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“Eventually we will have to have promotion and relegation,” an FFA official once said. “In my estimation, we will be made to do that.”
That was former Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy speaking to Fox Sports in October 2014.
He said a couple of other things FFA no doubt wishes weren’t being dredged up some three and a half years later, including – interestingly enough – that there would be two new expansion teams playing in the A-League by the time the 2017-18 campaign kicked off.
So where are they? And what, pray tell, have FFA been doing in the meantime?
Constantly criticising the FFA is not a particularly fun thing to do. It would be more enjoyable for everyone if we could simply focus on the football.
But here’s the problem. Last October FFA’s chief executive David Gallop was quietly awarded a two-year contract extension – a fact only revealed by one of the best journos in the business, David Davutovic, a fortnight ago.
According to Davutovic, Gallop is being paid $1.25 million a year plus bonuses for the privilege of leading the FFA.
And even if the FFA disputes that figure – which they did – an obvious question remains: what, exactly, is football in Australia getting in return for these executive salaries?
Because a lot of the problems we’ve had this season – dwindling attendances, plummeting TV ratings, the threat of a breakaway competition – were easily foreseeable to anyone with even a passing interest in the A-League.
Yet all the signs were overlooked by a group of well-paid executives more concerned with clinging on to power, when it surely would have been easier to simply expand FFA’s Congress and get on with the business of running the game.
If Nero fiddled while Rome burned, it may well have been because a frustrated football fan ripped a flare on Palantine Hill.
Finally! Only problem is we’ve heard it all before.
And given the rumours that a couple of clubs have already been hand-picked to fill the two expansion slots supposedly on offer, you have to wonder how much point there is opening up the floor to bids from across the country anyway.
It’s a tiresome state of affairs, and quite frankly fans should be fed up to the back teeth of the way football is being run in this country.
Not least because all this politicking is taking away from what should be the showpiece of our domestic game – the A-League.
Can either of Adelaide United or Melbourne City bounce back from last-start defeats at Coopers Stadium tonight?
Will more fans turn up in Auckland to watch the Phoenix go around than in their home city of Wellington?
Have Sydney FC lost their aura of invincibility, making them ripe for the picking for Brisbane Roar in a Saturday night blockbuster broadcast on free-to-air TV?
Or will Melbourne Victory’s stellar midweek defeat of Kawasaki Frontale in the AFC Champions League spur them on to a Sunday afternoon shellacking of the Central Coast Mariners?
Dunno. All I know is that I’m sick of writing about what FFA should be doing when they’re getting paid plenty to come up with some solutions themselves.
But I will say this. I’m glad that the scrutiny placed on the FFA by journalists like Davutovic, by commentators like Simon Hill, by cartoonists like David Squires and even by your not-so-humble columnist, has forced executives like Gallop to finally react.
Because the game’s struggles – and it’s not just the A-League, but Ange Postecoglou’s resignation as well – have happened on his watch.
David Gallop might be the nicest bloke in the world, but that’s not what football is paying him to be.
The game is crying out for some leadership. Let’s start with expansion and take it from there.