Has white elephant written all over it

Reminds me of the baseball stadium they built in Altona. I went there once and never again. This will be similar, people will go for a initial look but once will be enough for a lot of people. To get people going week in week out will be a huge effort.

Really surprised they didn’t opt for Team 11, a Dandenong Stadium makes so much sense with the infrastructure that is there already. Though I get the Private vs Uncommitted Public money was probably the deciding factor.

No I think two new teams will be targeted to enter in 2019/20 season. Board needs to be seen to be courageous and can’t afford not to announce something.

Team 11 and Sth-West Sydney will be granted provisional licences pending investment commitments and stadium deals. This will allow them to negotiate with the government and get real commitments form the investors (show me the money).

Canberra will miss out but will be told behind the scenes that if one falls out they will get the nod and will be also first choice if Wellington are booted out.

The real question is who the 3rd and 4th choices are and what they will be told behind the scenes regarding the 13th and 14th spot (or they may even announce something publicly, but don’t hold your breath).

FFA cannot afford to leave it at 12 teams. If they make it a 22 game season they will cop criticism from all sides. If they leave it at 26 or 27 games there will be noise due to the uneven fixture but if they can show a plan to get to 14 teams say the season after people will accept that.

I agreeI this seems the most likely outcome.

2 now (Team 11 and SW Sydney) with Canberra held in check for Wellignton replacement. If Wellington holds their spot then potentially opens way for Canberra +1 to join the following season.

The two now will be granted preferred status to allow them to continue talks with investors and government.

Non issue, Vic government has already said they will not confirm funding until licence is granted.

I suspect the most likely outcome today will be two bidders granted preferred status so that funding and preps can proceed.

And yet the East-West Link is now back on the table as a possible project.

This is effectively NSW’s East West Link moment. Like the infamous $1 Billion that Andrews threw away on that project Daley is digging himself and the NSW public a financial hole.

Seizing on some unrest on the community around the size of the spend with the Stadium rebuilds he thinks to make political gain but in fact he just may find himself in a double bind. The current government won’t back down now, so like the liberal government in Vic they will sign the contracts and place Daley in a no win situation.

Either
1. Can sticks to his promise and doesn’t rebuild Allianz and exposes the public purse to contracts break fees.

2. Backs down and loses face with the voting public.

Politicians seriously learn nothing from history. Mind you Andrews has survived the wasting of $1B quite well, so you have to ask how smart are the voting public.

First touch and the ability to play the ball under pressure is perhaps the most important attribute of the modern footballer. Modern football demands defensive teams to step up quickly and deny space to the attacking midfield players, thus forcing a turnover.

The lower the technical ability of the player the easier it is for fit players to disrupt the attack. Or in simpler terms the lower the league the higher the emphasis on fitness players over the technical player.

In the A-League the reason the 6 drops so deep to recycle the ball is that the skill level is not high enough across the board to play in tight spaces. Teams will move backward and sideways a lot more trying to find space in the attacking third. This is not a sign of bad management but rather low standard players. Most of the managers in the A-League know that the opposition just don’t have the technical ability to “play” in the final third. The amount of attacking midfielders who can hold the ball under tight marking is less than a handful.

I think this is one of the major differences in say Japanese football. They are much more willing to play the ball quickly forward to a 10 or higher sitting 6 and have the confidence they can play through a tight press.

From a coaching point of view maybe our coaches struggle to make that adaptation to a higher standard league because they are not used to have these higher skilled players at their disposal and don’t adapt to using them effectively.

Of course it is a political exercise that is the reality of all board elections!

You don’t get elected to a board on merit, nor on a popular vote (thank god or we would end up with a Trump like figure). You get elected by demonstrating to the people who hold the votes that you can be trusted and that your opinion is in line with their goals, needs and objectives.

The smaller the group of vote holders the more the process is skewed to personalities. We have had a small broadening of the landscape but the reality is the 100 votes is still in the hands of 20-25 people.

imo Craig Foster showed a incredible amount of naivety when he came out and said no deals. If you are a state fed rep or a club owner why would you see that but any other way than this guy is an unknown and why would they put their trust in that.

A potential board member has to be ready to politic in the background.

In terms of will this board be better than the last, maybe , maybe not. A good board is less about the individuals involved and more about how they work together to achieve successful change. A lot of it has to do in picking the right executive to take FFA forward because the reality is the executive really run about 80-90% of the decisions. The board just guides the decisions (though it does seem that the FFA board is a lot more hands on than a lot of the corporate ones)

It’s one of those terms people use to hide behind when they cannot justify or fathom why a choice was made.

The reality is neither Craig Foster or Bonita Mersiades had the support for their nominations. This may very well be because they are not well liked by the various people who hold the votes, it may also be because their said voters also felt their were better candidates.

In the end the new process worked, we have a few new directors that would not have been elected if Lowry had his way. Now it remains to be seen if they can work with the existign directors to achieve benefical outcomes.

Has anybody done an analysis of each new director on where they stand on the major issues.
Expansion?
2nd Division?
Youth Development?
National Team Funding?

Even if you were 100% for Pro/Rel you would be crazy to say so in a open forum prior to board election. It would pretty much end any chance of you being elected.

What is said in the open forum and what is said behind closed doors are two different things. The key here is who are the candidates that didn’t rule it out.

Why does he need managerial experience? He won’t be managing anybody as a board member? Its a non-exec role

A good board generally involves a number of people from a mix of backgrounds who bring different aspects of their experience to the table. Foster brings a passion for the game, experience around professional player issues from his involvement with the PFA and a deep understanding of the media landscape.

The question around Foster is whether he can play nice with other people, he is a rather polarising figure and whether he holds a bias towards SBS from his long association there.

Without a doubt it was more Victory taking their foot off the petal than anything CCM dished up.

Muscat can be so reluctant to make changes at times. It was obvious by the 60min mark that Victory needed a injection of fresh legs in midfield, yet he waited another 15mins before bringing Hope on for Broxham. As soon as he did Victory again looked in control.

I think its dangerous and lazy to just point to streaming as the cause for the drop in numbers. How much is VAR hurting, how much is the drop in $$ for marketing hurting? These are questions that O’Rourke needs to dive into and come up with answers.

In terms of streaming there is no doubt it is the future. I poo pah Optus when they first took up the EPL rights but now I wouldn’t want it changed back to Foxtel. There streaming service is fantastic and absolutely the best way to watch EPL.

Yep they re-reffed the game

What should have happened. VAR looks at tape, sees that the linesman, may have missed the offside player interfering with play. At this point they don’t know, it might have been the case that the refs have seen the offside but decided it was fine.

VAR should then have a quick chat between themselves on whether it is definitely interfering or maybe open to interpretation, decide they there is some doubt, clear the goal.

But it doesn’t have to be subjective.

The VAR contains two parts
1. The bunker which reviews a incident and decides whether a clear mistake has been made.

It would be quite easy for the guidelines for VAR to be written to establish that it only has a role to play where a clear and unequivocal error has been made my the officiating refs. (ie VAR Can only intervene in a offside if more than 50% of the body is ahead etc)
At the moment the guidelines are not strict enough and they interfere it seems when there is a chance that a official would change their decision of they could review it. Shouldn’t be used this way imo

2. Once a possible error has be detected it is referred to the officiating ref.
If the first step was made to be more stringent then this should be a no-brainer but the main refs need to be allowed to consent whether it is a clear and obvious mistake on their behalf

The problem we have is VAR is being used to re-ref the game and it shouldn’t be.

No if we had Bozza way the VAR would have said, that is a debatable decision so there is no case for the ref to review his original decision, move on

Whether the ref got it right the first time is always open to debate and VAR not being present would not change that (nor should it)

The problem is SHOULD Beath have been asked to review his decision.

The whole idea of VAR was to remove the howler, to reverse a decision that was blatantly wrong. The problem we have in Australia is that is is being used for every decision that a referee makes.

The fact that we are talking about whether Sortirio interfered with play should be enough alone to say VAR should not have interfere.

The problem currently is every goal is been reviewed for any possible mistakes and so no goal can be celebrated until the team kicks off, just in case VAR finds something that may (I say may) be wrong depending on the central refs second chance at deciding.

They need to reset this back to being used only for the howlers. Anything that is close remains the umps call and they should just communicate that for everybody. VAR was not and should not be used to re-ref the game.

I think your assessment of Lowry speech is spot on Stu. Just reinforced why it was time he needed to move on.

I think your assessment of what the board needs is naive though. Yes we need people who are fully invested in footballs future and have experience at the grassroots club level but we also need the corporate smarts. The FFA is a $120M organisation and it needs people with a strong business background who bring the ability to grow large business.

As someone said above, the board’s role is to influence, provide direction, set strategy and focus and the select the right executive to implement those at a operational level. The Chairman needs to be able to stand in front of a media scrum and exclude confidence, they need to be able to pick up the phone and call high ranking politicians and convince them that football is worth investing in. They need to sit down with multi millionaire owners and say NO sometimes.

They need to be able to do all that and more. The more is they need to care and understand football. Its a big ask, lets hope they find the right person.

What platforms would those be Nem? So many of the regular posters seem to have abandoned the roar, would be nice to know where they have all gone.

Of course, I agree that Lowry has sown a lie here that it will be all one sided, it won’t be.

What will happen is that there will be lots of behind closed door agreements. The state feds will propose a few people, the PFA will propose somebody, the A-league owners will put up a couple of candidates and then the horse trading will begin. Maybe the owners will convince VIC, NSW, PFA and the Womens reps that their candidates will be best to move the game forward. Maybe all the feds and pfa will combine to elect their candidates and lock the owners out of it. Lets wait and see, hard to know right know.

What I am saying however is that the A-league will have more influence, it doesn’t mean they will get there way but it will allow them a greater chance of getting a board that is open to there influence.

Also Waz I am not saying this is a bad thing, the owners deserve to have more influence and I think 25% of the vote is about right.

Rubbish
Your state levy pays for insurance and this is less around $70 for juniors and $160 for senior (VIC).

Its very easy to break down the costs if clubs really want to, it goes something like this for juniors playing in Vic
FFA Levy $12
FFV Levy $73
Ground Hire $10-20 (Assumes about 100 kids to a pitch)
Utilities $40-50 (Assumes about 100 kids twice a week)
Equipment $10-50 (New balls, Nets, Line marking
Kit $80 (Most NPL clubs buy new each season)
Coach/s $300 – 700 (Ranges a lot depending on club and league)
Balance to Club $1000 – 1500

Total 2000 – 2500 per season

The vast majority of costs are the coach/td and the money that gets siphoned back to the club.

A community club that is running absolutely to the bone can get away with charging $150-$200 if reusing kits and volunteer coaches.

It less about them approving and blocking it and more about a A_league friendly FFA board. The owners will get a much larger say in the board selection the next time around and there is a good chance their thoughts and views will hold more sway now.

Totally agree they cannot influence the decisions directly but with more power to select the board comes more influence.

Totally disagree about a second division being up to the state feds. The main driver will be the AAFC, if they can convince the new FFA board that their model can work and they get the tick from the PFA then it will happen. I am not convince about a pro/rel though as the A-league will fight tooth and nail to avoid that happening.

“A larger competition means more tv revenue, more income from games, more sponsorship.”

Hmmmm I think you are forgetting the word “potentially” in front of all those “mores”

The truth is all the current owners would see is the potential to have to divide the pie up further and further into smaller pieces. The last TV was in truth quite disappointing and if the next round also disappoints the owners may even struggle to maintain the current revenue if the have to share with 4 new teams.

That is not to say I support the idea of not expanding. To have any chance of growth the A-league needs to get to at least 14 teams as quickly as possible and switch to a true H/A 26 round fixture. It would add 47 extra matches and build more excitement around the derbies.

That article is a year old and what has the AAFC produced since to demonstrate they could self fund. The FFA called it out at the time as unrealistic.

Such a model would most likely be around a semi-pro model which the PFA is dead against.

There is zero chance of the AAFC going it alone to bring in a second division, they will need the support of both the FFA and the PFA.

Thank god that is over with, now the real work of expansion and revenue growth begins.

People who are expecting the FFA to magically let in 6 new teams are in for a shock I suspect. The current model just doesn’t accommodate that many teams. They would have to find around $20 per year to do that. The FFA struggle currently to balance the books and that isn’t going to change in the short term.

The questions is once the new board is installed where will their focus be, expansion of the A-league or a introduction of a 2nd division and Pro/Rel. I suspect with the current owners now having a larger say the focus will be in expansion and it could be a long wait for a 2nd Division.

Personally would love for them to jump to straight to 14 teams, create a true home and away 26 game season and lock that in for a few years and work on building back up the revenue and crowds before introducing a 2nd semi-pro division.

Either way that first thing they need to do is find a new marketing manager. What are they thinking? Did they even audience test that commercial, two ex players (one 99% of the public will have never heard of) sitting in room with very little football and absolutely no fans. Its awful!