My third anniversary in the job as FFA CEO arrived on Thursday 12 November, which was very nice timing. I was back in my home town of Canberra and had the chance to mingle with the Socceroos fans at the FIFA World Cup qualifier against Kyrgyzstan.
Taking World Cup qualification matches outside the main metro cities has been a deliberate strategy following the Socceroos’ AFC Asian Cup success. We believe the Socceroos and the Westfield Matildas are the national teams that truly reflect Australia in all its diversity.
The fact that the Socceroos have fans everywhere means the team needs to hit the road. An Asian Cup Semi in Newcastle in January, the opening home game in Perth in September and this month’s qualifier in Canberra shows the plan is coming to life. In the past 12 months the Socceroos have also played in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, driving national interest in the national team.
In every city, we make sure we make time for fan days when the Socceroo players and coaches meet the people. The joy I see in the faces of the fans reminds about the power of football to unite and inspire Australians, and I know the Socceroos really enjoy these opportunities as well. Once upon a time, they too were youngsters with dreams.
My football friends in Canberra are always very polite, but insistent about pushing for a bigger place on the national stage. The near 20,000 crowd showed the football community will get behind our national teams. The wonderful community support of Canberra United in the Westfield W-League is another example.
Talk of a A-League club is never far from the top of the list, but I think everyone understands FFA’s current position. In the first instance, our strategy is all about the stability and sustainability of the current 10-club competition.
We firmly believe that any new clubs should be located in markets where there are millions, not just a few hundred thousand in population.
I was a teenager in the ACT in the heady days when the late Johnny Warren kick-started Canberra City in the inaugural season the National Soccer League. At the Socceroos game I had a walk down memory lane with Danny Moulis, one of the young tyros of the Warren era.
Danny was an overnight sensation in 1977, literally going from an unknown schoolboy to the national stage. You might recall that the Ten Network covered the first few seasons of the NSL and the local paper the Canberra Times gave the new football club a huge run.
As a schoolboy myself a few years behind Danny, I was in awe of this local hero and his new-found stardom and subsequent selection for the Socceroos. I will have more chances to reminisce after Danny was last week elected to the Board of FFA.
Putting nostalgia aside, the fact is that Canberra City struggled against bigger clubs for 10 years before getting relegated to the local competition in 1987. That’s nothing against the city, the coaches, the players or the passionate fans. It’s a product of simple economics and the size of the market.
In FFA’s Whole of Football Plan, we’ve set an aspirational target of having 1 million Australians directly connected to the A-League clubs by 2034. That is the quantum we realistically need to achieve if we want to be the largest and most popular sport in Australia.
If we count the collective club membership today, our 10 clubs have around 105,000 members.
To grow the membership base tenfold in 20 years, football will need lots of things to fall our way. We need to put fans first. We need to work hard on fan engagement, improve match-day experience and have digital channels that connect with fans everywhere, every day.
Our clubs will need to live up to the mantra that a club exists because of fans, not the other way around. Above all, the A-League needs to be an authentic and entertaining competition.
Where are the 1 million members going to come from?
Today, around 70 per cent of A-League members live in Sydney and Melbourne, the nation’s two biggest cities and home to four of our 10 clubs.
Urban density in Australia is expected to continue rising over the next 20 years. Given that you need fans before you have a club, any strategy to achieve 1 million club members needs to take a view about where football fans are living.
Of course, having multiple clubs in a market gives us derby football. It’s hard to imagine where the A-League would be today without the Sydney and Melbourne derby games.
There are other major population centres that fit the criteria of having millions, not just hundreds of thousands. South-east Queensland and Perth are the two that are top of mind.
Providing this insight to FFA’s thinking is timely. Early next year the national body will release a Strategic Plan for 2016-19. It’s the first instalment in setting firm objectives that will carry the game toward the ambitious vision in the Whole of Football Plan.
A new chairman Steven Lowy and a reinvigorated Board were elected last week. They bring impressive skills and experience from across the sporting and corporate sectors. The new Board has already made it clear that growth is the top objective.
No doubt, there will be a lot of energetic and passionate debate among fans on these topics. That’s a good thing. We all want what’s best for the game. We want to put fans first.
We Are Football
This is the first column of The Roar‘s revamped CEO series, where we invite all the heads of the big codes in Australian sport to have their say on the state of their game.
jbinnie
Guest
Jets fan -Last season at game 35 the aggregate crowd figure for all games was 557,686. Tonight after the Sydney v Wellington match that aggregate attendance figure is 458,117. Would you mind trying to tell us where that almost 100,000 spectators have gone. Cheers jb
Jets Fan
Guest
RE : Crowds down last year. Please look a bit closer, with the exception of Newcastle Jets whose crowds were down for obvious non-football reasons and Western Sydney Wanderers going through a horror season, the rest of the crowds were not that bad. Two extraordinary occurrences explains the drop in crowds. No need to panic just yet!
Jets Fan
Guest
The idea of talking to fans is a good one. BUT as for A-League expansion, please note Mr Gallop, we do NOT want an A-League that consists only of Capital City teams. That is NOT a National League, it might be easier to run, but if the jobs too hard say so.
Mark
Guest
Just quoting Gallop's comment in the article, mate. I agree 100% it is not realistic.
fiddlesticks
Guest
the average WSW crowd for a club game at Parra is 12k, thats far from a sell out
Post hoc
Guest
That is the NRL, not football. NRL can't sell out Allianz for a semi final or even Parramatta stadium for a club game. Football does that.
Post hoc
Guest
Yep, glad you are seeing that that Roar games, I think you made a great observation Euro league parents A league kids, we know we have the grassroots game, massive participation, as they come through and start supporting HAL then you will see numbers take a step change
Post hoc
Guest
Could it be because they are not finalised? Considering the season is not yet 1/3 of the way through. Do many NRL and AFL teams release their financials in April?
Ryan
Guest
It won't happen because the current owners would likely sue for loss of value in their clubs, and as has been said before less than half the clubs in the league are viable, and only one regularly makes a profit. If Australia can't support ten teams it definitely can't support twenty.
Horto Magiko
Roar Rookie
"Instead of getting rid of the Nix, how about including Auckland City or Christchurch." Yeah, nah. The Auckland experiment has already failed thanks. As has the entire NZ project. Although I hear their national setup has prospered through wellingtons highly questionable and dubious inclusion in the Australian domestic league, so there's one positive...for them.
Horto Magiko
Roar Rookie
Actually, what am I saying? David gallop may actually have one of his minions read these threads to him while he bathes in the broken dreams of grassroots football, so here goes, wth are a foreign club doing in the FFA cup? Pray tell how you'll dig football out of the PR quagmire it will find itself in, if Wellington win it and in turn disenfranchise Australian grassroots football further, all whilst undermining any integrity or credibility that competition has?
Horto Magiko
Roar Rookie
"Those population figures you have quoted mean little unless you can provide a source for them." What?? It's not classified information. Google search "population Wellington New Zealand" and "population Canberra"., Jesus. I agree travis. The fact that a foreign city has a team in our league, yet our own capital city is not represented is nothing short of a travesty and frankly an embarrassment. And don't get me started on their inclusion in the FFA cup. Dropkick indeed.
jbinnie
Guest
Kaks -You mention Holland as being a long standing football nation but it should be remembered full time professional football did not start there until 1957,late when compared with the other countries you mention.the fact that less than 20 years later they were in a World Cup final is testament to how quickly they adapted to upgrading their football "nous" a "how good are we" factor they have been living on ever since 1978, when they again played in a World Cup final. losing their finals games to Germany and Argentina. Not bad for such a "new" football nation. Cheers jb
pat malone
Guest
umm, please nominate one bad thing i have said about the wonderful game of football? Fuss/UJ loves to antagonise and when i give some back you say i say derogatory remarks about football. i am aware that Fuss thinks he IS FOOTBALL
marron
Roar Guru
David, why is it left the fans to try and get messages like this out to try and challenge the narrative? http://fearofaroundball.com/the-soccer-hooligan-incidents-that-the-australian-media-dont-want-you-to-know-about/ Rebecca Wilson is still on TV sprouting nonsense about cages in England and assaults that never took place. Where are you guys? Why won't you call anyone out on stuff like this, or at the very least try and get another picture out there?
marron
Roar Guru
Wilson has been saying the crowds are down too. According to get its all those families scared for their lives by the evil wanderers fans. Funny thing though. ... the wanderers crowds are up.
Jeremy
Guest
“About a year ago”. The FFA ought to regularly conduct mass surveys and community forums. Once isn’t good enough. I also thought that the Whole of Football survey wasn’t wide-reaching enough in the issues that there were questions and/or feedback for. Organisations with intelligent leadership/ management seek out as much engagement and feedback with their stakeholders as possible. Seems as though the FFA doesn’t fit into this category though.
Jeremy
Guest
Nice ideas and sentiments David. In this though I shall judge the FFA and your performance as the CEO of the FFA by ACTIONS and not simply by your WORDS. I would also say that the direction and a number of the decisions which the Board of the FFA and yourself feel are to be made in the intere$t$ of growth are either currently alienating us as the fans or shall do so in the future. You would do well to keep that in mind. As fans we seek transparency in the decision-making process; for the organisation which you work for is but a custodian of the game in this country but it is not the game itself. You would do well to remember that also. Many fans have been lost to the game because of the actions of governing bodies for the sport in this country for decades; the FFA included. Without fans our game should amount to little in this country; and with that your generous paycheque would be null and void also.
Jeremy
Guest
"About a year ago". The FFA ought to regularly conduct mass surveys and community forums. Once isn't good enough. I also thought that the Whole of Football survey wasn't wide-reaching enough in the issues that there were questions and/or feedback for. Organisations with intelligent leadership/ management seek out as much engagement and feedback with their stakeholders as possible. Seems as though the FFA doesn't fit into this category though.
Jeremy
Guest
Those population figures you have quoted mean little unless you can provide a source for them.