https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/fox-football-podcast/id726594291?i=1000466625866

 FFA CEO James Johnson | 'Let's put football first' | 'Unifying' the game in Australia | The task at hand                    Fox Football Podcast             

 New FFA CEO James Johnson has sat down with Adam Peacock to outline exactly how he plans to build football in Australia back up.Johnson eyes the systems in Japan and Germany as 'relevant' for Australia's ecosystem and wants FOOTBALL back in the centre of the game's priorities... and that will feed commercial revenue. Basically, he plans to flip the cycle on its head.Here's more detail:
-'It's about bringing the sport back together' - aligning football in Australia again (1:00)
-Transforming the organisation to one that can operate in a global system or 'global player', like Japan, US & UEFA (3:00)
-'Putting football first' & 'optimising our football products' in order to then capitalise commercially (7:00)
-The A-League is 'unbundling' from the Federation (7:30)
-Johnson's preferred national models are Japan and Germany, and they're far more 'relevant' for Australia than the EPL model (8:00)
-A full look at the Australian football 'cycle' that Johnson wants to create (10-13)
-Johnson sees women's football as the greatest growth area (12:00)
-Johnson's vision for a 'domestic transfer system' to connect grassroots clubs to NPL to A-League - incentivise clubs to develop players, with a distribution coming back down. (13:00)
-Marketing the A-League, the national teams and the FFA (17:00)
-'Focus on getting domestic game right' (25:00)
-The modern challenge of having Australians getting opportunities in Europe (27:00)
-The types of players Johnson's a fan of (28:00)
-When Johnson learnt the importance and values from community (31:00)
-'Fans are our most important stakeholder' (32:00)          

Good interview, plenty of platitudes but lots of interesting stuff to listen to.

There's nothing overly new being said, he wouldn't be the first to mention the importance of becoming a global player in the game, but his examples or templates to follow are curious ones:  Japan, ok I can see that one, then Germany, hmmm, then UEFA, well, not sure how they're a template for us, and then the US, I cringe every time someone mentions the US as an example to follow.

Sports in Australia are over governed.

Frank took advantage of this and ran FFA like he was FIFA.

Who can name a chairman or CEO of any sport outside of Australia few... and most could probably name an American. 

To put football first is to set up a correct system. Then leave it the F alone.

Stop the micromanaging, rule changing, putting FFA first. The classic was Gallop flying down to hug Timmy at City. Stop the rot

i watched the interview on fox sports, it boggles my mind on why he wasnt in charge since the creation of the a-league.

So refreshing to have someone at the helm that just gets it. It boggles my mind that there are those out there that think the old regime did it better...  

Thanks new FFA

So, all they have to do is say the right words in the correct order and everything will work out. Yeah and I have a bridge you might want to buy. Interested?

Id buy it just to push you off that bridge.

X2

 well he's presented better than any of the recent past presenters maybe you can do a better job

Johnno presents lets see, nearly as well as Gallop did.
At presenting, he has Sep Blatter and Infantino covered too.

As a representative of the City Group he would love world football to be structured like the MLS.  

-'Putting football first' & 'optimising our football products' in order to then capitalise commercially (7:00)
Agreed

-Johnson's preferred national models are Japan and Germany, and they're far more 'relevant' for Australia than the EPL model (8:00)
If he had said AFL instead of EPL I'd back this guy entirely. This is the biggest obstacle the game needs to overcome. It's not a hard sell that the Japan model is more relevant than the EPL, but it is a hard sell that the Japan model is better than the AFL closed shop invitational only teams salary cap for balance and rigged for commercial interest

The Japanese model for adding new professional tiers is certainly something we should follow.  They document what is required for inclusion in the new league, call for applications and select the applicants that best satisfy all of the selection criteria.  The criteria are quite detailed and include having the support of the local government where the club is located as well as the support of the football community.

The way the Germans structure the relationship between the DfB and the Bundesliga owner clubs is also a good model for us to follow.  The DfB and the Bundesliga owners (the clubs) agree on a treaty on how the leagues are to operate and then the owners delegate responsibility to a subsidiary entity to manage the operation of the leagues in accordance with the treaty.  The treaty is renegotiated from time to time.  This model is much better than the EPL model in that it fits easily within the FIFA model where all parts of football are required to be subordinate to the Member Association.

Finally a person who gets the landscape of the game around the world, unlike the boofheads who tried to brainwash the public with how 'unique' we are and all of that jazz in the last 15 years and little to no effect for the progression of the national team both men and womens, Aleague and W-League and look how its taken that forward...

Putting the game first should the mantra at the FFA and this hasn't been the case till now, with this guy I feel optimistic about where the game can go especially in terms of the game's development at club land but also in terms of developing players which has left to dry under the wing of Buckley and Gallop.

With what to think where the game could have gone if 'the football first' mantra was the priority at the FFA at the beginning in 2004.

Its also encouraging how he's looking at Germany and Japan for reference points too unlike looking at the NRL and AFL where it has little to no relevance around the world.

If he wants to find advice and learn from the likes of Germany he should ask the DFB and Tom Byer if I was him.

"Let's put football first"

Doesn't even mention pro-rel once in 36 minutes of interview...

In previous public statements he has made, it's pretty clear that it's not on his agenda for the short term.
I guess we all would all love to see a plan as to timing and how they are going to introduce it.
Maybe there are a host of things they need to do first (get rid of salary cap, 2nd division, transfer fees, etc)
I have been resigned for a while to the fact that we will not see P&R for at least 10 years, at least.

I think you might find its "not before 2034"...

probably

2034 isn't as far away as you think. we are in the 2020's now afterall. that being said, I expect pro/rel to be in before the end of the decade.  

Thanks new FFA etc *yawns

Smart no? More pressing issues with football in the short term to deal with wouldn't you agree? Unless you think pro rel will fix everything and should be addressed at every meeting, conference etc. haha. 

Apparently. Like...
1. replacing the countless millions in sponsorship the new mob have already lost
2. 2023 WWC bid
3. Growing the ffa cup
etc...

If the sponsors are jumping ship what's the reason? After all if the game was lucrative they would be keen to continue no? Have the new owners wanted to remove them? Maybe, although  quite possibly unlikely all of them. 
We can assume it is the sponsors wanting to leave the game. Why? Many reasons. I don't know if the new mob will be any good. But the game itself is in a downward spiral and this definitely started from the old mob. This is indisputable. Pro rel etc. won't work if the fabric of the game is in tatters. Getting the fans and stakeholders together again is what will begin to bring the game back. So the points he raises are extremely valid and current. 

Only way to grow the ffa cup is to allow for promotion and relegation. It creates rivalries, it creates moments where we see if a 3rd or 2nd tier side can match the tier above, it builds interest in the landscape when every participating club has the chance to play in the a-league, it will help local
businesses invest in grassroots clubs to get them up to scratch for certain divisions etc, in turn, this brings in sponsorship and revenue and a sense of belief and hope and dreams to aim for for every club and supporter. 

So yes, pro - rel will be the catalyst to Australian footballs success 

Erm, you better tell JJ that...

That just shows we have the right man for the job. He's prioritising the important things first.
Yes, promotion and relegation would be nice, provided the levels where it operates are only populated by fully professional teams, but it's really a "can wait' thing.

LOL !

Oh, so it's a "can wait" thing now...

Just as well too.

my God Libel..say something positive ...just once ...every single post is the negative of whatever is being said ...do you do this at home ?

Gladly.

its a start ...did it hurt ?

Interesting comments from Simon Hill...

"Yes, other sports had the same issues but none were brought to the brink like football where only some smart manoeuvring by James Johnson wrong footed the broadcaster and saved the game from oblivion. Make no mistake, they wanted out."

I'm more concerned that Hill implied (and I have no reason not to believe him based what we've seen, or rather not seen, on Foxsport) that Fox is suppressing football like C7 did.

That is a massive statement and a massive concern to the clubs and FFA.

JJ needs to seriously take this on board and cut the umbilical cord with Fox.

I don't think it's up to him/FA anymore. Correct me if i'm wrong, but the next broadcast deal will be negotiated and decided by the APL.

Yes. As I’ve said consistently for the last few years promotion and relegation can wait. 

Nothing wrong with prioritising the must address items asap, shift the tides and build some positive momentum for the sport.
The summary seems like a good starting point to me

It's pretty clear to me now that a lot of those sponsorships were won via Frank Lowy.
I mean, who else could have wrangled $7  million per annum from SBS to show one game per week?
Whatever we think of his failures, and there were many, including handing the Chair to his son, he layed the best possible foundation for the A-League, and it's unlikely anyone is going to be able to progress from where he left off, quite simply, because they won't have his business and political clout.

I agree that Lowy (Frank that is) laid the best possible foundations in that he brought the game into the mainstream, but disagree that the game cannot be progressed. On the contrary, Lowy's strategy was only ever going to serve as stage one of the games evolution, as he sacrificed player development for the cause of "new football". Mainstream now sees the A league as an entertainment option thanks to Lowy, but mainstream cannot be fooled over the lack of quality compared to overseas leagues. I think James Johnson will address this lack of quality by unifying the game and repairing the damaged player development pathways. Here's for hoping anyway.

agreed but TBH it was all about the top end "show" full stop.......
Development isn't the only piece of the puzzle that suffered but Football across the board.
State Feds are a huge piece of the puzzle.
Hopefully this Johnson and his team can turn the strong current that its up against.
What goes down must come up........especially our game, us stakeholders have copped it for decades and were still around, we will keep supporting no matter for the love of the game.

Lowy was wonderful for our game and did everything right in those first few years . He got us off to a flying start.
However he was never going to be around forever so change was inevitable .
He then put his son in as a means of keeping his name attached to any negotiations on sponsorships etc.
I can see why he did. He was trying to keep the ball rolling . ( I genuinely believe he had the interests of the game at heart )
Unfortunately the game got to a point it needed to evolve and Lowy junior was not the right person to facilitate this .
He had to go .
Yes we have lost sponsorships etc since but there were many other factors at play there ..not just the loss of the Lowy name .
Now we are trying to claw our way back again ...two steps forward ..one step back ...that is normal for any enterprise.
Will Johnson take us forward ?
We hope so but if not he goes .....and we try again.

Well he's saying all the right things so far. The fact that he's listening to the various stakeholders is positive. A simple yet crucial skill S.Lowy and co. failed at miserably.

This is well said. I would add that although Lowy junior may not have been the perfect person he may have been the best available. 

To be clear, the game still needed control of vested interests and the Lowy's knew quite well how the code implodes when this happen. It's starting to show signs of emergence again, now with the clubs running the league and who have the greatest share of the money.

I agree, it is pretty clear he built a system set to fail.

A bloated expensive FFA/AL that cannot survive without him there. 

What he has done is set up a league that cannot continue. He built a model that is too expensive and unrealistic.

Of course having a profitable, stable (and hopefully successful) football ecosystem is more important than relegating sides to an imaginary second division. 

How about we create a second division first, before pushing it too hard too soon. 

I'm curious how long has the J2 league been around for. If i recall football wasn't huge in Japan until it started getting more traction in the mid 90s? Was the K2 created around then and if so how long after was pro-rel introduced?

A quick Wiki shows I was right, J2 in 1999 from a semi pro version to a pro version:

The infrastructure of the league was heavily changed in 1999. The league acquired nine clubs from the semi-professional JFL and one club from J.League to create a two-division system, both being the professional leagues. The top flight became the J.League Division 1 (J1) with 16 clubs while J.League Division 2 (J2) was launched with ten clubs in 1999. The second-tier (former) Japan Football League became the third-tier Japan Football League at that time.

The criteria for becoming a J2 club were not as strict as those for the top division. This allowed smaller cities and towns to maintain a club successfully without investing as much as clubs in J1. In fact, clubs like Mito HollyHock only draw an average of 3,000 fans a game and receive minimal sponsorship, yet still field fairly competitive teams in J2.

Clubs in J2 took time to build their teams for J1 promotion, as they also tried to gradually improve their youth systems, their home stadium, their financial status, and their relationship with their hometown. Clubs such as Oita Trinita, Albirex Niigata, Kawasaki Frontale, and Ventforet Kofu accomplished this successfully. All these clubs originally started as J2 in 1999 and were comparatively small, but they eventually earned J1 promotion, in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 respectively. Even though Kofu and Oita were later relegated back to Division 2, they are well-established association football clubs, managing to average 10,000 fans per game.

great example, J-League was created in 1992 and 6 years later J2 came in. I wish our administrators were that competant

The excuse always comes up that we are not ready yet. At what point are clubs ready. The point is, it is never about the clubs or it shouldnt be. It is about the actual mechanism. We need a second division and pro / rel because over time small clubs who dont deserve to be in the A-league eventually build their clubs up when eventually they are ready. The main thing I want to emphasise is the longer you delay this the harder it will be to close this gap. Simply because we are in a closed league. There is no right time. It just needs to happen. 

That's where planning comes in. If you wait for something to happen without doing anything to make it happen it probably never will.
There is a right time. It is the time that is planned for. If the people steering the ship create a plan outlining that we want A, B and C and we want them to occur by years X, Y and Z then there is a far greater chance those things will happen. Instead we have a history of just saying "we'll do X when Y is ready", but having no plan of how to actually achieve X or Y. Without any resemblance of a plan people are just going to keep doing the same thing and the results are going to be the same.

Having listened to the interview I was pleased he said he needed to work with regional associations and state Feds... and look at the balance between all stakeholders ...

I welcomed and almost cheered when he said he preferred the Germany & Japaneses models to England.. 

His statement we needed more Football and was open to how that is achieved I found interesting.

His plans to conduct national fan forums should produce some decent discussion...

This guy is starting to grow on me .... 

I'm sorry but I'm not impressed at all. After about 15mins I had enough and switched it off.  A lot of the questions he answered with a question or answered in a wishy washy non-committal way.  A lot of things we want to hear but not a lot of how they're going to implement these changes. He talks about lessons learned from other countries in terms of developing their leagues and infrastructure - Well what were those lessons you learned? How are they valuable and how are you going to implement them? He talks about all these challenges and yet no indication how he and the board are planning on facing these challenges. Let's face it nothing he has said or similar hasn't been said before by someone in management previously. Until proven otherwise he's just a talking head  just like previous administrators

I remain unimpressed too, he’s saying the right things and that’s it. 

I would've expected him to have applied for this position and attended an interview. One of the 1st questions his employers should've asked is- What are are your goals if you get this role and how do you plan to achieve them. Or something similar. If he answered the same way as he did this interview i would've thrown his application in the bin. I'm tired of hearing all the right things, I want to see doing the right things. At this stage I don't even care anymore about the doing right things. Just do something - ANYTHING. The fact that he mentioned Fan forums to generate discussion also is a massive red flag to me. 1. You barely have people watching the games in person or on TV. How many fans are you going to rope into fan forums for it to be a worthwhile exercise? For a fan forum to be of even minimal use you need fans 2. It tells me he either isn't as knowledgeable as he claims to be about the issues surrounding football in Australia or he is bereft of ideas on his own and is hoping to find ideas from the general public. 3. I don't know any pro league in any sport that takes fan forums seriously. It's usually a gimmicky last resort "we care about you" PR stunt attempting to rally support. 4. More talking/discussions? All we ever get is more discussions. How about more action instead?

I've climbed the corporate ladder long enough to instantly suspect corporate BS whenever a new CEO comes in and opens their mouth for the 1st time. I'm not expecting a detailed plan at all but this interview was sorely lacking in any sort of specifics. The 2 worst CEO's I've ever worked with addressed their staff/shareholders very similar to this for the 1st time. Their employment was terminated within 2years and they left the company in a worse state than they arrived. That's why I'm extremely critical/dubious anything will change. But don't mind me I'm just getting old and my BS tolerance is dwindling by the day.

I hope I am wrong and he can turn it around but this interview in my eyes made him look like a weak leader with no real plan. That's my 1st impression of the guy

People in this position, in most organisations, as a general rule, talk a lot of BS - that's par for course.
One thing I can say in favour of Johnson is that he is measured when responding to questions.  No grandiose plans, no over the top thoughts, pretty focused on the task at hand, which is a difficult and complex one.  There ain't going to be any miracles, nor should we be expecting any.

You must be hard to please when it comes to interviews.

In all honesty, its early in the stage of planning with a lot of moving parts around from the a-league independence to organising the structure of the national teams to finding new sponsors.

He said the right things which is the key in the early stages and this is important in getting everyone onside literally.

The game isn't flush of funds and resources these days so don't expect miracles within the next 12/18 months or so, I think JJ will put the building blocks in place to create a solid foundation where everyone can try to be on the same page.

So the reality is patience is required but we know this community of ours isn't prone to being patient and this is going to be a problem going forward.

When the position commands a 6-7 figure salary leading a multimillion business employing 100's if not 1000's possibly 10's of thousands of people, and it's a position of leadership so yeah I hold people to a much higher standard. This isn't a McDonalds traineeship we're dealing with. I'm also not a fan of giving a guy excuses already - "Oh the game doesn't have funds and resources anymore so don't expect miracles"  This isn't exactly news and if this is news to him, well tough luck. He should've known what he was signing up for it's up to him to make it work. Until proven otherwise he's just like every other guy that has sat on that seat. Just a big mouth being paid a lot of money for 0 results. This isn't a personal attack on you but your benchmark of just putting building blocks in place in the next 12-18 months frankly disappoints me greatly. I can't even think of a benchmark lower than that. Maybe not being involved in drug/sex/racism scandal as CEO is the only bar I could think of that's lower. I don't even have that high standards for him myself - i just want to see some positive growth.That's not asking for a miracle IMO.  However I haven't seen or heard anything that implies this is even realistically possible so maybe it is. Maybe the more realistic option is to be satisfied as long as the FFA and A-league doesn't completely collapse.

It's all well and good to demand patience. Well, what's a reasonable time frame? 2 years? 5 years? 2077? The FFA is a business, however long it takes is not a viable answer.  Anyway I've said enough on this guy - he absolutely left a terrible 1st impression on me. I hope I'm wrong but I am extremely unimpressed

 As a CEO in a new role, what would you consider to be a reasonable response in an interview of this nature?

X2

Spot on.

The guy's only "plan" seems to be to hold some more talkfests. As if its some big secret as to what each of the different stakeholder groups want.

A real man of action...

To be fair, he does need more time in the job.
Having said that, I'm not really expecting a whole lot in a hurry, I'd say his hands are tied for the most part.
It's only closer to the end of his term that we'll be able to make a judgment one way or the other.

Well, Jimbo didn't quite get a chance yet but my work colleague sent his son, a Sutherland soccer junior to footy this season, and its gone from $2500, to $2650, for the season.
And I hear the coach has no idea on the technical aspect.
I would of told them to stick it up their anal cavity!

All good and well that the FFA CEO prefers the German/Japanese models but has anyone stopped to consider that the Indy Aleague have employed the consulting services of the man who basically built the EPL? 

What's he supposed to say after walking into a shitstorm and having been in the job all of a month? Of course he needs time to find out for himself what the situation is before he can start to remedy them. I wouldn't base too many of my actions upon the work of my predecessors if i were him either. Gallop and the old board hardly covered themselves in glory. 
As long as he doesn't take too much time conducting his own due diligence as we do need to start putting plans into action as soon as possible. But he does have many fires to put out too. 

1. Find out what the challenges and opportunities are
2. Prioritise them by urgency and importance
3. Get started 

That's how I would imagine it would be done. Let's assume that the information he provided in this interview is a small percentage of the detailed information and knowledge he actually has about his knowledge and plan for football in this country. As CEO how much of this should be disclosed to the public? Is what he had said enough? 
One thing I know about CFG, seeing as he had connections to them,  is they are very tight lipped about things and don't give too much away. His interview gives small insights without giving away too much information. 

We were screaming for Lowy's head because he did not provide enough transparency, but this is OK it seems. :ermm:

Hmmm. Actually no. We were screaming for Lowys head because of how the game was dealt with from 2016 onwards. Secondly, you're comparing Lowy who was receiving criticism well after a decade in power compared to someone just new to the role. Apples with apples please. 

Oh, it's been going really well since his departure LOL.

That may be however it was evident at this point that the league was going down with drop off in interest from supporters. 


What about this transparency that you speak of. Why run away from your own comment. If it had any validity you will take this opportunity to expand on it and rebut my comment. Deflection like the above comment you made or silence will prove you have no point you make. Balls in your court. 

I answered your post. Matey, we have gotten nowhere with this new mob so far. Don't say they just started when they were already making decisions on the new HAL entrances over a year ago. There's been nothing about anything positive they are doing, no 2nd Div /P&R - it as far away as ever. Lot's of fruitless talk and no action on anything that could stem the free fall in ratings, crowds, interest. Nothing, zilch, niente, nada! Yeah, not all their fault but zero progress from this new lot.

We're talking about James Johnson. He's been in the role for 2 months. Thats what you responded to me about. His transparency compared to Lowy. Tell me about transparency specifically with him and how it compares to Lowy?