Ideas – What’s The Point
With another A-League season done and dusted we can reflect up another 12 months of Australian football and also look ahead and pretend our thoughts actually matter.
Many pundits, bloggers and fans in general have great ideas (and some not so) on how football can progress in this country both in the short and long term but in reality it’s like throwing a tennis ball against a brick wall; you will end up in the same position but eventually the wall will grind you down and you will lose out.
The wall represents the closed shop that we call the FFA (Football Federation of Australia), past history tells us they very much do their own thing, what they want, when they want. The Adelaide Grand Final saw them pocket $5 million dollars and reward the winning club with absolutely zilch, the same organisation announced a 5pm midweek kickoff for the Matildas as we farewell our national women’s team as they actually qualified for Brazil.
I could go on but what’s the point, the FFA don’t listen regardless.
We’ve had the predictable expansion club talk but ideally the FFA will only introduce clubs they have total control over. Those associated with South Melbourne would have to sell the soul of the club to receive entry into the A-League. Canberra has been told they need to attract 10,000 people to a one off game between Central Coast and Wellington to remain in contention for a magical A-League licence. Both teams struggled to attract large home crowds last season and only averaged barely over 8,000 patrons. The Canberra thinking typifies that of the FFA; so far detached from reality and running the world’s biggest sport in Australia.
Whether or not you travel down to your local NPL club and catch a few games over winter or spend June/July sleep deprived following the European championships you as a football fan deserve far more from those running our game at the highest level.
Sadly there is no change on the horizon and the only thing you will see is further incompetence from FFA HQ.
The closed shop of the A-League only hinders the future of the game and the ultimate power the FFA wield over current clubs only encourages this closed shop to exist and continue. New ideas and forward thinking are strongly discouraged when talking about the future of Australian football and this generation is still being punished for the mistakes of those made by previous regimes.
It’s 2016 and clubs are still trying to trade players like 10 years olds trade football cards on the schoolyard playground. This is the type of thinking those responsible for running football are capable of. Think about that for a minute before you feel the need to suggest how the FFA could be running the game better in Australia.
Essentially they don’t care for your opinion and would rather you step into line with the remainder of the league and have no thought process whatsoever. Next time I have a thought like “we should give A-League teams the responsibility of scheduling one midweek game per season” I should remind myself such ideas are irrelevant to those at FFA HQ.
The only thing the FFA really cares concern themselves with is what category seat you will buy at the next Socceroos or A-League finals match.
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