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There’s no better example of how tumultuous a week this has been for Australian football than the non-existent reception Frank Rijkaard has received from the local media since arriving in the country.
It’s not every day that a Champions League winning manager lands on Australian shores, but Rijkaard’s presence went almost completely unnoticed until Salem Al Dawsari’s stunning long range strike sent his Saudi Arabian side into the lead against the Socceroos last night.
This, of course, was no surprise as it’s safe to say the Australian football media has had bigger stories to chase in recent days.
On the back of all this, yesterday’s announcement that Football Federation Australia had terminated Gold Coast United’s license was more a surprise due to its timing than its contents.
So how did we get to this point and who is to blame?
First of all, I’m not convinced the actions over the last ten days of United’s billionaire license holder Clive Palmer were so severe as to leave the club’s continued presence in the league as any more untenable.
Gold Coast had been limping to a slow and painful death well before these latest controversies.
So why terminate Palmer’s license now?
You just can’t shake the sense that last Saturday’s “Freedom of Speech” stunt gave FFA the excuse they’d been looking for to kill off a terminally sick club and remove the thorn in its side that was Palmer.
Yet, the game’s peak body are as culpable for this mess as anyone involved in Gold Coast is, if not more so.
FFA has now launched four expansion teams and three have been a complete and utter failure and there are good reasons why:
• The original one team per city set up of the league was a mistake that left key markets under utilised
• The decision to expand into risky markets like Gold Coast and Townsville before putting second teams in Melbourne and Sydney inflated this issue
• The lack of support and expertise provided by FFA to these new clubs left them vulnerable to making crucial mistakes
In other words, the naïve way in which FFA drove their expansion plans meant Gold Coast United was all but doomed to failure.
With litigation from Palmer now seeming to be inevitable, I’m reminded of almost identical events that took place with the United States’ Women’s Professional Soccer league over the last 12 months.
After being booted out of the competition, magicJack franchise owner Dan Borislow ended up taking the league to court. The result? No more WPS.
Let’s hope the thinking behind Frank Lowy and Ben Buckley’s decision to kill off Gold Coast United was more considered than the original decision to welcome the club into the A-League.
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