The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Opinion

Football in Australia finally has one crucial thing it's never had before

Roar Guru
18th November, 2021
Advertisement
Autoplay in... 6 (Cancel)
Up Next No more videos! Playlist is empty -
Replay
Cancel
Next
Roar Guru
18th November, 2021
116
1207 Reads

Ange Postecoglou recently said that football has had a number of false dawns.

When everything looked like going ahead, just like now, infighting killed it off.

He hopes this time infighting does not kill off the current momentum.

They are wise words from Postecoglou, as we embark upon something we have never had before with a free-to-air media partner wanting us to succeed.

Here is a very brief history to explain why it’s both an “I told you so” moment and the start of phase three of football’s evolution.

Sports opinion delivered daily 

   

Around 1870, Scottish miners started football in the coal mines of the Hunter Valley. Football grew rapidly. World War Two came and went, and a new wave of non-English European migrants arrived.

Advertisement

Essentially people who loved football were not happy with the way things were done and new teams emerged.

They were the so-called ethnic teams. They had operating models outside the existing models. This all happened in the mid ’50s and morphed into the NSL during the ’70s.

The issue many struggle with was not that the NSL was a poor competition, and to be fair it was way ahead of its time in Australia.

The issue was the mix of teams. It was never ever going to get broad community support.

While the (at best) semi-professional NSL faded away, something new and exciting was happening.

Scott Jamieson of Melbourne City celebrates after scoring from the penalty spot during the A-League Grand Final.

(Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

The internet was bringing all sorts of things, such as Tiger Woods and basketball. Among the many new things we could get access to was football.

Advertisement

Then YouTube, and new football, under the A-League was the new kid on the block.

The football world was exploding. The 2002 World Cup was in Asia the MLS started to rebuild. The EPL had record media deals.

The late Johnny Warren often spoke about Frank Arok’s book on Australia football.

As they saw it, the single most important thing to do to make football work in Australia at the time was stability of the clubs in the competition and that meant guaranteed revenue.

Everything else could follow, such as promotion, relegation and expansion. Football just needed to stabilise.

Frank Lowy based the A-League largely off Arok’s book, however failed to read the parts after stabilising then bring other football things in.

Phase 1 was the start of the A-League. Phase 2 was being allowed back into Asia.

Advertisement

An inherent issue with the new awareness of football via the net was broadcasters had no faith in football people.

So everyone involved, aside from match callers, was from other codes, with Fox having far more vested interests in other codes.

Football has recovered a lot over the last 18 months or so, from having a $32 million media to no media deal, with most football journalists laid off, and SBS providing a tiny fraction of its former support.

What Warren always said was football needs to move from SBS to a mainstream broadcaster.

Today football has a $70 million media deal spilt between FA and APL.

There is a new operating structure and the Women’s World Cup. Importantly the three key people running football today are all from a football background.

Advertisement

Ten are showing all national games including lower levels, all A-League Men’s matches and many A-League Women’s matches and the FFA Cup. That is aligned with cross promotions across their network.

This is phase three. Never has football been in this position.

If we can – in the words of Postecoglou – remain united and don’t start infighting, this in time will lead to many things people want like expansion, promotion and relegation.

It remains to be seen if we can, as a community, support football and not nit-pick and tear it apart because it’s not everything we want.

But we are about to embark on something we have never had. Deep within my soul I hope it works.

close