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The federal government’s four-year $32 million funding grant to the Football Federation of Australia (FFA) expires this financial year.
Following on from a failed and expensive 2022 World Cup hosting rights campaign, and falling A-League revenue, the financial problems of the FFA and the continued funding of football and the code’s administration becomes more critical now than ever.
The FFA had been in talks with the government for several months before the last federal election about extending football’s funding arrangement. Initially the discussions with the former federal sports minister Kate Ellis and the federal communications minister senator Conroy were very promising.
Leading up to the elections there was talk of not only extending the football funding, but even doubling it to $16 million a year and also putting the Socceroos and A-League on the federal government’s anti-siphoning list, so that more football would have to be shown on free-to-air (FTA) television, which would undoubtedly make the sport more popular in Australia.
However, a lot has changed since the election.
The global financial crisis, some major natural disasters across the country, and a stuttering Australian economy has put some strains on the Federal Reserve and its ability to meet all of its election promises.
The other major sports are also continuing to lobby Canberra for more money as they try and expand and compete for junior footballers and their territories. They are even arguing for a reduction in funding for football, especially after the $45.6 million grant to assist the failed 2022 World Cup bid drawing plenty of criticism.
There is genuine growing concern now that the government will be reluctant to continue to support football the way it has in the past.
The discussions about conducting a review of football had also been happening for some time already with Kate Ellis and the FFA were happy to oblige.
However, the new federal sports minister Mark Arbib’s relationship with the FFA and the Australian football family hasn’t got off to the best of starts.
Instead of discussing the football funding arrangements and review with the FFA beforehand or even making a joint announcement, the Smith review was made public by Mr Arbib in an interview on Sky News’ Australian Agenda program on Sunday night, without the FFA’s knowledge.
The FFA to its credit didn’t make a major issue of it, and is welcoming the review and taking part for the good of the game. What else could they do? They are the poor cousin in need of money and they have to put up with the slings and insults to get the help they need.
Well at least they will have a proper professional assessment of where the game is at and hopefully some suggestions on how to improve it, without having to spend any of its own money.
However, not only has senator Arbib damaged the FFA’s credibility by making public announcements about the FFA without their knowledge, he has also created a negative backlash from the Australian public and press that will only further devalue the sporting asset he is trying to value.
Despite Mr Arbib’s ethnic background and Libyan heritage, his great sports love is rugby league and is a fully paid up member of the Sydney Roosters rugby league club. No one is sure if he even has any interest in football at all, so the FFA is expecting no favours from the federal sports minister.
The first steps of the review haven’t even started yet, but the FFA has already been judged guilty.
Football journalists like Craig Foster and Jesse Fink are using the announcement to make some fairly harsh judgements about the FFA and what they have or haven’t achieved. They are going so far as to say that we are worse off now under the FFA than we were in the past under Soccer Australia.
The sporting public has not surprisingly developed a perception that this latest review will be a heavy-handed follow-up to the Crawford Report – the 2003 document that was the catalyst for a revolution in the local game, especially with national teams and a new A-League domestic competition.
But I agree with Mike Cockerill’s assessment when he says football in this country and the A-League in particular, is not struggling because of bad administration, it is struggling because of lack of money – it has always been the poor cousin of other codes.
It doesn’t have the hundreds of millions of dollars of media rights money nor does it have a media empire as part owner.
I’m sure the FFA has many ideas and projects that it would love to implement for the good of the game, but just can’t because it doesn’t have the money right now.
Most of the teams, competitions and activities that the FFA funds are for the good of the country and its football communities and do not make any profit and they probably never will.
That makes the ongoing funding of football in Australia for its continued growth as important now as it has ever been.
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