AFPCA to really get shitty

Could be fireworks

"The CRWG will conclude its mandate and submit its proposal to FIFA and the AFC by 31 July 2018. The proposal will be subsequently submitted for adoption to an FFA Special General Meeting by no later than 7 September 2018."

That’s actually a pretty reasonable time frame. New governance structure in place by October would be a great outcome.

True, no shocks.

I can't see this working. We are wasting time as we go back around in circles. At the end of the day when this working committee fails we will have a normalisation committee.

Picking up key bits from a number of releases.

Who is going to be appointed?

It’s going to be an eight seat working group consisting of:-

Four seats for member federations
Two seats for club representatives
One seat for a Professional Footballer's Association (PFA) representative
One seat for an Independent Chairperson.

Chair, as provided by FIFA, are that whoever the appointment is, they can't have a pre-existing relationship with FFA.

It will be left among them [i.e other 7 board members] to decide the identity of the independent chair by a unanimous vote.

What will the CRWG do?
The CRWG will conclude its mandate and submit its proposal to FIFA and the AFC by 31 July 2018.

The proposal will be subsequently submitted for adoption to an FFA Special General Meeting by no later than 7 September 2018." 

Interesting side bit.

Submit by 31 July, and decide BY 7 September, but could also be 1 August [highly doubtful] but we may not have to wait the extra two and a bit months.

There is no way the State Feds would let him become chair of the working group because he wants to get rid of all the State Feds.

@ RBB

It can only work if the State Federations play fair, if not it’s normalisation post WC

Some names for the chair Football folk with a sports background 

Nick Tana, Nick Griner, Brendan Schwab, 

FIFA had the option of going straight to the normalisation committee.

They were spooked by Lowy.

There's nothing in any of this which suggests that FIFA will have the stomach for a normalisation committee.

Lowy has successfully pushed everything out to the next AGM.  He'll be voted in pursuant to the current constitution, and we'll be back to square one, having to use the current constitution to make the necessary changes to the same constitution, meaning nothing will happen unless one of the bigger states fall back in line and agree to minimal changes.

No sure if that is right you may be selling FIFA short.

Taking part of the announcement it reads.

"""The CRWG will concludeits mandate and submit its proposal to FIFA and the AFC by 31 July 2018. 

The proposal will be subsequently submitted for adoption to an FFA Special General Meeting by no later than 7 September2018.""""

That reads to me they want the CRCW to draft a new governance and for FFA to adopt it.

That reads to me the CRWC needs to be formed and have the changes ready to bemade by 31 July so 4 months, and then for FFA to adopt what the CRWC present..... with FFA granted 5 weeks to call whatever meeting are needed to adopt thenew procedures

So undefined 4 state feds pick the deciding voter

Let's play guess what happens next

FIFA requirements

It will be left among them to decide the identity of the independent chair by a unanimous vote. FIFA, however, has instructed that the person must have a strong track record in legal and governance issues, preferably in sport, and experience in mediation and negotiation.

Bonita Mersiades

They all have to agree its not 4 votes to 3 wins... and the chair can have little to no involvement with FFA...

So are you suggesting the state feds can bash the clubs and PFA into submission ...

Tana is too close to the clubs to get unanimous approval.  Schwab is too close to the PFA to get unanimous approval.

If the EGM adopts the new constitution in September then it comes into force immediately and the new congress will vote on the board members at the AGM.

no matter how the chair vote pans out, I have come to the conclusion that the governance structure that allows the state federations to act as mediators of power on the FFA board instead of direct representitives (eg rep from PFA, rep from a league etc) is the fundamental core of the governance problem.  That and the dynastic insularity of powers with the Lowys.  Having 4 out of the 8 person body meant to fix governance as representitives from the state federations is really worrying.  The most likely outcome is that we get very little real reform, a compromise setup that is mildly better than now and some new faces on the FFA board, then the spotlight goes away and everything goes back to basically the same as before.

If we want proper governance of the game we have to promote accountability to the stakeholders.  The A-League rep on the board is genuinely accountable to the clubs who all know exactly what their rep is doing, a PFA rep is mostly the same, a rep for the AAFC would be much the same, but the reps from the state bodies are totally removed from the people they are pretending to represent.  The local semi pro or amateur clubs are often actively opposed to the state bodies saying they represent them, so much so that they are trying to form a body to represent themselves.  The local small time clubs, the organisers, players, fans etc are almost entirely unaware of their rep on the FFA board and what they are doing.  In fact the state reps on the FFA board can totally oppose what their states stakeholders actually want and there is almost no consequence, they will likely be entirely secure in their jobs.

Sorry about the rant but I was really hoping that this body would bypass the state federations, right now I can't see how this can improve while they are still major players, let alone half the body meant to fix the problem.

When will we know who the working group will be?

If NSW and VIC get 2 of the 4 (or even 1) then FIFA are in for reform, otherwise, it's just a war of attrition and the current Board will win in the long run.

I don’t get the negativity. The 442 article makes no mention of ffa inclusion. Why can’t this work with the right mix of:
IFA's eight-seat 'Working Group' will consist of:

Four seats for member federations


Two seats for club representatives

One seat for a Professional Footballer's Association (PFA) representative

One seat for an Independent Chairperson.

7/9 state federations sided with FFA. If that proportion is applied to the 4 state reps on the working group then that equates to at least 3/4 being pro FFA.

Only 3/8 reps in the working group can be truly counted on to be pro reform - the PFA and the club reps. 

After that MAYBE one of those state fed repss will represent the interests of NSW/VIC who wanted reform.

If we are lucky we get to 4/8 of the working group not blindly accepting the status quo.

Mark my words, that "independent" chair will be nothing of the sort. 

At best it's a dead lock.

@ Coverdale

The State Federations in collusion with the ffa have been the biggest disappointment over the past couple of years; their self-serving attitude has created the crisis but that is the way this was all set up by Lowy Snr 15 years ago.

The good news is FIFA want reform and will get it, Steven Lowy will think he can manipulate this situation and will try his best but he won’t be able to stop the reform that’s coming. We will end up with a Congress that’s more representative and one that isn’t controlled by a single block ie the State Feds and we will end up with clubs running their own competition because both are clearly requirements of FIFA membership. The only question is whether this process will deliver it or whether we’ll get normalised first?

I guess we’ll see but to me nsw and Vic feds both have to be part of it, they’re too representative to be left out. So that then leaves either qld, fnnsw, act and SA to fight out the remaining two. The independent chair must be a football person surely and with no links to the ffa... why can’t it be from another region? Wasn’t the afc going to be part of the process? Lowy’s Reach might be far but so is cfg’s....

and to think there were so many on here who actually thought fifa were gonna come here and start flipping tables and kickin ass

According to Fox
4 states hopefully NSW, Vic, hopefully not NNSW
2 A-league reps
1 PFA
1 FFA board member
Plus independent chair (not aligned with FFA).

I keep seeing posts that an ffa board member is part of it but not according to 442 so which is it?

@ Coverdale

The FFA Board are not stakeholders so they can’t be part of it. The FFA Board is elected by Congress, this is a congress issue not an FFA (administrative) issue.

4 states
2 HAL clubs
1 PFA
1 independent chair with no connection to the FFA/Lowy

It’s interesting the media seem to be siding with lowy and reporting him more favourably than they are FIFA

The FIFA website actually says:

“The CRWG will be chaired by an independent person and comprise representatives of the Football Federation Australia Board, the member federations, the Australian Professional Football Clubs Association (APFCA) and Professional Footballers Australia (PFA). The CRWG will be based on terms of reference elaborated by FIFA and shall seek input from relevant stakeholders”

http://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/news/y=2018/m=4/news=fifa-s-bureau-of-the-council-establishes-congress-review-working-group-for-footb.html

So the reporting on this is all over the place. Typically, the friggin ffa website is even more vague on the matter ...

State reps should be NSW, Vic and two representing the rest.

We all know that if the two largest member states are represented then reform will occur. In all fairness they should be included in the working group but you can bet your bottom dollar that Lowy will do everything he can to prevent that from ever happening. 

It's the only truly representative model, NSW and VIC represent well over half the Australian population. If you give too much power to the smaller states they are too easily bought off by the FFA because they don't have enough resources to stand alone.

This model should give control to where the resources and population are but give enough representation to the smaller areas to ensure that some of the resources flow to them.