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Clive Palmer’s Football Australia has existed for a week and we still don’t know the true motivations behind this new body. If you believe the rhetoric, it represents the alternative to the current governing body, Football Federation Australia, and the kick-off to the reform the game needs.
Whether that’s as an independent body to keep the governing body accountable for running the game – “monitor and ensure good governance,” to quote Palmer – or by replacing Football Federation Australia to run the A-League or create another league, that remains to be seen.
Either way there seems to be a genuine belief amongst some that this will result in positive reforms for the game, irrespective of Palmer’s record in running Gold Coast United.
Craig Foster, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, says: “Looking back in a decade’s time, the demise of Gold Coast United may well prove to have been a tipping point at which football finally faced itself in the mirror.”
Others say similar things: Football Australia is making the right noises; making the Football Federation Australia accountable will only strengthen the game; this will lead to the reform needed for the A-League to survive and prosper; and so on. According to many, Palmer, irrespective of his brashness, is giving the governing body the kick up the backside it needs.
But no matter how many accurate points Palmer makes from his unique position as a former club owner, the manner in which he and Archie Fraser have gone about achieving reform, by threatening and contradicting themselves at every turn, will only make it harder and more unlikely that it’ll actually happen through their actions.
By threatening their very existence, Football Australia is forcing Football Federation Australia to bunker-down and take their own extreme position. And as any student of history will tell you, at a time of war, governments resort to extremes, rhetoric and propaganda, allowing Football Federation Australia to cast off any calls for reform as out of touch comments originating from the discredited “loony Clive” that don’t reflect other A-League club owners.
Case in point (one of many from the last week): Football Federation Australia Chief Executive Ben Buckley’s comments on SBS’s The World Game Monday night. “We don’t believe there’s anyone other than Clive calling for greater reform or greater transparency,” he says. “Those comments are throwaway lines and they should be treated with the sort of attitude from the person they came.”
By threatening breakaway leagues and other extreme moves and comments, Football Australia is forcing other club owners to distance themselves from the very group meant to be representing their concerns.
Cases in points: Adelaide United chairman Greg Griffin calls Football Australia “a complete nonsense and a waste of everyone’s time” that will “fade as quickly as it has risen” and is a “stupid and mindless entity” that “even the dumbest of dumb would take this entity seriously”.
Melbourne Victory chairman Anthony di Pietro describes the body as “divisive and counter-productive to the growth, development and future of football in Australia”.
Even Perth Glory owner Tony Sage, who has publicly backed some of Palmer’s points and was said to be one of three club owners (Palmer, Sage and Nathan Tinkler) who has the financial pull and motivation to breakaway from Football Federation Australia, says, “What happens between the FFA and Mr Clive Palmer is not a priority for our club at this stage of the season.”
If Palmer’s motivation was to divide A-League clubs and Football Federation Australia – divide and conquer with his own body and then league – he doesn’t seem to be doing it.
If his motivation was to push and cause genuine reform, he is providing Football Federation Australia with the perfect excuse to avoid it.
Either way, Football Australia is a lose-lose for the game, not the first step in the process of much-needed reforms.
Rather, together with the public relations nightmare this is for the A-League at such a critical juncture, it sets the game back even further, with the real issues that face clubs and the league as a whole lost in the mire created by Palmer.
And if Palmer decides he’s had enough of the game he doesn’t seem to enjoy, having deflected enough blame on the moribund Gold Coast United’s failings at the feet of Football Federation Australia and walks away, what is left? A handful of disgruntled staff without their bankroller…
Football Australia’s “We Kick Harder” slogan couldn’t be more accurate. It sure is kicking the game harder.