I don’t offer negative opinions for a start although I do feel negative to negativity.

other than an opinion and XI to-do's what have you got to offer?

The previous head honcho (Lowy) was also a football person and yet that didnt help in sorting out the football issues either.

JJ is beholden to the current board who are pretty useless as well (Staj survey anyone?), so you are correct until they change to a more adventurous board nothing will happen.

I really dont want AL to fail and would prefer it to evolve, but maybe AL failing is the only way for meaningful change to happen, only question is how long can it limp along in zombie mode and how much damage will be done in the mean time.

Just ignore him...he has nothing to offer other than negativity.

So whats the alternative then? Serious question.

If not a football person, non-football person, someone from Pluto? Or from this forum?

Otherwise the game has got zilch hope regardless of who is in charge mate.

I hear you, it reminds me of when I do annual reviews with my boss and asks me for my goals for the coming year, I just dress up obvious easy stuff which is part of my job anyway with some fancy corporate words and bingo, get ticked off as complete following year, secures my bonus and boss thinks I had a good year so I get a pay rise. why stress myself with something challenging which would reduce the time I spend on here arguing with certain super coaches, better to create targets that are just a distraction to make it look like I have a tough job and am really busy!

Nine months in and other than stating some really obvious goals and a survey, JJ has done nothing, other than sprouting motherhood statements he has not provided a clear vision of what he wants or where and when he sees the sport going somewhere. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero. Face it fanbois, he's another dud.

Which explains why they tired to brought in the AFL/NRL model where it’s funded fully on massive tv deals which fund the whole sport not just the leagues.

They tired to woo fox sports but clearly their metrics which fox put out clearly fell short and therefore the model failed in front of our eyes.

Well put.

We have to remember Lowy wanted him in, he head hunted him for the job.

Which makes it even worse I guess.

But any case Gallop had no idea.

Seriously guys what else do what JJ to say? Regardless of what is said it’s about action.

Its very easy to whinge when things are not right but the game can’t afford another false dawn.

The game needs unity but most importantly trust in a very diverse community and that has been a failure in the past.

This is what I see as well AJF. I have been involved in the corporate world and the political world, this reads like the sort of stuff that gets thrown around when you're floundering.

I want you to be right, I really, really do.

The XI Principles are a wa^k. Firstly someone at FFA should bust our a dictionary to understand what a principle actually is. Definition according to Cambridge,

"basic idea or rule that explains or controls how something happens or works"

Now looking at the FFA "principles" below, its easy to see they are only objectives and not 1 is close to a principle.

• Principle I - National Identity   
• Principle II  - Resetting the Australian football narrative
• Principle III  - Stimulating the growth of the Australian football economy
• Principle IV - Reset and rebuild Australian football products
• Principle V - More football, more often: increasing match minutes for youth players and improving the player pathway
• Principle VI - Create world class environments for coach development
• Principle VII -    A whole of football approach to protecting and enhancing the game through modern, efficient, and effective governance
• Principle VIII -  A new model for FFA and the Professional Leagues
• Principle IX -  Reducing the cost of football and securing the future of the game
• Principle X -  Australia to become the centre of Women’s football in the Asia-Pacific region
• Principle XI -  Transforming our National Teams into uniquely iconic brands

+1

That said about the NSD, that it will be self sufficient, is enough reason for it to come in, if infact that would be the case. So, I could go a step further then and say that the FFA of any version, including now, have been very negligent of the development of more Australian players domestically by not creating a NSD.
Galatas is an innovative self starter and has taken on that job of doing what is required, with the co-operation of the NPL clubs with rich history.

While a lot of what you said is true the one thing that I will take issue with is the XI principles. They may sound like motherhood statements but that is exactly the point. They are designed to be a set of motherhood statements that the football community can all agree on (a big task in itself) They shouldn't have a timetable because they are not a to do list.

 Any decision being made now though should be held up against those principles.
1) Does the decision achieve anything in line with the principles - if not why are we doing it?
2) Does the decision align to the principles - no - then chances are it is a wrong decision.

The FFA have had three types of CEOs since they began. The John O'Neill style, listen to everyone, ignore and implement what I think. The Ben Buckley/David Gallop style, listen to the Board only, do only their bidding and ignore everyone else.  Everyone has complained about both approaches. JJs approach is different again. The current CEO has only been there for 9 months and is trying to bring an incredibly diverse football community along with him. I think maybe he deserves at least a modicum of patience as he tries an approach that potentially can potentially get everybody pulling in the same direction rather than pulling the game apart.

I hate saying positive things about Gallop, but he came in with a vision and was told in no uncertain terms that he would be doing only what Lowy wanted and nothing else. Of course, he was a spineless coward who accepted his golden handcuffs and settled down at the trough with the rest of them.

They talk about profitability because it obfuscates the real measure of a football club's financial stability, cash flow.

If you have noticed they are constantly talking about the strength of the game participation wise versus the weakness of the game funding wise. This ignores the reality that the vast amount of the monetary value inherently in the game is at the grassroots. Unshackling the grassroots from the tyranny of the FFA and the AL/IAL and freeing that capital to be used for investment in development is the only way for the game to move forward.

Every time someone talks about the game needing to be profitable you know they really mean the game needs to remain stagnant.

Barca4Life is actually correct... transfers were never on their agenda. There's a difference between being aware of something and having it on your "to-do" list. Gallop, Lowy and Co, never saw the bigger picture!  

Look, I get what you're saying and past me would have agreed with you.

Just on the NSD situation, any league that is reliant on the FFA to provide funding for it is automatically a failure. This is why the AAFC have declared that the NSD will be entirely self funded, that is exactly the right attitude to have.

The Starting XI and XI Principles are distractions. They don't mean a thing. The Starting XI is an advisory group, who gives a shit because the FFA doesn't. The XI Principles don't have a timetable, therefore it is also a big pile of shit.

I wish my language could be less combative because I genuinely think that there is a huge amount of positive movement and goodwill within the game, it just stops the moment you get to the governing bodies.

I'm not sure any of those reasons make any sense.
They failed in meeting the threshold of breaking even.
Bit of a pipe dream that all clubs could be profitable.

That isn't strictly correct, FFA was well aware of transfers but it didnt fit in with their strategy for the AL so they didn't implement them. Relevant quote from Gallop below:

“There are no transfer fees between clubs and no loan deals or loan fees between clubs.

“Why do we place these restrictions on our clubs?

“There are three important reasons.

“The first is competitive balance. We want the fans of every club to start the season believing that they can win the championship.

“The second important reason is economic.

The financial model of the A-League means FFA distributes $2.5m to each club – exactly enough to cover the salary cap payments.

“That leaves the club to fund its other costs – coaches, marketing, venues, front office and so on.

“We need to have clubs reaching break-even point and then moving to profitability. The mechanisms are helping achieve that goal.

“The third reason for the mechanisms is to encourage club investment beyond the primary professional squad.

https://www.myfootball.com.au/news/gallop-how-australia-can-inspire-chinese-football

Think you're jumping the gun a bit. No sooner did he come in than the pandemic hit, which even in good times would be an all-consuming task to deal with: trying to re-arrange seasons (at all levels of the game), international dates, dealing with historically unprecedented interstate travel restrictions. And to top it all off seeing Foxtel basically wipe their hands of the game.

And yet in that time he has also:
* introduced a switch from summer to winter for the A-League (thus removing the biggest logistical roadblock to pro-rel)
* taken steps to introduce a domestic transfer market (his real passion project)
* paved the way for A-League independence (although this is a frustratingly slow process)
* set up the Starting XI (bringing alienated ex-players back inside the tent) and the XI principles survey, which is undoubtedly the basis for more radical changes to the game's governance

The AAFC themselves have stated that he has been much more receptive to their NSD plans than the old guard is, but I think he has to tread lightly here so as not to ruffle the feathers of the existing A-League clubs, and make sure that a model is developed that won't be a huge financial drain on the game. He could have come in all guns blazing but that would likely have backfired with innate resistance from existing stakeholders.

I had high hopes for JJ when he came in, he is a football person through and through.

Then what has he achieved?

Nothing. A few plans that were already in place before he started have come to fruition.

Everyone with a vision for the game needs to ignore the FFA and get on with it themselves. The FFA and everyone in it should be treated as bad actors, incapable of working for the good of all. If an NSD is going to happen then it needs to be set up and forgiveness demanded. If the IAL is to occur then they need to just get on with it and presume the FFA has nothing to do with anything. The game will get nowhere with the FFA guiding it, no matter who is involved.

I asked Bozza when we decide that JJ, and the FFA, should be overthrown by a revolution from within the actual game. I think that the time is now. If anyone thinks that they should be given more time, at what point does your employee who can't balance the till can't restock the shelves, can't sweep or mop the floor, and sits in the toilet for half their shift talking on their mobile phone get fired? Because the FFA is exactly that, worse than useless.

Except that the people in charge of changing that requirement is soon to be the AL clubs. Not saying they wouldn't make the change, but it would require the majority to vote to do so. If the FFA retain some sort of power over licences as part of the independence agreement then they may be able to vito a change like that through.

The licence thing is a non-issue. Licences still require clubs to meet minimum requirements. This can just be changed so that a minimum requirement is not finishing last in a given season.

Its incredible to think the transfer system was never on the agenda by the non football CEOs we had in the last 15 years.

JJ seeing the bigger picture...

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/ffa-targeting-40m-boost-to-game-with-crucial-transfer-overhaul-20200928-p55zzx.html

Well the relegation part of P&R is not likely to happen before 2034. The current A-League club licences grant them the right to be in the competition until 2034.
However the promotion part of P&R could be introduced much much sooner.

No doubt he is tempering expectations, further than that, you could not describe him as being gung ho about it.
He's not really pushing it, not for next season, not for the season after, and not for the season after that.
Re the English system, let's at least stop talking about it.
It's not going to happen under JJ's reign, and that's a fact.
That's all I'm saying, accept it, it's not happening.

The "but" is most likely to temper expectations ie. P&R is not going to be happening next season, and we very well may not have a system that mirrors English football. Don't see any problem with that. Still think JJ is all for it, it's just not is number one priority at this stage.