August 8 – The bitter internal dispute between Football Federation Australia (FFA) and Australia’s A-League clubs reaches a pivotal stage this week as a joint FIFA-Asian Football Confederation delegation arrives for talks aimed at resolving the impasse.
The governing body has been at loggerheads with the country’s 10 professional A-League clubs for months over the format of the FFA’s 10-member Congress.
The FFA have proposed a 13-member Congress, offering two additional votes to the clubs and one for the players, but this has been rejected by both the clubs – who say they generate 80% of revenues for football in Australia – and FIFA.
Unless there is significant movement from one side or another, FIFA could impose a normalisation committees to run the country’s affairs, a highly embarrassing scenario.
FFA chairman Steven Lowy, son of Frank Lowy who ran Australia’s doomed 2022 World Cup bid, issued a 2,000-word communique addressed to the ‘Australian football community’.
“Club owners have made no secret of their demands for more power, and more money. They seek an independent league, run by them for their benefit,” he said.
“But it’s worth noting that more than half of the clubs are wholly or majority owned by foreign individuals and organisations with little or no connection to Australian community football or our national teams.”
With one eye perhaps on the wealth of their European counterparts, Australia’s clubs have also rejected the governing body’s offer of A$3.55 million in annual distributions following the record six-year, A$346 million television deal announced in December. The clubs have demanded up to A$6 million, a figure the FFA has said would damage both grass-roots development and funding for the national teams.
The FIFA-AFC delegation will hold talks over the next two days in Sydney but if there is no resolution by a November 30 deadline, FIFA will disband the FFA board and install a ‘normalisation committee’ that would effectively take over running the sport.
That would heap further embarrassment on to Australia’s reputation which received a stinging rebuke in the Garcia report into the World Cup bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Australia’s failed bid, which reports say enjoyed over A$50 million in government funding, secured one solitary vote.
In the build-up to the FIFA-AFC visit, Lowy warned the game must decide whether to be “managed on behalf of all of those who participate in and love the game or is controlled by narrow interests.”
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1714025206labto1714025206ofdlr1714025206owedi1714025206sni@w1714025206ahsra1714025206w.wer1714025206dns1714025206
