R.I.P A-League

[aek210]

Talk again of Canberra entering the league. Do these morons not get it. You can enter 100 teams in this league - they will all fold. Why? because the system is rotten.

Fans make the mistake of looking at symptoms not causes.

[aek210]

Fantastic quote from Four Four Two.

This is not the death knell for the A-league, but it is the penultimate nail in the coffin. The final nail will be the failure of Western Sydney.

Simply, after a botched expansion program of epic and embarassing proportions, the FFA once again haphazardly rushes into a decision to put a team in the high-potential market of West Sydney together in just 8 months!!? No build up, no due diligence, no community building...

I'm just exasperated at how bad the FFA is running the sport. The only reason people have stopped calling for Buckley's head is that everyone has given up believing that there is any accountability, logic, or objective reflection left in this sorry and cancerous organisation.

It is beyond the realms of reason that this man, and his senior colleagues, still have their jobs. A trail of disaster is all this man can make of his CV, and that is incontrovertible.

With such uncertainty, and a sense of terminal illness across the league proper, you will find supporters of the more stable clubs increasingly thinking twice about buying memberships and investing in a league with seemingly no future.

And so the cycle begins..

au.fourfourtwo.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1307146�

[aek210]

This comment from the SFC forum. I got to give it to him. This made me laugh.....

"I just got an email from the FFA with the header : "Three Teams, two games, one champion!"

For a second, I just assumed they'd started the promo for next season early."

sfcu.com.au/smf111/index.php?topic=19311.325

[paoktzi]

hahahahaha what kills me is that fans of hakoa turn on the ffa, fuck me the ffa= hakoa

[aek210]

Apr 11, 2012 12:38:26 GMT 10 paoktzi said:

hahahahaha what kills me is that fans of hakoa turn on the ffa, fuck me the ffa= hakoa

Exactly. In theory there is nothing wrong with the Gay Leaguein that it is a national comp - with more exposure then the NSL.

The problem is the FFA who are intent on excluding Olympic, ruining traditional clubs, and running the Australian game into the ground through sheer incompetence.

[anothermp]

They run the risk of even letting a proud historic club like Newcastle fall as well, that's how poorly they've handled the administration of the game. They're fucked

[sweeper]

This story has a long way to go boys.
None of it good for Australian football.

[aek210]

Fink: Karma bites the FFA

ESPNSTAR.com's columnist Jesse Fink analyses the fallout from the week's hectic events in Australian football that saw the Newcastle Jets lose their owner.

It's been a week since Football Federation Australia announced it would fast-track into the Gay Leaguea new Western Sydney club and the next day permanently obliterated Gold Coast United from the face of the earth.

Seven days ago the FFA was strutting around like the proverbial peacock. Confident. Smarmy. The looming TV deal on which everything rode was primed to be a bonanza, it thought, with Western Sydney up and running as a tenth "franchise" and the deadwood gone. The magic ten.

Launch the Twitter account! Call for fan input! Organise a forum! Let's recast ourselves as a federation for the people and go forward together, united, to a bright shared future where tangerine trees grow under a marmalade sky and football fields stretch on forever and ever!

As the FFA's marketing slogan likes to boast: We Are Football. Hilarious, of course, coming from a federation that is about as legitimate, inclusive and caring about the opinions of the common people as the pirate regime of Uzbeki president Islam Karimov.

Then Nathan Tinkler pulled the pin on his ownership of the Newcastle Jets.

Nathan Tinkler. The Boganaire. The self-made mining magnate who was paraded as a white knight (albeit a grossly overweight one on a very bitter horse) when the FFA stripped the far less wealthy but troublesomely truculent Con Constantine of his 10-year Jets licence and handed it over to Tinkler's Hunter Sports Group, no questions asked.

At the time I remember striking a note of caution about Tinkler's mythologising as a "people's hero" and was almost lynched.

Australians - especially Australian football fans - don't like questions being asked when a very rich guy is going around emptying his wallet.

Now 18 months later, he doesn't want a bar of the FFA or the A-League, saying he was left with "no choice".

"We ran out of patience after months of being fobbed off by the FFA administration," he said on Thursday.

"They have not communicated the answers we have been seeking in regard to why we were charged a licence fee and commissions were paid, when other clubs were not charged a cent."

Oh, that's right. As Bonita Mersiades, formerly FFA's head of corporate affairs, outlines in a brilliant editorial, Tinkler got charged $5 million. Adelaide United's new owners got charged nothing. The list of grievances HSG has against the FFA is a long one and set out in detail by Mersiades. It is required reading and can't be condensed adequately in this space.

But back to Tinkler.

"Soccer has an ownership model of established losses, a failure by the FFA to engage with communities and no sound commercial basis for its business relationships. These have combined to guarantee the A-League's failure in Australia."

None of which is incorrect. The Gay Leaguehas failed because it has been utterly let down by a hands-off chairman, Frank Lowy, who surrounds himself with lickspittle yes men and a CEO, Ben Buckley, who was the wrong choice from the very beginning yet inexplicably gets backed by his boss even when all around him is crumbling to ruin.

For Buckley to complain apropos Tinkler that "you can't sign a contract and walk away from it" and "that's simply not the way business is done" yet ignore process and arbitrarily hand club licences to Tinkler and Clive Palmer, two of the most strong willed, combustible, independent minded and maverick businessmen in the country, is laughable. If you can't handle the egos of billionaires (there's really only room for one at the FFA), don't give them licences in the first place.

Worse was his and Lowy's indifference when their own organisation shafted people as if it were unofficial corporate policy.

The FFA knifed Constantine in the back. They knifed North Queensland Fury and the people of Townsville. They knifed the people behind the competing bids for the licence handed to the stillborn Sydney Rovers, one financially backed by the captain of the Socceroos, Lucas Neill. They knifed Bonita Mersiades.

They knifed former Gay Leaguechief executive Archie Fraser. They knifed chief financial officer Ian Lewis. They knifed Australian taxpayers by blowing $45.6 million on a harebrained campaign conducted by a man who did PR for Union Carbide after the Bhopal disaster. They knifed all Australian fans for refusing to side with the English FA's call to abstain from voting in the FIFA presidential election and instead sucked up to the loathsome Sepp Blatter.

They knifed the worthy Gay Leaguebids of Southern Cross FC and Canberra. They knifed journalists who asked the questions others were afraid to ask. They knifed the community known as "old soccer", including National Soccer League clubs and former coaches and players, yet gallingly now want them to come back and support the "New Sydney Club". They go on knifing football families with exorbitant player registration fees when they splash out wildly extravagant salaries on underperforming executives.

Karma's a bitch, ain't it, fellas? You reap what you sow.

[aek210]

Rebecca Wilson: It's time for Frank Lowy and Ben Buckley to be shown the door
Rebecca Wilson The Daily Telegraph April 14, 2012 12:00AM
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Artwork: Boo Bailey. Source: The Daily Telegraph
Every time I write about the parlous state of Australian soccer, fanatical fans and the sport's bosses scream blue murder.

How could an "outsider" have any clue about their marvellous game? 'How dare she point a finger at us?'

Their great game is stuffed, on the brink of obscurity and bankruptcy. After having more than $50 million of taxpayers' money thrown at them for a dismal World Cup bid (can anyone still believe they only attracted one vote?), three failed Gay Leaguefranchises and a mountain of debt at FFA headquarters, what happened this week must surely be the last straw.

While Nathan Tinkler deserves to be lambasted for handing in his Gay Leaguelicence, those who run the FFA, from Frank Lowy down, are really the ones at whose feet the blame must be laid.

This lot, all earning buckets of money while they run their sport into the ground, were the ones who gave Tinkler his licence in the first place, taking an extra multimillion-dollar cut on their way through.


THE dispute surrounding Nathan Tinkler's takeover of the Newcastle Jets has grown after claims FFA told him the Jets would fold unless he bought the club immediately.
Tinkler is right when he says the Gay Leagueis a financial failure. Revelations have followed his hissy fit that the clubs are forecast to lose $27 million this financial year and the competition a further $6 million.

Little wonder Tinkler said the financial model was a basket case.

Overspending is the norm at FFA headquarters where there is no such thing as restraint or growing slowly.

Former AFL executive, Ben Buckley, earns more than $1 million a year and has at least three executives on his team earning well over $500,000.

Compare that to NRL boss David Gallop, who earns about half of Buckley's salary to run an extremely successful rugby league competition.

But that is just the start of it. Starting up teams in places with no fan or corporate support base, throwing ridiculous cash at "star" players who we are always promised will be the saviour of the A-League. The Harry Kewell experiment was a classic case in point.

His lot couldn't even make the top six of the competition with a team in the country's biggest soccer city.

While the standard of play in the Gay Leaguehas improved, everything off the field has been left to rot.

Costs are allowed to spiral out of control and more government money has been thrown at the FFA to write off bigger debts.

The closure of the Gold Coast last month was another stage of the A-League's unravelling.

While FFA chairman Frank Lowy bleated about Clive Palmer's rantings, the real truth was that Palmer made some valid points.

They saw off Palmer and shut down his Gold Coast team without a care in the world. The team should never have existed.

Then off they went cap in hand to the federal government (again) to get another $7 million to start up the western Sydney team.

This team should have always existed.

If it had been any other sport, the government would have said good riddance.

Not to Mr Lowy, it seems. Out comes another cheque, which of course won't be enough to maintain a team in the west of Sydney, nor get it up and running successfully before next season.

Along comes the always erratic and unpredictable Tinkler, who decides he has had enough of head office and the huge financial losses.

While he has done the wrong thing, he should never have been handed a licence in the first place.

Getting the big dollars into the FFA from Tinkler was fine but anybody worth their salary would have put so many checks and balances in place that Tinkler could not have escaped even if he wanted to.

Now soccer faces a multi-million dollar lawsuit in which only the barristers will be the winners.

No matter who ends up 'winning' in court, the Newcastle Jets are without cash flow, the FFA is in crisis and the debts keep mounting.

Either way, Lowy must resign (he has overseen one disaster after another), Buckley can disappear after years of under-achievement and an independent commission should be formed to steady the sinking ship.

I hate to say I told you so - but I really did tell you so.

While the commentators have spent five years talking it up, the Gay Leagueand the FFA have been festering without anyone calling them to account.

Their number is up and, sadly for soccer fans, the rebuilding will take years.

[cigan1996]

Apr 10, 2012 12:20:58 GMT 10 paoktzi said:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

COME SUCK ME OFF LOWY YOU FUCK

you would enjoy that woudnt you ?

[sweeper]

That Rebecca Wilson is real anti football.
She writes for sensationalism only.
I have no respect for her.
She loves kicking our game when it's down.

[aek210]

Warning for FFA over TV pay deal
by: Ray Gatt From: The Australian April 17, 2012 12:00AM

FORMER television sport guru David Salter has cast serious doubts over Football Federation Australia's ability to get an improved broadcast rights deal when the current contract with Fox Sports ends next year.

Writing for website Crikey, Salter, the former head of sport at the ABC and Seven Network, said Fox Sports was "unlikely to even match its current rights deal with the federation".

Salter also warned that a reduction in the current deal, which was struck in 2006 and is worth $125 million, could seriously affect FFA's cash flow and "could be fatal".

His forthright analysis came as claims and counter-claims were made yesterday in the on-going dispute between coal baron Nathan Tinkler and the FFA over the billionaire's decision last week to hand back his licence to run the Newcastle Jets.

Sources within Tinkler's Hunter Sports Group denied reports yesterday he had made personal overtures to FFA chairman Frank Lowy in an attempt to avoid court action over the licence fracas.

HSG is also believed to be unhappy with comments made by an FFA staffer to some sections of the media regarding the way Tinkler conducts his business.

Salter wrote that television rights "is the forgotten ticking timebomb for the FFA".

With the AFL having already negotiated a five-year, $1.25 billion deal and the NRL expected to negotiate a similarly lucrative deal when its rights come up for grabs next year, the suggestion from industry sources is that there will be little left for soccer.

Certainly Salter is adamant the sport has its work cut out.

"Next year its TV rights agreement with Fox Sports is due for renewal. The initial cash-and-kind contract - a deal done in 2006 when Fox was still desperate for live sports programming to help drive subscriptions - delivered about $20 million a year to Australian soccer," Salter wrote.

"Not all of that trickled down to the Gay Leagueteams as cash, but without significant revenue from television the competition would be unviable.

"The bad news for the FFA is that with the exception of World Cup qualifiers, soccer ratings and advertising support have been underwhelming for Fox. From 2013, the network is unlikely even to match its current rights deal with the federation.

"An early indicator of this emerging, hard-nosed approach at Fox to negotiating with second-tier codes was the 2010 renewal contract for southern hemisphere rugby union. The current SANZAR broadcast agreement - including internationals and the popular Super 14 competition - came in at $US437m, a slight drop in real cost-per-TV-minute terms on the previous deal.

"Lowy and the FFA would, of course, dearly love to see their code on free-to-air but SBS - the only other credible bidder - is thought to be in severe financial difficulty and would struggle to better any Fox offer, let alone then pay for the weekly coverage of the long home-and-away seasons.

"The round-ball elite have been surviving on a tiny fraction of the TV rights income (that the AFL and NRL get), and any major reduction to their cash-flow could be fatal."

FFA did not want to comment on Salter's views.

But, it was pointed out that since the signing of the current broadcast deal, the number of clubs has gone from eight to 10, which has added an extra 54 games (or more than 100 hours with lead-in and post game) and that based on Salter's real cost-per-TV-minute terms - the current deal was undervalued.

It was also pointed out that the Gay Leaguewill have two Melbourne and two Sydney franchises next season and that is where most Foxtel subscriptions are sold, so that football is more closely aligned to the Foxtel business model, which is driven by subscriptions, not necessarily ratings.

[aek210]

Good article - well worth the read. Always good to have knowledge on this kind of stuff.

sportbizinsider.com.au/features/analysis-mls-growth-v-a-league-dysfunction-by-chicago-fire-founding-gm-peter-wilt/

[paoktzi]

one Gay Leagueclub to hand back license tomorrow

[anothermp]

rumours spreading like wildfire who could it be?

another club on the ropes surely that would mean curtains

sad for fans but fuck Lowy