Full Ray Gatt Article

Kids and amateurs slugged by higher FFA fees....

.......The 2-0 loss to Peru in the final group match last week has had serious consequences, not only sending Australia packing from the finals but seeing FFA miss out on a $5.5 million windfall they would have received for getting to the Round of 16. It would have been on top of the $10m they already received for qualifying for Russia.

FFA is only expected to break even after taking into account spending of more than $300,000 to each squad player, the pre-tournament base in Turkey and funds used to pay for accommodation and charter flights for VIPs.

While it is understood a number of local associations around the country have yet to be told of the hike in registration fees, The Australian has seen an email circulated to A-League clubs in which FFA foreshadows the increase.

In the letter, FFA chief executive David Gallop said the extra funds would help the programs for the junior national teams.

“FFA will generate additional revenue from grassroots participants by way of an increase to the National Registration Fee (NRF) applicable to participants for the first time since 2013,” Gallop wrote. “The additional NRF income will primarily be directed towards programs for the junior national teams (under 17s and under 19s) and the Matildas.”

As it stands now, juniors are charged $12.60 each by the FFA while adults have to pay $25...........

Under the new structure, the fee for juniors will rise to $14 and to $33 for adults.

That is on top of the club’s registration fee which can run from more than $200 for an under-6s player to $500 for an adult.

Thanks for posting.
Whilst its small in terms of $ per player here is what I think.

Time for the FFA CEO to have a salary decrease. It was his poor management of the National Teams Coaches over a long period that have stopped our multiple national teams achieving results through penny-punching. He has single-handedly failed to allocate funds appropriately to ensure good performances. That is excepting the Women's National Team who had to strike to get a better pay deal.Why he was given a contract extension and $200,000 pa pay rise. 

Time to leave Dave and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Bloody joke......

If FFA didn't exist would suburban football players know or care?
It would probably mean a significant decrease in fees.
But why are suburban players paying for national teams to play?It makes no sense to me.Why are suburban players paying for two levels of admin?They just want to have game of football .It's effectively a tax for no service.

Well this just proves perfectly what great Football Governance is in our country !
I can understand the costs involved for our NT attending the WC or any tournament but to pass on more to grass roots when they have been guilty of squandering so much over the years and over paying themselves and over managed we should be asking for their accountability even more so now.
This is robbery as in the dark ages, sickens me.

Looks like Macquarie Bank but with 2 branches. FFA and state federations.

Ridiculous, its like they are not happy having the most popular sport for kids so they come up with the best idea to push them away.

Ponzi scheme or something similar.

I’m interested to see what other nations do to fund their national teams. Surely we can come up with a better resolution than what’s currently dished up.

It's a $1.40 increase FFS.

It's a CEO on $1.3M (plus bonuses) that does nothing. Quite literally nothing. Nearly every major issue plaguing the game at the moment can be directly traced back to a poor decision made by poor governance at the top. If they have no money, then they should be held accountable. They are directly responsible for that. Nearly all issues in the game right now should have been foreseeable to anyone with half a brain. When a business is doing poorly, the answer is not to increase sale prices, it's to decrease costs (eg: reduce payroll) and then re-evaluate where they are going wrong and make the necessary changes. Instead they just have a rummage around the pockets of parents and players. Just one more example of the mongrel idiots we have steering the ship.

well said someguys and Paul01.
The point is the game is suffering from this and that internally, the media spins us whenever they can, YL etc is costing OTT, AL is suffering etcetcetc
Our results are not justifying increasing costs no matter how little or large - participating football in this country is a rip off just as most things nowadays.

11%  for kids, just in line with inflation

32% Adults, pfft cashflow

this

cant justify it though

Not so knowledgeable on this topic but it appears the clubs have massive rego fees. Can the FFA regulate those in any way? People talk about decreasing fees and the clubs seem to take a lot. Do these clubs profit massively or are they just breaking even? 

Grassroots clubs are not about making a profit. Biggest costs are insurance (and this should be cheaper considering how much safer our game is generally) and ground hire/maintenance/lighting for the kids. Most clubs put on a end of season function and provide trophies for participation plus a small gift of some kind like a backpack.
For adults, the added provision for red cards and any tribunal costs.

Can't speak for NPL clubs but have heard rumours that a significant portion the junior fees are funnelled up to the senior teams to pay for coaches AND players.

Insurance is not paid by the Club directly, instead part of your administration fees (to FFA, State, Local associations) pays for insurance. Under the FFA model they have drastically reduced the cost of insurance, as when I was growing up our local club had to organise their own insurance for players (as you can imagine it is a lot cheaper for the FFA / State to get massive group discounts than each and every club).

One of the biggest costs for our grassroots senior teams are referees. Our local government has recently decided that ratepayers are paying already for sporting facilities to be in their area, so therefore they shouldn't double dip and ask for exuberant fees from their local sporting clubs too ... you might be able to petition your councils to adopt a similar mentality (I'd imagine most parents paying rego for their kids to play are also paying rates for the council to look after the grounds ... it is why we pay rates, to have public spaces).

Our club tends to run at a profit each year largely thanks to a social competition we run over Summer (and the juniors do one fundraising event a year ... a junior tournament), and the bar. They are our only three major income revenues outside of registration. Our sponsorship income is next to nothing, we do next to none fundraising (not even sausages at Bunnings), our juniors don't open the canteen on Saturdays, we sell next to none merchandise (not that we try to sell any of it either), we apply for zero grants (even though one of the largest sporting clubs in the regional city), we have no strategic plan or budget forecasting. I personally believe if the club actually applied itself to even half of these that we could pretty much cover all registration costs (or least reduce them by more than half). That is one club in Australia ... I'd imagine many clubs around Australia do even considerably less, and some do more (a few popped up this season across Perth advertising free rego, I'd imagine it is because they raise enough revenue through other resources to cover those costs).

Sure a different kettle of fish at NPL level, as different costs (and more), but also greater access to income.

Can confirm that this is true for a lot of clubs, but bashing the FFA is more enjoyable (or instinctive) for some

I'm dismayed to learn that what's meant to be a bit of a cash cow (world cup qualification), is actually nothing of a sort.

$1.40 - cant even buy a packet of chips with that

Won't somebody think of the children!

I would like to know where people think Age Team's funding should come from?

Not from the A League surely that's a great sin.
Not from NPL.
There is no sponsorship value in the U16 girl's team (or boys).
What sponsorship the FFA has arranged is in the form of the Aldi Miniroos for equipment etc.  Cash is needed for planes, hotels, fees and food and uniforms and lots more.

Who should pay for them to represent Australia in these international fixtures?
If not the kids that are eligible, then who?

SWand P
The tax is not coming from the kids playing for the national team.It's coming from kids playing recreational football.
Where should the money come from?
The FFA has a budget of how much a year? Over $100mill?How much is spent on FFA and state federation administration? $20mill?
If they cant fund national youth teams and balance the books , with their focus on metrics then resign and let someone else do the job.
The problem is systematic of a self serving governing body and its state sycophants .They are number one and football is number two.Just where suburban football players rank,who knows?
Everything is linked to bad governance and a rudderless leadership with no whole of football plan and what appears to be an endless cycle of factional powerplay.
If FIFA doesnt fix the governance issue ,this cycle will repeat.
In the meantime kids will drift to cheaper sports and activities as will football fans tired of an inbred competition.

Yeah look I know you and everybody else on the planet already hate the FFA lots but it's all kind of irrelevant.  Governance, full pyramids and second divisions have nothing to do with funding Age National Teams.  Nothing.  No matter who comes to sit in the chairs in future this problem needs to be dealt with.  There has to be relevance between the source of the funds and where they are spent.  That does seem to be the cry from all over the shop is it not?

The money does have to come from somewhere.  What seems to be slowly happening is the concept of one big pool of money from which everything is taken is disappearing.  I'm happy with that.  I'm asking where, in future, should money to support Age based National Teams be raised?  All the other side fluff is just noise.

i would love to know who these VIP's are?  

are they hiking kids fees to cover peoples free world cup holidays?

Yup it's a nominal amount per person. But why raise it? The funds aren't being used productively and that's why people are annoyed here. If the entire increase was allocated to grass roots, I'm sure most will be fine with it.

There was rumours about this being a rather juicy junket a while back

Then every man and his dog got a trip to Amman with the Matildas

I'm guessing Bonita will have some inside

Major sponsorships always include freebies for sponsors executives.  I'm not sure if it extends to WC's but they definitely get looked after at home internationals.

Can someone do the rough math on how much extra FFA will actually be raising here? 

For the negative reactions that will (and have) come from this, it doesn't seem like it's worth the additional funds, especially when they could just as easily have saved the same amount by cutting out a few consultants.

Putting my tinfoil hat on for a second, does anyone think the reason for this is actually to fund A-League expansion?  I.e. FFA hadn't actually planned or budgeted for two new teams (using the EOI process as a PR exercise), but are only now realising that the backlash from NOT expanding will be bigger than they thought?  I can't believe it's a budget shortfall created by us not making the knockout stage of the World Cup - anyone budgeting on that basis is an idiot.

@ Aussieshorter.

Assume there’s 1.1 million registered players with say about 2/3rds juniors and 1/3 adult and you have:

an extra $1.1m from 600,000+ juniors and an extra $2,9m from 350,000 adults - so in total an additional $4m/year.

Now there’s some debate over registration numbers which may be closer to 650,000 but that still generates over $2.2m extra.

It’s not insignificant to the FFA either way.

From memory the State Fed in QLD takes over $60 from a junior registration, but they are st least running our competitions.

Criminal.

How is the game at today’s era kind of broke with no money left at the top is baffling to me.

Governance...

The biggest portion of the costs by far is the insurance.

You can't dodge that and if you're old enough to pay insurances for your house, car, trailer, boat, medical etc you'll know it goes up every year significantly. 

What the real question is how much the State Federations are charging the various grassroots & elite clubs to even exist.  

Ask your club ... if they are an open and transparent club they shouldn't have a problem telling you this.

To an extent the States take a portion of your registration fees. The club will also be charged an administration fee for competing in their comps (this may differ depending on the level you play ... also may be a local association fee instead of State for competitions, whereas State may only take an admin fee). Our juniors who fall under a local association pulled out of their affiliation with the State Fed because for the costs there was no benefit (they were meant to provide training opportunities etc. but because we are not Perth based they largely ignored us, and our local association picked up the slack ... so pay them instead).

Again if you feel the club isn't getting value for money it is worth letting the State Fed know your issues ... surprising how much communication can change matters (think of Shawshank Redemption and his library ... not that far fetched, and a local club has media releases, members, community, sponsors, children etc. who can support their cause).

I'd suggest some of you get on your local clubs committee and start to make changes. Most always need more help, I continually get pulled back in because no one at the club puts their hands up (this year I am on the senior committee, coaching seniors, coaching juniors, rewriting the constitution for the seniors and juniors, and pretty much helping out when needed). Ideally I'd only want to do one or two of those things, but no one else puts up their hand.

Also don't expect drastic changes, it can be deflating, I've tried for years to get the juniors to agree to me organising a coffee van for match days ... but they just don't want to know about it (costs nothing to the club and van donates 10% of sales, and the club don't sell coffees themselves atm). You'll find many of these clubs are resistant to change (been the same people on the committees for many years) ... this is because a lot of the time no one else puts their hands up (bit of a Catch 22 that they don't see here, because they are resistant to change the only people that put their hands up are those that are happy with the old guard or not rocking the boat). But I've found slowly slowly you can bring change, and it helps to bring others with you into the fold to slowly phase out the "old guard" (or at least those that are past their prime).

I narked up to the hikes (no matter how small or large) because in principle the powers above are not doing their job well !
Just like local Gov/Fed, just pass on the increase's to the sheep !
IF they did do their job well most supporters wouldn't bat an eyelid dipping in their pockets that little bit more for your seeing either good changes implemented/go forward/and or even just to help out a cause.

I'm involved with my local grassroots club.
I've paid fees for yonks without a worry for the passion of playing.
I know our Pres/Treasurer and Committee all of them.
As a player group we support our club at fund raisers and whatever else if reached out.
Our Club put out to all Members any interest in Sponsoring the Club or even your Team some years ago due to difficulties - I have contributed to both for the last 5yrs ongoing.
My sons Rep Club - I also sponser their team And offer more to the club for Fund raising/Club BBQ's/presentations........

I'm not alone thats is for sure and kudos to all those even more devoted followers than me giving their time and very happy doing so for the love of the game in their backyard BUT when I have idiots above who should be doing their best for our Game overall I have a problem regards to raising fees etcetcetc......

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/football/state-federations-fire-up-over-ffa-registration-fee-hike/news-story/54962cc977921146c4435c76b8c904da

Closed HAL is failing with 10 teams
Closed HAL failed with 11
FFA forced to try a 12 team Closed HAL thatll just create 2 more mid table also-rans
and still this weird 16-team panacea gets trotted out. 
Theres a sticky for this nonsense
https://forum.insidesport.com.au/1617388/The-Aleague-Expansion-Thread

A Senate enquiry is warranted. $1.40 increase will send people bankrupt.

No, its not $1.40.

Its $14 or $33. Money the FFA shouldn't need nor ask for. Its become a bureacracy.

This levy used to be $5 and was implemented back when the head admin was almost bankrupt...for only a short term.

For the FFA, its become a source of revenue. Why are players coughing up for both state and federal "taxes"?

Its gouging straight up or their largesses.

Its not often i agree with you, but it is the first rise since 2013 and I cant recall people congratulating FFA the other years fees weren't increased, people need to get a grip!

The whole situation has become so sad I'm crying and there seems to be no light at the end of this tunnel.