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“I feel sorry for Frank Lowy. He has put so much time and effort into the game in the last eight years and now we make the tough decisions, we are being crucified,” an unnamed FFA official told journalist Ray Gatt.
Problem is, the ‘we’ in that statement are well paid to make those decisions, and they’re getting them wrong at every turn.
“People forget that if it wasn’t for the FFA there would be no Brisbane Roar, no Perth Glory, no Fury last season, no Adelaide United. We helped to keep them alive. The FFA made a tough, but responsible decision,” the source told Gatt in response to the fall-out from the axing of North Queensland Fury.
There wouldn’t have been a North Queensland Fury in the first place if the FFA had done its due diligence on Don Matheson, the man whose cut-and-run, left the Townsville side in such a precarious financial position to begin with.
There won’t be a western Sydney team because the preferred bidders Sydney Rovers had about as much as cash as a drunken teen staggering home from his high-school formal. Should Clive Palmer ever up sticks and take his round ball with him, there won’t be a Gold Coast United either.
Come to think of it, there won’t be a professional football competition at the rate we’re going because the FFA is too busy making a balls up of the one it already runs.
It’s impossible to separate the $45 million worth of taxpayer-generated funds the FFA sunk into a Quixotic World Cup bid, with the $2 million shortfall the governing body claimed was the catalyst for turfing the Fury.
So, if our unnamed FFA source is tetchy about criticism generated by the dumping of Fury, perhaps they should have explained why North Queensland’s circumstances are so radically different to those of Brisbane, Perth or Adelaide.
Not only are the FFA guilty of stultifying passion on the terraces through their obsession with ‘family friendly’ atmospheres, now their employees – happily drawing a pay-cheque from the game – are telling the media to go cram it and chastising fans for getting fired up over the execution of the Fury!
Do these people know anything about what attracts football fans to the sport?
Don’t worry about kids in Townsville or Rockhampton or Cairns. They can always watch Bolton draw with Wigan on the tube while we sit here sucking our thumbs and wondering how to attract new fans to the A-League.
And nevermind your next generation of Frank Farinas and Stevie Coricas, they can just take up Aussie Rules or Rugby League.
If North Queensland Fury weren’t a viable proposition in the long term, they shouldn’t been admitted in the first place.
But it wasn’t the fans who were responsible for their entry into the A-League, or the media or the suddenly unemployed players – it was the FFA.
So for an FFA official to turn around and complain about “being crucified” by the very people they expect to promote and pay for the game is the height of hypocrisy.
What the organisation needs is a few more football people passionate about the game, who understand the tribalism which fuels its support and nurture a critical discourse aimed at protecting its future.
They could always start by placing a few phone calls around Townsville, where at least 20 young men are looking for employment thanks to a hatchet job carried out by a bunch of impassive men and women in suits.