- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Frank Lowy is a clever man under pressure. He and FFA CEO Ben Buckley have attempted to advocate a league that has difficulty communicating its message to club owners who are becoming rapidly disillusioned with the governing body’s aloofness.
Furthermore, the fan-base of football in Australia is becoming rapidly bemused by a body that continues to portray itself as the victim without any real self-examination.
Losing one mining billionaire looks like misfortune; losing two does verge on carelessness.
One would have assumed that the suggested course of action would be one of consolidation and perhaps a touch of self-reflection. Instead the FFA are forging ahead with a plan to put together a Western Sydney team funded by HQ.
While there is a lot of support for the world game in the western regions of Sydney, many commentators have questioned the haste of such a move and wondered whether Western Sydney will get a substandard team because of the behaviour of Palmer and Tinkler.
The concept and temptation of expansionsm is one that is familiar to all sports. The AFL grew from an eight team competition to an 18. In all that time, they have only lost two teams, Fitzroy and University. (I acknowledge some South Melbourne fans may feel that their team is no longer with us, but what they did was relocate, not retire).
If gazed on at face value it would be one of the crowning achievements of the league that has led it to becoming the most popular in the nation.
Expansion is not something that happens overnight, however. It has taken the AFL 115 years to get to this point, and even now people are questioning the financial validity of some of the clubs.
Furthermore, expansion clubs are, more than anything else, a gamble, as they are the legacy of the Chairman/CEO who sets them up. Like missionaries in a pagan land, it is them who have to convince the sponsors, the fans and the players themselves that this is not only viable, but going to be successful.
So far Frank Lowy has expanded into North Queensland, Gold Coast and made a second foray into Melbourne. I’m not counting Wellington because they for all relevant purposes replaced New Zealand.
Of those, two have ended in tears, with North Queensland folding due to a loss of finances on behalf of the club and the Gold Coast folding due to a loss of rationality on behalf of its owner.
Whatever the reasons though, both have left the FFA bruised, and there is little doubt that another failed venture into the unknown could just as easily lead to an abyss instead of a treasure chest.
As I said at the start of this article, both Lowy and Buckley are clever men, but they would do worse than to take heed of Sun Tzu: “The enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution.”
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.