing body and CEO Ben Buckley (above) on The World Game website.
Fraser, who quit as CEO of the A-League in April and worked to save the North Queensland Fury, didn’t mince words in his attack, addressing a number of issues of great concern for football in this country.
Fraser’s attack is important for a number of reasons: for raising and openly discussing the leadership at the FFA and Ben Buckley’s role; what impact the World Cup bid is having on the league; asking why there has been so much personnel change at the FFA; raising questions about the Sydney Rovers’ viability; asking why it took so long to step in and help the Newcastle Jets; and shinning a light on the major issues of scheduling and promotion.
The “Archie Fraser manifesto” deserves a deeper examination as we need to understand the reasons why the A-League is faltering (and so we can challenge the fallacy that it’s the sole result of a lack of interest).
Archie said:
– “The only focus right now at the FFA is the World Cup bid and the A-League has been left to become a basket case.
“The A-League is suffering. Hopefully it will still be there in December when FIFA decides whether we do or don’t get the World Cup.
“The structure of the league is wrong. It needs more autonomy and to be separated from the FFA and allowed to look after its own affairs.”
Without autonomy within the FFA, the A-League has become the forgotten child.
The attitude that the league will grow on its own has corrupted the FFA’s thinking since the very beginning. They underestimated the task of developing the league and the extent of the shift of resources and attention from the A-League to the World Cup bid has exposed that flawed logic – failing to secure its foundation, which it should have been doing.
All new leagues in the modern football era, from the USA to Japan to China, have suffered a dip in popularity after the initial boom, so it was imperative that the A-League was nurtured during this period rather than ignored.
We can only hope the bid is successful or that the FFA’s resources and finances are switched back to the A-League before it’s too late.
One shudders to think what will happen if the bid in unsuccessful. With all its eggs in the World Cup basket, what will become of the A-League?
– “It needs some grunt in a competitive market at a critical time for the game. Right now the league is paralysed. The FFA has taken its eye off the ball and that’s why I quit.
“The other codes must be looking at us and thinking how good is this? They will be saying, ‘Thank God they haven’t been able to get it right yet. Because when they do we will be in a bit of trouble’.
“My question is why are the directors not doing anything about it? Why is the FFA board sitting back and allowing this to happen?”
This speaks for itself.
Where is the “grunt” in competing in the overcrowded Australian market and determination to address the issues around the decrease in crowds?
– “There is no promotion of the game and no cohesive strategy. When I was head of the A-League I couldn’t make any decisions, and no decisions were ever made until the last minute. Everything went through Ben Buckley.”
If this is true then it’s little wonder the A-League’s promotion has been so non-existent.
The A-League’s running, therefore, needed to be more autonomous during this World Cup bid period, and more power given to current boss Lyall Gorman (who has been almost invisible throughout this crisis).
Promotion and marketing, when compared to the A-League’s launch, is completely inadequate.
More needs to be done and Buckley must be more proactive in outsourcing that promotion if the FFA cannot handle it.
– “The organisation is purely reactive and never stands up for the game. We never take on the other codes and a lot of people within the FFA seem to be happy with that.”
We saw this when the likes of Andrew Demetriou so easily hijacked the World Cup bid agenda.
Where was the equivalent amount of chest beating from the FFA supporting their cause?
The FFA had the higher moral ground – trying to win the rights to host an event bigger than the Sydney Olympics that would be for all Australians to enjoy – and yet that message was buried in semantics dictated by rival codes (Etihad Stadium’s availability, the impact on the AFL/NRL seasons, etc).
– “Questions need to be asked over why (chief commercial officer) John O’Sullivan, (operations manager) Matt Phelan left, and why were (head of corporate and public affairs) Bonita Mersiades and (chief financial officer) Ian Lewis given the heave-ho.”
The FFA is a desperately understaffed organisation. A staff of 106 is not enough to handle the Socceroos, A-League and the World Cup bid.
So any clashes or tensions within that staff need to be addressed and overcome immediately if those 106 people are to maximise their abilities for the cause of growing football in this country.
They need to be working beyond their means to compensate for the shortfall, not in a poisonous environment.
– “The dire financial straits at Newcastle have been brewing for nine months. The FFA knew all about it. Nobody sat down and talked to them and offered to help until the very last minute. It’s really a disgrace.”
Was Con Constantine’s uneasy relationship with the FFA the cause for their lackluster response to the Jets’ financial situation?
Only they know.
But with North Queensland Fury and Adelaide United in the FFA’s hands, and clubs such as Gold Coast United needing more than just a helping hand, how can the FFA, with its modest size and financial clout, support so many clubs?
When the MLS went through its financial crisis, it had the support of a few corporate high flyers who could bankroll the clubs.
The FFA needs to keep the likes of Constantine and Clive Palmer involved in the game and actively reach out to corporate Australia, for it cannot bankroll the whole competition itself – certainly if it doesn’t have the prospect of an Australian World Cup in 2022.
It needs to be cutting down the $25 million loss it makes per season.
It also needs to release the shackles on clubs so they can be more active in finding their own revenue streams.
The clubs will be able to do their own apparel deals next season, which will help in a small way, but they need to be given more freedom in other areas.
– “They (Melbourne Heart) only got 4,000 odd and the game should never have been played. The draw is nothing like the one that was under consideration back in April.”
Scheduling needs to be maximised in this crossover period between the A-League and the AFL/NRL seasons.
As fans now concede, the league can’t compete with these rival codes and the A-League is being buried in terms of attention.
So why have idiosyncrasies in the schedule such as Adelaide United hosting Newcastle Jets twice in the first six rounds, giving Gold Coast United (struggling at the best of times) two byes within the opening month of the season and scheduling a Melbourne Heart home game so close to an AFL finals match (knowing it would more than likely be staged in Victoria)?
Why hurt your cause by giving the media and fans even more reason to switch off or take no interest?
They need to accept the crossover into the AFL/NRL seasons just doesn’t work with the limited amount of promotion they can give the league.
– “I don’t think you will see them (Sydney Rovers) next season because the backing just isn’t there at the moment. There were other more deserving causes for an A-League licence.”
The circumstances in which the Rovers were handed the 12th A-League licence are deserving of their own investigation. But now they are in and set to make their debut in less than twelve months, we must ask where are they at in terms of backing and how the can learn from the Fury, Gold Coast and Melbourne Heart and build a sustainable supporter base before their entry.
Unlike Heart, they do have a wide and distinctive geographical base to their cross-town rivals, but with the NRL notching up record numbers in western Sydney, and the AFL making serious noise in the region with a seemingly bottomless pit of reserves to throw at Greater Western Sydney (GWS), how can an A-League franchise survive and prosper with feeble support from the FFA?
Fraser certainly provided us with some serious questions to ponder.
And what’s even more concerning is there remain some issues he didn’t touch on, such as the limitations of the Fox Sports television deal and the options for the next, the concerns over ticketing prices relative to the product, the viability of Gold Coast United, and the reasons why A-League crowd numbers are down.
These issues need to be discussed in a public forum, and Fraser should be praised rather than condemned (just as football fans that discuss these issues shouldn’t be branded as anti-A-League).
The crisis is real and to say nothing is to allow the FFA to steer the A-League down a path where it appears doomed.
Sitting idly by and expecting the A-League to grow of its own volition is the sort of shortsighted thinking that’s led the league into its current malaise under the FFA’s control.
Also, by not shinning a light on and openly discussing the various reasons why crowds remain lackluster, the football community will only fuel the anti-soccer brigade who argue a lack of interest is solely to blame for the stagnation.
Fraser’s attack should act as the impetus for the custodians of the game – and many of its fans – to wake up before it’s too late and the A-League morphs into the NSL Mark II.