Football in this country is at a low ebb right now.
The Matildas crashed out of a tournament that we expected them to win. The Socceroos are probably going to have to take the long road to the Qatar World Cup, and might not even qualify.
Most A-League clubs are undergoing some form of crisis of faith from their fan-base, if they even have one. And just to make things even harder, COVID is dampening all round enthusiasm and engagement with the leagues as well.
All of my now middle-aged mates who are football fans are currently disengaged from domestic football. When we do talk football there is a distinct lack of faith in the ability of our teams to play well and get results. Looking around, the national community television ratings have tanked. Social media is pretty quiet as well, with most forums having lost traffic.
But it’s definitely not the lowest point I’ve experienced in my years. That would be 2004-05, when we didn’t even have a national league for 18 months, and the Socceroos capped Christian Vieri’s forgettable younger brother in a game in Melbourne with more Turkish than Australian fans present. That was bad. But we bounced back from there and the sport hit new heights not long after.
So, how do we bounce back this time?
The Channel Ten/Paramount+ broadcast deal brought much needed financial certainty when the game was on the verge of bankruptcy. The Silverlake investment of $130 million is capital that the game has been crying out for for generations. These are good things, but only if administrators end up spending the money wisely.
Unfortunately, if I could characterise generations of football administrators at the national level, they always favour short-term thinking over long-term goals. They have the ambition for Australian football to be commercially successful, but are too timid to do the hard work of being successful at the actual game of football first.
(Photo by Brook Mitchell/Getty Images)
If we want to ‘awaken the sleeping giant’, then we must produce much better football at all levels of the professional game.
Our frustrating results come from a combination of mediocre players, managers and coaches. Despite our large football community, we very rarely produce world-class talent. We do have enough raw product for higher performance, but the system that finishes the development of players and coaches is weak. Very weak.
All of us have a pet gripe or three when it comes to this. Mine is that we simply don’t play nearly enough competitive football for the good of our players.
Our A-Leagues and NPL seasons are way too short by global standards. Brazilian clubs play 50–70 games per year across the state leagues, national league, Brazilian Cup and continental cups. There is so much opportunity for young players to step up and get game time. In fact, in a 70-game season it’s unavoidable!
Our 26-game season is no match for player development. Our players are always undeveloped. How can you expect to win an arm wrestle against someone who spent twice as much time in the gym as you over the previous ten years?
Having tried and failed with all previous attempts to turn football into a dominant Australian sport, the only response left to Football Australia is to finally prioritise technical quality in the design of our football system.
I get that the Dutch-influenced curriculum is a perennial topic, but it’s just a textbook. Do we blame textbooks for poor national academic performance? Or, do we take note that our hypothetical students spend half the time in school as other countries?
I think we now need a football league system that maximises football quality instead of some other political outcome. That means a lot more clubs allowed into the professional tier.
But I’m not sure that it will happen. The culture of exclusion in Australian football dies hard and could act to prevent the reforms that we desperately need to become better at actually playing the game.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
I read some Australian football history books over the summer break and a painful historical pattern became clear. Rather than creating football systems that are fit for the purpose of maximising the quality of footballers and managers, where the system is open for all to compete, our administrators have always chosen to confine leagues to as few competitors as possible.
That, in turn, triggered generational power struggle after generational power struggle. There has been a distinct lack of leadership that has acted in the game’s long-term interests.
In the first half of the 20th century, the sport was dominated by British-ness. The power struggles were over which entities were allowed into top-flight football. In Sydney, district associations sought to control the top flight for their rep teams (like the NSWRL model) and exclude independent clubs.
After the war, the establishment of the migrant clubs led to some sustained fan interest in the sport but also resistance from the Anglo establishment that wanted to protect its district system, even though the ethnic clubs were playing better football and drawing better crowds.
They were leading the way, but the football system, designed by politics, not for football quality, didn’t reward them. The power struggles between the Anglo-dominated establishment and the migrant clubs, as well as the state federation rivalries, eventually led to the NSL being created as a much-needed circuit breaker towards a higher level of football.
But as we all know, ‘mainstream’ Anglo-Celtic fans felt excluded from the NSL because of the dominance of clubs from a small number of migrant groups.
Did the A-League solve the problem of exclusion when it was established? Hardly. It was designed to exclude the migrant clubs. Yet again, the nation’s flagship football league was designed and marketed for some of the football community, but nowhere near all of us. Who needs unity of purpose and opportunity? Not us, apparently.
Make no mistake, the roots of football’s problems in this country are self-inflicted. If we had a longer, open national league system we would maximise technical development. We would get better on-field results against national teams and clubs from around the world.
We would have so much more confidence in ourselves that the slings and arrows from other codes and the media would bounce right off us. We wouldn’t need to fret over money because sponsors, broadcasters and investors would be lining up to be involved.
Short-term mitigations for our current predicament are possible (like immediately replacing Graham Arnold and Tony Gustavsson), but they won’t bring sustained success. The same problems will re-arise sooner rather than later.
Football Australia must begin implementing long-term plans for this nation to start playing better football.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
We’d probably have to accept that at the very top, South America and Europe lead the way and no one else is close.
Kewell
Roar Rookie
Simmo, agree somewhat with or comments. If I can add that tv broadcasting for football on Channel and Paramount is probably reaching more people than ever before. Yes we could have more games live, but that will depend on the national teams winning by playing, high tempo entertaining football. I like the comparison of the A league to Sheffield Cricket. A league surpasses Sheffield cricket by a large margin in both viewership, and hours of broadcasting. It’s just that cricket has historically been in the top three of Australian sports where as Football has not. We have concentrate on consolidating and improving what we have. At my age I can remember the awful comments free to media made to bag football. I can remember when Channel 7 won the rights to the NRL and then decided to not show it. They then owned the game and kept it hidden in favour of AFL. Things like this take a long time to wash the system.
David V
Guest
It's a decades old, deeply entrenched cultural thing really. They've grown up seeing European and South American football and see it as everything. Some will call it a "colonial hangover" mentality in Asia that they see Europe and South America as being superior and something to follow and emulate.
The Ball Bobbled
Roar Rookie
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-04/fifpro-research-australia-womens-football/100798894 applies to both m & F really
Buddy
Roar Rookie
Don’t underestimate the level of investment by some European clubs in those markets either. Pre season tournaments and tours, their own stores for merch, good distribution of product even if it’s further away as well as that insane amount of tv coverage all helps create an amazing amount of revenue for the clubs that have considered their worldwide audience and fan base.
Will
Guest
Great article Simmo, problem with the game here is they are all for short term fix's to the game's long term ailing problems which never get properly addressed.
David V
Guest
Again it's a symptom and not a cause of the problem. In a number of Asian countries (Malaysia an example), domestic football is discredited by corruption and incompetence, as well as player indiscipline. There is a lack of will to actually improve there. Large numbers of European expats and wall to wall coverage of European football shapes the cultural setting for the game there.
chris
Guest
Some good points David around the Eurosnobs and how they came about. However that exists in all countries, especially in Asia where the EPL is king and the local leagues pale. We need more teams and P/L. Simple as that. More teams in the top tier = more games = more experience for players. At the moment the tip of the apex is so disproportionately small compared to the base, any wonder its almost collapsing in on itself.
Aiden
Guest
Probably right but what’s a football celebrity? Generally it’s someone who is first recognized as being very good (usually by others due to our cultural cringe) and then they exhibit a bit of personality. But then Harry K was so good he didn’t need much personality. Our system is not producing enough football celebrities, creative, technical attacking players.
David V
Guest
Word. Football people can't blame other codes or the media for the game's current woes. The game has always been its own worst enemy. The particular history of Australian football - an "ethnic-based" NSL alienating a larger group of football supporters ("Anglos", UK migrants and all) also helped create the "Eurosnob" situation. A sense of a lack of belonging to domestic football in Australia made this country ripe for "exploitation" (if you can call it that) by overseas football, the incompetence of the local game making it all the easier. The A-League was supposed to address this problem. Had it been established in the 90s rather than 00s it might have had a better chance to establish itself a la J-League and MLS who have carved out a place for themselves in the football world. Instead, what we got at the start was a league with a very "plastic" feel (short season, one team per city) which did profound harm to development of players. The lack of vision and competence reinforces the perception of inferiority which feeds "Eurosnobbery" well. It's a symptom, not a cause.
Redcap
Roar Guru
Great article, thanks Simmo. You describe Australian football's identity crisis very well. Successive generations of administrators fumbled along looking for shiny new things and neglecting the game's base; then wondering why the game as a whole was fractured and, at times, dysfunctional. None of the problems you describe are going to be solved in the next few years, but it will be a crucial time for laying the groundwork of a more integrated club pyramid. I'm an old Brisbane Strikers supporter and I've never supported an A-League club, but I do watch the league. Always had a bit of a soft spot for Adelaide and Wellington. Like your mates, I'm struggling for enthusiasm at the moment.
Simmo
Roar Rookie
Preston North End consider David Beckham a club legend even though he only played 1 season there on loan from Utd. The whole of the pyramid matters; not just the apex. Edit: only 5 games at PNE but he impressed them a lot. This story is worth reading for the contrast to how we do things here: https://www.lancs.live/sport/football/football-news/david-beckham-manchester-united-preston-18188685
AGO74
Guest
More clubs - more opportunities. Kieran Trippier who has had a very successful career with Spurs, Atletico Madrid and England came through via Burnley. Conversely, there are the loan scenarios where talented youngsters get farmed out such as Connor Gallagher who nobody had heard of this year because he was stuck behind established players at Chelsea has had a break-out season with Palace. There are hundreds more - and the comparison to our own leagues isn't equivalent, but the point is more clubs in the pyramid, more opportunities......
TheSecretScout
Roar Guru
the parental influence is pretty common i've seen parents fighting in the crowd as well as referees and linesmen struck in hindsight i wouldn't have said what i said, i should've known better when it involves the parents of a child. but i didnt feel i was in physical danger that particular conversation, i just walked away and left them there to yell and shout like idiots
Simmo
Roar Rookie
it would be a worse outcome if clubs, players, fans, managers in the second tier have nothing to play for. Like we have now
Simmo
Roar Rookie
That's some amazing fixture congestion. Managers are going to have rotate squads like never before
Marcel
Guest
....or conversely, P/L could lead to a decline in standards as teams resort to pragmatic, survival football. Just how many superstars do the likes of Burnley, Watford and Crystal Palace produce?
Buddy
Roar Rookie
AA - parents and realism when it comes to their children are regularly mismatched, unaligned, unrealistic, call it what you like. I was grading some under 12's a few years back just for div 1 grassroots and when a particular child didn't make the cut, his parents told me I was responsible for ruining their son's life as that was all he dreamed about and lived for - and I am talking grassroots here! I'd love to have been a bystander when your conversation took place - it would have been one of those moments when I would have ended up doubled up crying with stomach pains - or perhaps stomach pains from being punched by the father!
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
February Football Frenzy $20 tickets Might just be what the doctor ordered. 60 games over a 28 day period that's 15 games per week
Simmo
Roar Rookie
Early history was from the Chronices of Soccer in Australia. A good descriptive book that relied heavily on newspaper research from the olden days: https://www.fairplaypublishing.com.au/products/chronicles-of-soccer-in-australia-the-foundation-years-1859-to-1949 Post-war history would be Joe Gorman's Death and Life of Australian Soccer. It's a great re-telling of history, but I find it has a fatalistic attitude that I didn't like at all. Gorman seems to believe that our situation is impossible improve: https://www.uqp.com.au/books/the-death-and-life-of-australian-soccer I'd also recommend Code Wars by Hunter Fujak which is more of a contemporary data-driven research effort into how the different codes have grown, but it has enough historical info to give context of the competition between the codes down the decades. https://www.fairplaypublishing.com.au/collections/fair-play-publishing/products/code-wars-the-battle-for-fans-dollars-and-survival