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.
ItsCalledFootball
Roar Guru
Geez, I'd love to be at a bar having a conversation about football with Pete, Jack and KNACKERS. Wouldn't you Pip?
Titus
Guest
Knackers, why should we listen to the advice of insincere hypocrites?
Titus
Guest
Jack, Footballs large participation is why it gets lots of funding.
KNACKERS
Guest
Has it ever occurred to you soccer chaps that the reason you attract people who care ( more ) about other sports is because so many of you cannot dicuss your sport without speaking ( disparagingly )of ours ? I think if you check a whole lot of threads on this blog you'll find fans of other sports chatting away without any mention of soccer but here ....well it's rather like being at the bar with your own group when you hear your girlfriend being dissed by another group at the other end of the bar who are giving you furtive glances but decline to catch your eye
Jack
Guest
How about Football and the other professional codes learning to stand on their own two feet and stop demanding a share of taxpayers wages to pay for a game that they do not want to watch. How about sports funding going to encourage participation, to help get kids playing sport? The elite play on beautiful pitches with quality facilities subsidised by the tax payers while local sports grounds donlt even have goal posts or grass to play on. How about stop forcing me to fund sports I wouldn;t cross the road to watch for free? A League crowd figures say it all. More people attend Collingwood press conferecnes that some A league games.
ItsCalledFootball
Roar Guru
Thanks Pete for your comment. Care to share you full details with us? 90% of people on the Roar don't use their full names. Its an amateur sports blog, not a professional writers column. We also suspect that one or two AFL supporters post under several aliases anyway. You aren't another one of them are you Pete? Are you sure that Jesse Fink is his real name? I don't think it is.
Evan Askew
Guest
Pretty good points there Mr Wilson and I agree wholeheartedly with the post. And did you know that under Soccer Australia that we got to the semi finals in consecutive U20 World cups. That we qualified for five consecutive Olympics, They set up a national comp in 1977 and a NYL in the late 80's. However Football Federation AUstralia have accomplished so much more and despite all the talk about declining crowds in the A league, at the averae crowds of 8000, that attendence is still double that of the NSL. If Foster and Fink are truely suggesting that things were better under Soccer AUstralia then I no longer have any respect for them.
UK Steve
Guest
So NSW & QLD don't have any interest in AFL then. Well there was 28,000 at a rain sodden SCG last night, which was more than the last Socceroos match in Sydney. You are massively over playing the interest of soccer in Asia.
Queensland's game is rugby league
Guest
"What are you on about, QueenslandGIRL?" Like it or not, a lot of kids stop playing the game when they reach a certain age. Few of them go on to become avid supporters of the A-League. This is the point I aws trying to make. Kids play soccer in large numbers, yet they're offered very little reward for doing so. The soccer organisations rip them off by charging way too much for registration fees. When the kids and their parents realise that the money they're paying to play the sport isn't put towards the good of the game then they realise it's best to avoid the A-League and give their support to the overseas competitions. If the FFA wants the Australian public to invest in the A-League then it needs to show that the FFA is investing in the A-League. So far it's shown that it takes a lot and doesn't put much of it back into the local game. The bid for the 2022 World Cup is proof of it. That money could have gone towards building better pathways for juniors who are lookig to make their way into senior competition. The whole standard of coaching, from junior level to senior level, could have been bolstered by spending that money on world-class coaches who can lift the standards of Australian soccer and teach kids the skills that they need to compete with the best players in the world Australian players just don't have the same skills as the Brazilians, Germans, etc. This is because they aren't coached properly. They might be better than them at playing a physical game, but when it comes to dribbling and technical understanding of the game they are left far behind. Australia won't be a contender for the World Cup until they address this issue.
Pete
Guest
Sorry for being somewhat old-fashioned, BUT, if someone writing articles in a publication is going to criticize, or attack individuals, other commentators (such as Foster and Fink) by name, then it should be a precondition that he/she also writes under his/her own name. ItsCalledFootball? Come off it, mate.
methysticum
Guest
I love it when Football (soccer) people talk that they have to finance 9 national teams in international competition - and therefore deserve Australian government direct support - as opposed to other codes that according to football people have to finance no more than one (or in AFL's case none). The Australian Rugby Union (ARU) has to support the senior mens side (the Wallabies), the senior womens side (the Wallaroos), the Australian Under 20's side, the Australian Schoolboys side and the Australian mens and womens sevens sides - a total of 6 national sides. So I don't think that is a good card to play with Mark Arbib. Don't worry - he won''t help rugby (union) either.
ItsCalledFootball
Roar Guru
Bidding for World Cups is a once in a lifetime activity and is not the FFA's usual line of work. The federal government agreed to fund the bid on a risk-reward basis, because the winner of the bids are set to make a huge reward from it. The WC bid should be seen as a once off and not a regular grab for cash by the FFA. But yes it was a lot of money and the bid failed, so rival codes are using it to try and get more funding for themselves but honestly, does the AFL need more government funding?
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
What are you on about, QueenslandGIRL? You non-football people truly are deluded if you think Football needs to spend money to get kids to exercise! There are more people playing football - at every age group - than any other team sport in Australia. The Crawford Report also highlighted a lack of public infrastructure could not meet the huge demand for organised participation in Football. Football doesn't need to spend money coaxing anyone to play the game - kids, adolescents, adults and even geriatrics simply buy a ball and play.
Queensland's game is rugby league
Guest
Right on The Cattery! Children need exercise. They get far too little of it in today's electronically-driven world. I think the FFA needs to start giving something back to its loyal junior supporter base. Perhaps more juniors would continue playing the sport when they reach adulthood if the FFA showed more interest in grassroots competition?
The Cattery
Guest
From the point of view of getting more kids playing sport, could not agree more. That was the gist of the recent Crawford report on the funding of elite sports. In terms of health outcomes, you get better bang for your buck funding locals sports bodies aimed at getting kids playing sport, than you do out of funding international competition.
Queensland's game is rugby league
Guest
"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." And fair enough too. Soccer was given every concession imaginable during the 2022 World Cup bid. The money invested in that bid turned out to the dumbest and most wasteful failed investment in Australian sporting history. If the money is given to Aussie rules, rugby league and rugby union then a fair amount of it will go towards grassroots competition. Australians benefit from funding going towards grassroots competition. Spending state money on these codes will be more beneficial than wasting $45.6 million on a stupid bid that was never going to get anywhere.
Ari Viderci
Guest
Hey Fuss, any of those businesses an academy? I'm looking for some start-up tips.
Titus
Guest
According to that link AFL and Cricket get $750 000 a year compared to Footballs $700 000
zach
Guest
According to that link cricket gets $750,000.00 a year compared with soccer's $8m. How can this be justified?
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
@ MF ... well our Asian neighbours certainly have no interest in ARF-ball. Actually, when you think of it, even our NSW & Qld neighbours don't have any interest in ARF-ball!