Steven Lowy defends path to FFA chairman

Just came back from the third Brisbane Roar fan forum in as many months (they are really trying) and a couple of interesting comments by the interim CEO David Pourre that are relevant beyond Roar: * The focus is on consolidation of the ten existing clubs and making them stable. Expansion to 12 is not off the agenda just lower priority - if/when expansion takes place it will be driven by media value rights ie which location gives the most TV cash. Sydney and Melbourne are way ahead of any other city, interestingly Canberra shades Brisbane for third place. Roar would welcome a 2nd club for the derby but don't see it happening before those locations. * negotiations are ongoing with 7, 9 & 10 re taking over FTA contract from SBS and two are "very interested" but didn't say which two. * the FFA have reviewed the international club friendlies and liked what they saw. The minimum club participation fee has been increased to $500k (can negotiate higher) so expect more LFC, Spurs, Chelsea type visits - the FFA see these as part of the financial growth of the Hal. * on Nix's situation he wouldn't get drawn, said Roar had their own issues and there were "bigger things in play" than were public, Roar were sympathetic but it was between the FFA and Welnex. * Roars debt was over $2m in May now below $500k and gone by January as promised. Bakries keeping their word so far. Club at breakeven for the first three home games. Club priority is training facility and academy set up. Plenty of other Roar related stuff but I'll stick them on a Roar thread somewhere.

But where's walking? Surely more kids walk than swim? We are a proud walking nation. We would be world champions in walking if it wasn't for those cheating ruskies!

For kids aged 6-13 the Top 5 sports/activities were 1. Football 2. Swimming 3. Cycling 4. Athletics/track 5. Basketball Dancing is more popular than cricket, followed by netball. Less popular than netball is Aussie Rules, but it is a fraction more popular than gymnastics which is something for Aussie Rules fans to cheer. League and Union didn't make the Top 10 list of activities for ages 6-13 in Australia.

Interesting twitter feed: #MoneyinSport2015 Just noticed that Ricky Nixon launched his book at the conference - must be pretty legit!! :)

Soccer participation may have overtaken swimming - but has it overtaken walking?

Thank you Towser, i think you put it perfectly. I remember, you also said that giving the WC to Qatar would be FIFA's waterloo & so it was. Like you said we all know when this money is involved, unfortunately corruption is involved. But sometimes they just take it too far!!!!! FIFA thought they were a law to themselves, but...... As for Lowy, without him these AFL jokers wouldn't bother being on the football tab.

Really looking forward to Steven Lowy taking control of the FFA Board. His dad has done an amazing job to resurrect football in this country and I'm looking forward to fresh new ideas and with Steven's network of blue chip, young entrepreneurial business contacts football is ready to hit the next level. Today at the Money In Sport Conference being held in Sydney, some interesting insights were presented by Roy Morgan Research including: ... Football & NRL are the only sports showing increase in TV viewership in Australia over time ... in the 14+ age group, the following sports are losing market share: AFL, cricket, netball, RL & golf ... for the first time ever, more girls in Australia now play football than netball ... swimming is no longer Australia's national sport amongst 6-13 year olds - football has taken over with 50% of participation.

About one-third of the $45 million went to characters who were already known to be dodgy as all hell (and bonita lost her job pointing that out to the powers at that time). Equally, the $500,000 payment went to someone who was already known to be dodgy as all hell - Jennings had already exposed all of these characters, many times over. So for the richest bloke in Australia to say all of a sudden: geez, how was I meant to know I was pouring public money down the drain, for the benefit of dodgy characters, afterall, we shaked hands and all...

Nordster The politics of old soccer were such that nepotism was rife - thank goodness those days are over!!

PB It's true that the great legacy of the blatter era is the widespread acceptance amongst the various soccer governing bodies across the world that it's ok to line your pockets, it's ok to put family members in places of authority, it's ok to give contracts to family members, etc. Thankfully, here in Australia, we are completely immune to any charges of nepotism. The FFA has followed a an exhausting process where no stone was left unturned in the pursuit of a replacement for Frank Lowy. It is merely coincidental that the replacement happens to be Lowy's son. Also, I am confident that the ongoing heat the previous chairman is feeling in terms of wasting $45 million of government money and effectively joining in the chorus with bribes and payments to dodgy characters in no way effected the search for a replacement. We should remain confident that the new chairman would not attempt to hide and bury evidence relating to the actions of the former chairman - I mean - how could anyone think that such a thing could be possible?

If you have to opportunity to get your hands on the book - "The Ugly Game - The Qatari plot to buy the World Cup", then I would suggest that you read it. It shows the length that Bin Hamman went to in accumulating votes for the 2022 Cup.

Overall Frank Lowy's reign has been overwhelmingly positive for football in Australia. However nobody is perfect and the World Cup bid proved the point. Having watched the show last night,there was nothing in there that shocked me, surely anybody who has followed football on a world scale and in particular the murky world of FIFA knew the score. Obviously not by these comments from the beginning. "We didn't know that world, we didn't know the people in that world" Well neither do I ,thank goodness, but at least since Jo Havelange ,you could have been highly suspicious. Also this" I didn't expect him to get that low". Well I did. There's no rocket science here, the bigger anything gets on a world scale, the more it is exposed to the dark side of some cultures who dont operate on the "fair play" principle. The bigger football gets ,the more chance of corruption. To be honest every time I see Sepp Blatter I cringe. FIFA is appropriately based in Switzerland, who knows where the money in Swiss banks comes from. JON was on the money then in the end, the bid was way to early anyway regardless of FIFA. Listening to Steven Lowy ,he lived through the pain of Franks ,lets face it humiliation at the hands of FIFA, this is no bad thing as it will help in him concentrating 100% on what Frank should also have been concentrating 100% on, that is creating a solid domestic league that is one of the best in Asia and improving the Socceroos standing in World Football. I understand though Frank Lowys World Cup bid, the man is no spring chicken,time is limited and if he had pulled it off it would be his legacy ,whereas the A-League and the Socceroos are a long term project with much work still to be done and his son has time on his side in that respect.

Our quaint "donation" to the Caribbean football academies was certainly put into context when Qatar was offering state gas pipeline contracts to Asian countries..!

And Mal was put up but failed to get the necessary support. What's your point, surely that demonstrates due process and he wasn't scared off? As I said I agree the "look" is not good but come on, someone tell me this bloke is not a good fit for the role? Certainly much, much better than Mal imo

There was certainly some disquiet about the process out of Adelaide United and the push for Mal Hemmerling - and commentary around nomination process illustrates a disconnect between clubs and state associations. There's also a look of Sydney centricity that reeks of closed doors and select few - nomination by appointment if you will, i.e. the outcome reverse engineering the process.

the lesson to learn out of this - NEVER BID FOR A WORLD CUP unless you want to go down the corruption path. that's what I've learned out of it. Therefore, as long as FIFA are the way they are, the FFA should never consider bidding. Problem solved. I think people got carried away with Australia hosting the 2000 Sydney Olympics, 2003 rugby world cup & 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. Governments (especially the Victorian state government) got carried away with their international image and wanted to host the biggest sporting event in the world. That's all that was left to confirm our love affair with sport ie. hosting the football world cup. Anyway, Australia will never host the tournament in my lifetime. Life goes on.

The entire process that encourages 'donations' is effectively a facilitation of soliciting votes for cash injections. Sounds like bribery if not a definite breeding ground for corrupt practices and outcomes. But Lowy still seems to defend that Australia had non-bribing intentions. Really?? Upon making those 'donations' just what is expected in return? Interesting that the doco was purely focussed on the international side of it - and glossed over the bid book and the domestic travails.

Yes - exactly - my wife was out of the room when that footage ran - she came in later and suggested she felt sorry for Lowy (a bit) - and I had exactly the same feelings as you re the yacht and parties.

The show for me and maybe I was wearing rose coloured glasses ... however a renown hard hitting ABC journalist has ten hours of access to Frank Lowy and countless hours to other people including John Howard. As a TV doco I through it was well made and fair asked all the right questions .... to me what was obvious coming out of the show was as a nation we were totally outplayed by those within. However I left with the feeling we did not directly bribe anyone we gave donation to other national federations as has been the case in previous WC bids. On the question how did you spend the 43 million had to be asked but what is the answer its in the accounts .. the accounts have been to the best of my knowledge subject to audit, and at least two police investigations and in all no issues have been raised.

Blatter's cocky smirk, with that knowing glint in his eye, as he shrugged "sometimes you lose"...was actually dificult to watch. Yes, there was a degree of sympathy for Lowy, but that was diminished by the footage of the brassy FIFA parties Lowy hosted on his yacht in Athens, for the sole purpose of cosying up to FIFA, and tacitly greasing the palms of those in charge. He knew exactly what he was getting into. Well, at least he thought he did.