Well, for my part I subscirbed just before the cutoff date of 22 August

I was in two minds as the Toon were relegated so BeIn and the Championship coverage is where it’s at for me more specifically

However I pay $30 pre-paid so could get a 12 month Mboile plan and EPL for the same price, plus an extra gig of data to boot so

Crucially though, the “trick” seems to lie in having got the Fetch TV Box for an extra $5

This basically streams not through the Optus 4G network which has its blindspots but rather through my WiFi network from another provider

I actually like the coverage, they have a nice On Demand system and the Optus Channels come up in the TV Guide, so I can flick between all of them in high quality without going into Red Button territory which provides only SD streams…

Whether I go for the $15 it will cost me next year remains to be seen, but I think it’s a fascinating new direction for how Sports is managed in this country

As an A-League fan I consider it a good thing, obviously Fox Sports have been fantastic and SBS before that, but if the the old system is crumbling then domestic competitions may get a good look in via Telecommunication providers turned Sports broadcaster

Talk about an obsession, some people are just desperate to put the sport down. Doesen’t change the fundamentals of the situation though in the long run, need to refine a few things but A-League etc is coming along

Good to see you writing on here again Mike

Yeah I was impressed to hear about how it was all conducted, and how the fans had a solicitor on hand and they’ve been united in their statements and intentions etc

Looking at the result, it all seems like a well thought out system, eg intention to ban, see the evidence and an independent panel to ensure politics doesen’t come into it which should also moderate the sentence length to common sense levels

Fans for their part showed a willingness to go back quickly

Good article

Essentially it is about right, the situation has evolved since 2005, and we are in the process of making evolutionary adjustments to enable progress over the next ten years

FFA have to do a 180 degree U-turn and rather than being weary, emulate the MLS and embrace them fully

Hopefully this is a first step, but we’ll have to see how things go and how they respond to media in the future

As for “marrying” local culture, I chuckle firstly because if you understand the sociology of globalisations then you understand what is happening, where there is an international form of the culture which gets appropriated in accordance with local norms and customs which is why I find the NT and ST of MVFC fascinating, and Sydney has RBB and Cove who are from the same city but highly different as well

I always chuckle to myself when I hear this “foreign sport” as the child of English migrants and 1st gen Australian because Football comes from the same place of origin (in terms of codification at least) as both Rugbies and of course Cricket

Real issue is it is part of a different ecosystem as so excellently shown by having the Asian Cup so close to the Cricket World Cup, eg Football is geared into the world but for Australia Asia most relevantly (right after the ACL draw) and Cricket and Rugbies into the Commonwealth and as we saw the Asian Cup and Cricket World Cup were roughly on a par, think both will edge out the Rugbies, basically because Cricket tunes into the relationship with India and Football with China

Well said

What is ironically great was that this helped the “Save the Nix” campaign as well as for the first time ever I think the NZ based team had the highest attendance for the round, plus their active fans were in QBE stadium to hold up their banners etc

Sounds Good

History teaches me to be cynical of the FFA, but the fact the fans were smart enough to include a Solicitor etc was a good move so I think this will legit be done

Well how about that, two weeks of united action and despite all the criticism from some quarters and comments sections a perfectly reasonable system has been thrashed out….

Perhaps most important is for the FFA to start defending the fans, so perhaps they’ll stop pandering to elements in the media who will never come round

Think the game would be considered to have “taken a step back”, but the changes made here (and hopefully with owners too just as importantly) will lay the groundwork for the A-League and Football to take two steps forward in the coming years, we had got to the point where refinements were required

Yeah if Bosnich was there observing and Peacock MC’ing, means the FFA can’t quietly go back on their word or at least makes it harder to quietly claw back “losses” without being held up on it

As for Wilson and Jones, they are speaking to an older auidence who won’t go anyway and confirmation bias

Market segmentation pretty much takes care of any institutional bias to isolate the game, eg no one screws Soccer like 7 probably can’t quite happen these days

Ultimately it’s not just about the levels of surveillance, it’s about a proportionate and suitably sophisticated policing/security approach. A-League crowds by Football standards are easy to manage

@ Boris, it would have come up, as we see through a “32 FFA own goals” this had been building for a while

@ Fuss, Ultimately though it’s like a recession, clears out the malinvestments and inefficiencies (in use of money)

In this case, we had a transition at senior level, and Wilson article stimulated the the debate that needed to be had

She probably thinks she caused chaos but really once the changes and reforms take effect it actually makes for a stronger and healthier game down the line

Holds for A-League Chairman requests as much as fans requests

Well, you have to consider we had heaps of talks around the time of these forums a few years back and nothing happend

+ when MV fans developed a terrace system in conjunction with MV admin the FFA overrode it

Then there’s the old “we won’t be dictated to by fans attitude”

The fact this has happened at the same time as the owners and ALL fans are united, plus there’s a change in Chairman, FFA seem to realise a change in approach is needed so personally I don’t envisage any complications come the end of February

Time to see if Steven is his own man and what he is made of

I do seem to recall owners would get irritated in the past but after meeting with Frank Lowy they would be “impressed” but not a lot really changed and then things blew up with Palmer at the forefront

Personally though I wouldn’t say the ground is “shaky” as such, there is strong market penetration in both Melbourne and Sydney going by the aggregate membership numbers in both cities.

Just a matter of understanding that the landscape has evolved to the point where change is needed

Sounds positive?…

Oh to have been a fly on the wall for the “heated discussion and robust debate”

hehe, probably an understatement as is usually the case with media statements

At least Bosnich and Peacock will be more clued up as to the fans perspective through all of this over the years and some of the crap that has gone on

Will have to see what the supporter group statements are though

Still some questions though, eg Hatamoto, Policing profile etc, and for me sentencing guidelines to moderate ban lengths

As I said before appeals process is a symptom of a greater issue so it could just be a case that they see eye-to-eye on that

Some people have been banned for legit reasons, hopefully that community service idea gets off the ground for people who want to genuinely turn a corner

Yeah despite the “Crisis” term being used a bit, it’s been a while coming

Essentially it’s like recessions and the economy, they are annoying, painful etc but while we like to enjoy growth periods recessions are absolutely necessary to flush out bad investments and use of money etc, and so it is with this atm, it filters out the incompetence and sparks the debate for changes and reform that needs to occur

This is in two areas in particular, fan management but also owners having more autonomy and increased influence over the A-League now that the FFA Cup has been set up. This sets things in motion before the new A-League TV rights deal is signed, unlike the A-League inception, much of the value lies with the A-League now

There was the Matildas as well of course

Yeah don’t think that phrasing was the best banner idea and it’s muddled the message

No ones trying to pretend that many people haven’t done a legit banning offence

My point in an article though is that there needs to be reasonable sentencing guidelines, many of the lengths get increasingly over-the-top for increasingly smaller infringements, and it gets worse every time there’s a beat up because the FFA can’t think outside the box (or rather don’t want to because of an organisational culture attitude problem) so they keep on with the same approach and this is where we are now

Occasional common sense needed as well, eg picking 2 people out of 2000 over a 93rd minute winner pitch invasion that didn’t lead to a major problem smacks of politics

As for self policing, allocated seating actually undermines self policing in crowd psychology terms, another example of using technology and OTT regulatory measures but it leads to a lot of tension over someone whingeing about the seat on their ticket

Only thing I can say for that specific banner is that in our society even the most heinous criminals are afforded some degree of privacy protection and presumption of innocence until proven guilty, so I would say none of the people on the list, even those who are rightfully banned should have had private details put in paper

lol

No:1 all the way!

Well, half of it IS about the theatre

There’s a reason why people for out the extra money and effort to watch it live over watching it in their loungerooms

And this is the “live fix”

There’s a problem in England where the young generation have grown up with football being something watched in the pub with friends, there’s an attendance crisis on the horizon because only middle class people with lots of money could afford to attend EPL games

In this case, you, specifically may not stop watching, but fact is like the terraces in Germany, active areas play an important part in giving energy to the experience and attracting new younger people to the live experience and fusing them to the clubs

While not the most important element, It is an important element to a finely balanced eco-system, take one element out and the thing enters terminal decline

By and large agree, we have come from the point where OK we needed a lot of outsiders in but now the pendulum has to swing to having at least a few more football people in

Despite all the talk of “fans as no 1 stakeholder” this is really just PR talk

If we were to be truthful about it, someones comment about fans AND players being no 1 is spot on – the two are closely blended/intermingled – everything else like administration and the business is built around it

Eg in its raw form it is essentially people playing on a field with people watching on the surrounding grass with no stands etc and its a community interaction

Football clubs started as social clubs

The talk of fans as the 12th man isn’t just some rubbish, it came about for a reason

Yeah but even benign dictatorships end up becoming incompetent if there’s nothing to keep them honest

So it’s not necassarily to perhaps have “two” benign dictatorships, or rather a seperation of powers principle come into play

This is where having the A-League to offset the FFA is good, if the A-League chairmen are a bit odd the fraternity can look to the FFA for recorse, if the FFA is a bit odd the fraternity can look to the Chairmen and A-League for recourse

People may not have liked his handling of the GC team, but because of Clive Palmer we got the Joint Commission and he did raise a lot of valid points during his stoush with the FFA

Much depends on Wednesday

To be honest I’m not sure some media commentators understand the depth of the anger and frustration

It’s more than just dissatisfaction over the FFA’s response over a few articles which requires a couple of weeks of protesting

A few years back when crowds were stagnating there were fan forums, fans were pretty frustrated at the time and amid all the talk it ultimately just fell on deaf FFA ears who didn’t really change

Go back even further, MV fans had a season long disciplined standoff with the club in season 3, ultimately the club did change their attitude and we had an ACL system in place, the vibrancy came back quite quickly

After 3 ACL games the FFA overrode it and put an allocated seating place in system which breeds stagnation and undermines vibrancy amongst other things. Club hid behind their skirt and the NT was below par for years

So then, there’s some deep suspicion, absolute lack of trust in the FFA and cynicism which goes back years, not weeks which will likely come back to bite the FFA now

Will have to see what does or doesen’t happen after Wednesday, but this can quite feasibly go on for a while and get quite ugly in some respects as people like Kosmina criticise the fans

Ultimately though it is healthy if it leads to real change in the FFA though and so all the things that need to be talked about are talked about

Goes hand in hand with what Club Chairmen want IMO and I agree with Mike Charlesworth comments and Di petrio last week

Good article, as I said in my own, think that in the wake of parachuting his son and 2 other board members in without a debate in the fraternity we are getting it through this impasse

Do think De Bohun needs replacing and the A-League chairmen should appoint his successor. Plus they should have a much greater say on the A-League, that way it may actually have some kind of vision and direction to it

Agree, the FFA needed to take a centralised approach in the start-up phase and they had a lot of power but after five years they needed to let it go but it is a lot harder to get a person or institution to give up power once they have it

On the fans side, MV fans negotiated a well balanced system for the NT which was put in place for our first ACL campaign after a season-long standoff. Exploded back into vibrancy almost immediately

FFA overrode it with a “we won’t be dictated to by fans” attitude and they put in Hatamoto recommended Home End membership with allocated seating

On the owners side, it took Clive Palmer for the FFA to give some power to the Chairmen who actually put their money in, Even now they still can’t control their websites which is absurd

Time has come where the FFA really needs to start getting out of the way a bit more, that Davutavich article highlighted the slow incompetence creep that has been coming in.

Happens when you just have new Board members and Chairmen just rubber stamped into position

A good related article here too

PRICHARD: Fan issue just the start of massive shake-up for FFA

Regarding new Perth CEO blog, if the Chairmen who actually run Businesses have the CEO of the A-League reporting to them and they guide the direction of the A-League (or at least have a lot more influence) perhaps there would be more vision (and competency)

As I’ve said elsewhere, the FFA now opens the door for the FFA to have their own comp they can fully run

Not sure if true but De Bohun certainly seems to be having a rough few weeks if he indeed was responsible for overriding the refs decision to wear blue

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/au/news/ffa-overruled-ref-league-strip-debacle#:bcdvyZA7kURg-A

Reminds me of the bizarre situation where no one seemed to click to the fact that both the Mariners and Jets home and away strips clashed until the point came where they had to play eachother

And the pitch….

On the positive though, never recall seeing the TV arc stand as full as it was during the NZ Knights era

Yeah have to say I’ve been a bit surprised, but perhaps that’s because I’ve got low expectations of the FFA and no one except Clive Palmer called them out for their problematic organisational culture

Eg there’s a reason Bonita Mersiades and apparenty even Jack Reilly left

In terms of De Bohun, he’s tripped himself up badly with the contradictive comments, though really he is reading the FFA script and IMO we are at the stage where A League Chairmen should appoint A League chief

Personally it is much more important the organisational culture of the FFA changes rather than make heads roll and/or kick Gallop out and get someone else based on the current culture in who will effectively be the same