Post by anothermp on Dec 6, 2010 21:14:26 GMT 10
theworldgame.sbs.com.au/jesse-fink/blog/1034987/Time-to-go-Buckley
So, according to a Football Federation Australia insider, Ben Buckley is “committed to the cause”.
Really, Ben? If that is so, please walk away from the game. Go back to the AFL. Go to tennis. Go to quoits. Go anywhere but don’t stay in football. The cause is better off without you.
Buckley's contract as FFA chief executive is up and in the new year we will find out if he gets his wish to "stay at the FFA". But what has he done to deserve it?
Our ill-fated World Cup bid was hampered from the beginning by his marionette-like personality and rigid adherence to an unwavering and just as leaden script.
The Gay Leaguehas been left to flounder under his watch. We can expect the termination of the licence of North Queensland Fury any time now.
Capable football people who weren’t afraid to speak their mind or exercise their independence have left FFA and been replaced by an army of 'yes men' with little grounding in the game.
About the only good thing I can say about Buckley is that he made his predecessor, John O’Neill, who had many failings of his own, look like the messiah.
The game is at a critical juncture and Buckley’s management has been found wanting. He can’t carry the can for the entire organisation but he’s the most senior executive on a commensurate salary.
Someone has to be held accountable for the situation the domestic game finds itself in because of the all-or-nothing World Cup bid. And if it’s not the chairman, Frank Lowy, surely the chief executive, the man he appointed to lead the game, has to be the fall guy?
On Friday I had lunch with the only Australian ever to lead us to a World Cup – Rale Rasic.
I asked Rale why he wasn’t included in that abominable Phillip Noyce film used in the final presentation to FIFA’s executive committee before the vote. With undisguised contempt, he said he wasn’t asked.
Now Rale might have his detractors because of his forthrightness but he’s still our first World Cup coach. A face recognisable to many people around the football world, including FIFA’s council of elders.
Rale is part of the game’s history. A living link to the game’s past. He is owed humble respect. Yet he was overlooked in favour of a swimmer, a cricketer and a formula-one driver, among others, in the rollcall of personalities that round out the film.
It’s symptomatic of the lack of intimate understanding Buckley’s regime has of the game and its poverty of appreciation for those who built it before FFA came long – the very same “old soccer” people who have found they have no place in Buckley’s relentlessly sterile A-League.
As my mate Fozz said in his Sun-Herald column: “The cartoon kangaroo has come to represent a bid team ignorant of the values of football and of the importance of showing the world that we have our own football story, our own heroes, our own region to support and that we respect ourselves and the game.
“I was so disgusted with the lack of respect shown to football people and our history that I could barely speak… no real football person will ever forgive this atrocity.”
I’m just a fan of the game (not an ex-player, not an ex-coach) but I consider myself a football person and cannot comprehend how FFA could get a message that should have been so straightforward and easy to sell – our passion for all sport, including football, and our readiness to host the World Cup and to do it brilliantly – so comprehensively muddled.
We are a football nation with our own rich history and our own mine of personalities and stories – yet we don’t have a football person running the game. What gives?
It’s time for a fresh start and some new faces at FFA.
So, according to a Football Federation Australia insider, Ben Buckley is “committed to the cause”.
Really, Ben? If that is so, please walk away from the game. Go back to the AFL. Go to tennis. Go to quoits. Go anywhere but don’t stay in football. The cause is better off without you.
Buckley's contract as FFA chief executive is up and in the new year we will find out if he gets his wish to "stay at the FFA". But what has he done to deserve it?
Our ill-fated World Cup bid was hampered from the beginning by his marionette-like personality and rigid adherence to an unwavering and just as leaden script.
The Gay Leaguehas been left to flounder under his watch. We can expect the termination of the licence of North Queensland Fury any time now.
Capable football people who weren’t afraid to speak their mind or exercise their independence have left FFA and been replaced by an army of 'yes men' with little grounding in the game.
About the only good thing I can say about Buckley is that he made his predecessor, John O’Neill, who had many failings of his own, look like the messiah.
The game is at a critical juncture and Buckley’s management has been found wanting. He can’t carry the can for the entire organisation but he’s the most senior executive on a commensurate salary.
Someone has to be held accountable for the situation the domestic game finds itself in because of the all-or-nothing World Cup bid. And if it’s not the chairman, Frank Lowy, surely the chief executive, the man he appointed to lead the game, has to be the fall guy?
On Friday I had lunch with the only Australian ever to lead us to a World Cup – Rale Rasic.
I asked Rale why he wasn’t included in that abominable Phillip Noyce film used in the final presentation to FIFA’s executive committee before the vote. With undisguised contempt, he said he wasn’t asked.
Now Rale might have his detractors because of his forthrightness but he’s still our first World Cup coach. A face recognisable to many people around the football world, including FIFA’s council of elders.
Rale is part of the game’s history. A living link to the game’s past. He is owed humble respect. Yet he was overlooked in favour of a swimmer, a cricketer and a formula-one driver, among others, in the rollcall of personalities that round out the film.
It’s symptomatic of the lack of intimate understanding Buckley’s regime has of the game and its poverty of appreciation for those who built it before FFA came long – the very same “old soccer” people who have found they have no place in Buckley’s relentlessly sterile A-League.
As my mate Fozz said in his Sun-Herald column: “The cartoon kangaroo has come to represent a bid team ignorant of the values of football and of the importance of showing the world that we have our own football story, our own heroes, our own region to support and that we respect ourselves and the game.
“I was so disgusted with the lack of respect shown to football people and our history that I could barely speak… no real football person will ever forgive this atrocity.”
I’m just a fan of the game (not an ex-player, not an ex-coach) but I consider myself a football person and cannot comprehend how FFA could get a message that should have been so straightforward and easy to sell – our passion for all sport, including football, and our readiness to host the World Cup and to do it brilliantly – so comprehensively muddled.
We are a football nation with our own rich history and our own mine of personalities and stories – yet we don’t have a football person running the game. What gives?
It’s time for a fresh start and some new faces at FFA.
