The gloss and the aura surrounding Mr. Frank Lowy has started to wane of late. Sure, the humiliation of the World Cup bid resulted in extended discussions about the Chairman and his CEO. But it is my opinion that the rot had set in far earlier than last year.
The idea of bidding for the World Cup was a naive exercise in and of itself, with good will and enthusiasm at its forefront rather than cost-benefit analyses and an in-depth analysis of the resulting PR campaign if we were to lose.
While people are calling the media overly harsh and that Australians are big dreamers and no heights are unattainable, more research should have been done within the walls of FIFA, whose board has a reputation for wanting to expand the game to new frontiers and use football as a means of social change.
Anyway, this leads into my main argument which is that of the structure of the FFA at board level. The oligarchical approach taken by Frank Lowy is one that is flawed in principle, with appointed officials on the FFA board instead of elected officials of the football fraternity.
We complain of a lack of communication between FFA and its footballing community, and this is because the FFA is governed by a group of businessmen and not football people. We need to be very weary of the approach taken by Lowy in that he has the game solely in his hands, and the game belongs to the people.
To give a practical example of my point I will use the changes within the FFV over the past decade. Following the Crawford Report, pressure groups demanded change within the structure of the FFV where high level clubs received a disproportionate amount of control over the selection of the board which showed to the layman a certain level of corruption within the sport.
The voting structure was changed and all clubs received equal voting rights, from the clubs with 1000 members to the local Sunday senior clubs. Zoning and engagement with the country associations lead to a better rapport between city and country.
Elections were held, and in the following years board members have come and gone and have been held accountable for bad decisions by the membership.
Sure, Victoria itself has a long way to go but looking at its board structure and the representation model along with its initiatives, such as the VCL and the restructure of the winter competitions it is the most forward thinking and accountable board in the country.
Now, I can see the parallels between the FFV of 10 years ago and the FFA of today. The benevolent dictatorship of Frank Lowy is not working. Democracy and representation of all footballing members must prevail.
We need an elected and accountable FFA board with footballing people on it. We must follow the example show by the Victorians.
Members of the football fraternity, it’s time for change.
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