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You can't sell the A-League without active fans

7th December, 2015
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Is it time to introduce standing seats in Melbourne at AAMI Park? (AAP Image/David Crosling)
Expert
7th December, 2015
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Football in Australia will fail as a spectator sport if administrators continue to ignore the key point of difference that makes the game unique.

The sight of empty stands behind the goals at A-League venues last week should have served as a wake-up call to Football Federation Australia.

Never mind the irrelevant columnists who piled on the bandwagon to fling asinine slurs, the vision of empty seats where the game’s most colourful supporters should have been was the defining image of a disastrous week.

Yet, lost amid the frenzy of a debate that every noisemaker with an opinion weighed in on, was an attempt to understand exactly why Football Federation Australia keeps getting things so wrong.

Watching FFA chief executive David Gallop’s Kafkaesque nightmare of a press conference was to glimpse into the mind of an official who doesn’t understand the fan-base he is supposed to administer.

Here’s a thought; Gallop fails to understand football fans because he was never one to begin with.

Ditto Damien de Bohun. He might have once spent time at Football Federation Victoria back in the dying days of the National Soccer League, but you can guarantee he didn’t spend it creating witty banners for South Melbourne to run out to.

And when FFA trotted out the hitherto invisible Steven Lowy, they managed to find the only other bloke in the building who’ll never have to worry about paying at the gate to get into a game.

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That these administrators should be so disconnected from fans is no real surprise.

It was ever thus; ever since FFA stacked the corridors of power with a bunch of suits from the AFL and NRL and Cricket Australia and Westfield.

It’s the very reason supporters cry out for “football people” to be brought into A-League clubs and why, when the likes of Perth Glory chief executive Peter Filopoulos and Melbourne Victory supremo Anthony Di Pietro speak out, they actually sound like they understand the game.

As for the fans, it’s been left to the likes of Fox Sports commentator Simon Hill – who grew up on the terraces of Maine Road – and his counterpart Mark Bosnich, to lend some much-needed support.

Bosnich, in particular, has been one of the few former players to understand the simmering fan resentment and his vociferous defence of supporters’ democratic rights is to be applauded.

That’s not to say that active fan groups come out of this affair squeaky clean. Banners advocating fans to “stand up for the 198” are an obvious error of judgment when it’s clear that some of the fans on the leaked banned list have committed anti-social and at-times criminal acts.

Nor should we wantonly lay the boot into the FFA without some acknowledgement of the fact that without them, there might not even be a professional league in Australia.

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They may have made mistakes, but running the A-League is not easy.

It’s just a shame there’s no Football Supporters’ Federation like there is in the United Kingdom, offering fans a singular voice on supporter issues.

Grant Muir – spokesman for The Cove and a bloke I’ve known for years – has been one such voice amid a cacophony of noise, articulately explaining why fans must be afforded the democratic right to appeal bans.

The fact that supporters from all ten A-League clubs – including the North Terrace and Red and Black Bloc – will sit down for talks with FFA is a step in the right direction.

It would be a shame if boycotts were to continue, even if that’s the only demonstrable way for active fans to get their point across.

But if the executives who draw their salaries from the game want to prove they’ve learnt from the mistakes of the past week, they should do more than simply hear out the fans.

They should march to the game with them, stand behind the banners and acknowledge that without active support, there’s no atmosphere to help sell the game to the rest of their precious stakeholders.

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