It’s been a busy few days at College St as Football Federation Australia re-elected its Chairman Frank Lowy (unopposed, naturally) for a third consecutive term and also released its intriguing four-year strategic plan.
These two events are of course interlinked as Lowy wishes to leave his role having overseen the game’s complete rebirth.
While there’s no mention of finding someone who can finally take over from Lowy at the end of this four-year cycle, the strategic plan was filled with lots of interesting “broad stroke” ideas.
After a disastrous 18 months in which the peak body got distracted by the bright lights of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosting rights, the focus is clearly on steadying the ship.
(http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/buckley-opinion-display/A-strategy-for-our-future/43129) In a column that’s been published on FFA’s website, CEO Ben Buckley explained the peak body’s plan “in the initial years of the Strategic Plan timeframe is to have 10 stable clubs and sustainable economic model for the A-League.
“However, in the Strategic Plan period to 2015 expansion will only occur when those economic pre-conditions of stability and sustainability exist.”
In other words – expansion is on the backburner.
So how does FFA plan to create this climate of “stability and sustainability”?
Well the watered down version of the strategic plan is lacking in detail – except for some pie in the sky stuff about becoming a top 10 FIFA nation by 2015 – but buried amongst all the buzz words and corporate speak are the kind of succinct and positive messages the game needs to be sending forward.
One of the best examples is FFA’s plan to use the 2015 Asian Cup on home soil to assist in “linking Australia with Asia”.
While the phrase screams “please give me a government grant”, it is also the exact point FFA needs to get across to government and business around the country. You want to get in on the growing Asian market? Well we engage with them constantly on and off the pitch.
This is also integral to one of the other themes the strategic plan keeps coming back to – money or as Buckley would say, “increasing revenue”.
One aspect of this is making the A-League financially viable and as the plan points out, “investment (will be) required” to achieve this. Considering the inherent structural problems the league has, this will be a very large task. (http://www.theroar.com.au/2011/11/17/whos-paying-the-price-for-a-leagues-problems/)
Making the domestic competition one of FFA’s “strategic pillars” should also end any hopes A-League club owners still have that the peak body may hand over control of the league to be independently run.
Finally, FFA and the consultants they hired to help prepare this strategic plan hope the war cry of becoming a “top 10 football nation” will energise the football community and catch the attention of the greater public.
It’s a noble goal, albeit a fanciful one given the short timeline to achieve it. But then again “To try and catch up to the bloody Japanese” doesn’t come off as quite as catchy. Anyway with Argentina currently sitting in 10th spot in the FIFA rankings, that’s some ambition. Then again, maybe it’s the ninth ranked Italians FFA is eyeing off.
However on the back of a modest loss of under AU$900,000 for the last financial year (a reasonable outcome for the first year of a World Cup cycle) the strategic plan is a promising, albeit lucid, step forward for the peak body.
FFA has made some bold statements, filled it with little detail, but also set the tone for the next four years. Now Lowy and Buckley must deliver.
Kasey
Guest
Anyone that follows football and understands how unrealistic the Official FIFA rankingsa re, usually 1) get a chuckle out of he slavish devotion of the Mainstream Media to reporting the ups and downs of the Socceroos in those rankings..recognizing that it usually just means we've played a few games(if we went up) or have been idle while a tournament has take place somewhere else in the world (if we went down.) 2)Believes that as a consequence of (1) the ELO rankings are a much truer reflection of the relative merits of vrious national teams in the world pecking order.
jamesb
Guest
Totally agree with AGO74, Roger and Qantas Sensationalisation and the tone of this article is a bit far out.
phil osopher
Guest
yeah I agree. I think top 20 is probably justifiable statistically. We do pull off some victories agianst some teams I expect to beat us at times, and that always pleases me. But I dont know, last time I looked I saw teams that were below us and thought if we played them I'd fancy them to be honest. It's not because we're not european at all, but I think if we indeed were and we had to play there all the time, our ranking wouldnt be around 20, I reckon it'd be much lower because we wouldnt win as much I dont think. We rack up a lot of victories over these teams that really aren't that great, and we often only just beat them too, take recent form for instance. But hey, sure, when we play big teams we seem to go a lot better too, play with much better quality. I think we used to be way under rated, but now slightly over rated. For all this 05 v 11 debate there, for me the best Aus side Ive seen personally was the '97 side, we were a genuinely good attacking team back then, Kewell was smoking hot and Dukes was too, Bosnich probably the best keeper in the world for mine, and we were way under rated.
Rocktrap
Guest
Has anyone seen these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings#Top_60_ranking According to these rankings we're already ranked 15th (With Argentina sitting at 7th). If you have a look at where each team is ranked and then compare it to where your "gut feeling" would rank the teams, it's usually pretty accurate. 15th to 10th in 4 years isn't so fanciful. I'm personally eyeing off France, Sweden, Chile, Italy and Croatia.
jeff
Guest
Buckleys dreamin .
Kasey
Guest
Well it seems the FFA didn't stuff up, they obviously had prior knowledge of the outcome of the Smith report which explicitly recommends that: 2) The FFA delay the establishment of the FFA Cup until sponsorship and television revenue is secure. which will annoy some whiny "I want it right now" types, but in the cold light of day makes complete sense. Best to wait until you can afford to do it properly rather than creating a bastard child that nobody warms to and dies an un-mourned death a couple of years down the track..that wouldn't help reunite the tribes of football at all.
Kasey
Guest
The release of the Smith report explicitly states two important and telling points: Smith recommends that(amongst other things): 1) The federal government quarantine the Socceroos from the forthcoming anti-siphoning list for the short to medium-term, which could have a major impact on the value of the next broadcast deal, which is scheduled for 2013. 2) To delay the establishment of the FFA Cup until sponsorship and television revenue is secure.
Roger
Guest
Ok, fair enough
Futbanous
Guest
Feel free to condone condemn,but what I take from this is at least there is a plan to condone or condemn. To quote a line from the Monty Python sketch The Four Yorkshiremen, a plan "Luckshurri". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo Lots of lines in there to relate to past football administrations in Australia,particularly the last line,"un you try un tell the young people of today that un they wont believe yer.".
West syd
Guest
in 2005 we were around 50 becasue we were not in asia and didnt have the opportunity to consodolate our rankings the 2005 team was way better than the current 2011 team look at the quality of players and clubs they were playing with back in 2005 compared to this current 2011.
Kasey
Guest
Don't forget the anti-SFC propaganda that usually accompanies the pro-Olympic dogma. very boring and repetitive and does wonders for the image of SOFC I feel.
Kasey
Guest
Roger, I'm stubborn but not stupid, PeterK put forward a solution I hadn't considered before. I think it could work.The day you think you already know it all is the day you are of no further use to the human race. I acknowledge that I do not know it all and that PeterKs idea if implimented correctly could deliver many of the positives we would love to see for football in Australia.
Stevo
Guest
I take it that the Syd Olympic thing that we've been reading lately, and really for sometime now, comes from one single keyboard located at Olympic headquarters ??? I'd bet a few dollars on that.
Griffo
Roar Guru
I still think online is the way to go that could by-pass FTA. FFA could expose the game to the general public without worrying about how the FTA channels treat the game, make money off ad revenue and tap into an audience that will not or cannot get Fox subscriptions as well as provide an interactive product that the FTA and even Fox are unwilling to provide. FFA are in prime position to define how sport can be presented in an IPTV and online media space.
Griffo
Roar Guru
I'm not sure that teams need to pay fees. A few state feds have their own cup comp already. Winners/finalists of the state-based cup comps would qualify to an FFA Cup round. I don't know of the financial burden of the states running these cup comps already but NNSW is keen to run the Solo Cup again. The Smith Report recommendation of the cup being sponsored is a good one...
Roger
Guest
Thanks PeterK. Perhaps you're right, I guess I just would have expected both at the same time, rather than one without the other :)
Roger
Guest
Wait, so it is possible now?
Savvas Tzionis
Guest
I think someone has multiple user names...
Kasey
Guest
PeterK, My honest opinion is that the FFA just c*cked up. They have no plan for an FFA Cup just now or in the near future, they just reverted to micro-managing role when it looked like the 2 Melb teams would do something that didn't fit into their tighly controlled construct. I suspect that the FFA Cup confusion excuse thrown out was just a hastily contrived bit of BS to avoid looking like the pannicky reactionary organisation they can frequently be.
PeterK
Guest
Your version of an FFA Cup sounds good to me, pete4 -- and surely all clubs wanting to enter (including A-League clubs) could be charged a fee (able to be relatively small because it's across a large number of clubs) which fee could then contribute to travel subsidies for those surviving to the Australia-wide rounds. Note that a subsidy is just that; it's not reimbursement of full costs.