A-LEAGUE clubs have warned FIFA that professional football in Australia is on the verge of “dire consequences” if the impasse over who runs the sport is not solved within the next three and a half months.
As FIFA officials continued to hear submissions in its bid to navigate a way through the civil war that has stymied reform of football’s governance, the A-League clubs issued a stark warning of “clear symptoms of a potential impending catastrophic collapse of the professional game in Australia”.
FIFA IN TOWN: Clubs encouraged by meeting
In their two-and-a-half hour presentation to a three-man delegation from FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation, the clubs said the so-called “Congress Review Working Group” which will be established later this week should be mandated to complete its work by June 1, as a result of the existential threat to clubs from declining crowds and TV ratings.
FIFA has heard from a wide range of voices including the nine member associations, FFA’s board, fans, coaches and referees, as it seeks to draw up the membership of the CRWG which will be tasked with overhauling the voting structure of FFA’s Congress at the top of the game.
But the A-League clubs’ umbrella group, the Australian Professional Football Clubs Association (APFCA), urged FIFA to go further and give the working group a wider mandate to consider a range of issues, including FFA’s financial transparency, its appeal processes and what the clubs claim is the blocking of access to documents relating to the 2022 World Cup bid.
Australian Professional Clubs Association chairman Greg Griffin.Claiming the failure of attempts to reform the game’s governance had brought them to “the brink of joining the nine club administrations that have already become insolvent in the first 14 years of the A-League”, the club owners proposed that FFA be excluded from the CRWG, which it said should have an independent chairperson.
The FIFA taskforce is due to hold a joint session with FFA, the clubs and the member federations on Thursday, with the expectation that it will outline the structure it plans for the CRWG, its terms of reference and crucially its timeline.
After FFA chairman Steven Lowy’s controversial attempts at reform were voted down last November, FIFA agreed to a final attempt to find consensus over how many votes in Congress should be held by the various stakeholders, but only with strict deadlines to be met.
In a statement, APFCA chairman Greg Griffin said its delegation “felt the meeting (with FIFA) was extremely positive and productive and look forward to contributing to the joint stakeholder meeting to be held tomorrow.
“We remain committed to the successful completion of this process.”
Meanwhile the prospect of a national second division will be the focus of a working group set up by the FFA, its member federations and the Association of Australian Football Clubs, the body which represents clubs below the A-League.
There are hopes a draft model could be sketched out later this year, though significant differences have emerged already over such a competition’s timing and size.
A-League clubs warn they will go bust if FIFA doesn’t force Football Federation Australia into reform | Daily Telegraph