OPINION: The Clive Palmer effect

By Andy Jackson | 5 March 2012
 

As the wider football community draws its breath after another hectic and largely damaging week for the sport in Australia, we’re left to survey a scene resembling the aftermath of the bull’s visit to the china shop. The battle of the billionaires, Frank Lowy and Clive Palmer, for the hearts and minds of the soccerati has seen Palmer land some body blows to the FFA but ultimately has had a galvanising effect on most people connected with the game and not on the Palmer payroll, although clear issues remain for the game in this country.

Make no mistake, Clive Palmer raised some genuine and serious concerns that the FFA would be foolish to ignore now that nearly all the other clubs (in public at least), FIFA, AFC and the overwhelming majority of supporters have sided with FFA. The FFA should not see this as unquestioning support of their actions, more opposition to someone who tried to bully and belittle the sport these people have loved all their lives. Clive’s mistake in this was presenting just two choices - “you’re either with me or with the FFA” - when there is acres of space in the area between the two.

Clive and the FFA share one key characteristic though – a blatant refusal to accept responsibility for their failures. Let’s not forget it was the FFA who awarded Palmer the license after all. In amongst all the mud he hurled at FFA, Palmer still alluded towards the “success” of his team on the Gold Coast quoting conversion ratios compared to the population. The Gold Coast and his tenure as an owner has been a disaster for the local fans of the team and the wider fans of the sport. He is not solely to blame for that and the FFA need to do some serious navel-gazing as to the level of due diligence done of prospective new owners and also the support they give new owners in establishing a club. The fact that someone can afford to bankroll an A-League team shouldn’t mean they are necessarily given a license and then just left to get on with it – there’s simply too much at stake. Despite what Ben Buckley will say publicly, the FFA’s expansion drive has also been a disaster with two damaging failures in Queensland and the aborted effort to launch a team in football’s heartland – Western Sydney. The FFA have not only lost football teams in those regions, but worse have been considered jointly culpable for all those failures by most within the game.

Just after Gold Coast United were formed, Channel 9’s “60 Minutes” did a big feature piece on Clive Palmer for which I was also interviewed, although none of the footage was aired and what viewers saw was a completely positive view of things which was a shame as I had some words of warning for the FFA and fans about having someone like this running your football club. European football is littered with hugely wealthy owners - some good, some bad - but one thing is common and that is no one is left in any doubt that it’s their money, their club and their way or the highway with coaches, players and fans mere pawns in their game. Billionaires are used to getting their own way and tend not to react well when they don’t. Ultimately Palmer’s stoush with the FFA was not about football, the A-League was merely the arena for this giant ego battle to take place.

His rather comical launch of Football Australia was, according to the press release and the man himself on Twitter moments before the press conference - a new body designed to replace the FFA and yet was presented at the press conference as a football “think tank” to keep the FFA honest. No one, even Clive it appeared, knew which one it was and even those campaigning for a top to bottom overhaul of football in this country would surely not look towards Clive Palmer to lead it. I still find it astonishing that Clive Palmer was able to register Football Australia as a business name hours in the days before launching when the FFA’s own digital platform runs on www.footballaustralia.com.au and every FFA employees email address ends with @footballaustralia.com.au

If the legacy of this tumultuous period is an FFA which is more consultative and considerate of the owners who bankroll a game that cannot yet survive without them, plus a stricter vetting policy of prospective owners and the key staff and strategies they intend to employ, then we should all owe Clive Palmer a debt of thanks as this will signal progress for football in this country.

It’s unlikely that this will hurt the FFA in the short-term from a sponsor perspective, however, a league with just nine teams will not help their bargaining power for an improved TV deal which has inevitably given rise to chatter about a fast-tracked team from Western Sydney into next year’s competition. The next TV deal is critical to the game to decrease its reliance on benevolent owners happy to endure years of heavy losses. TV money is critical now to the solvency of all sports and the FFA need to get the best deal they can for the game to provide a platform for clubs to be self-funding. However Western Sydney is a region in Australia that the FFA simply cannot afford to get wrong after one false start already. Rushing a team in with six months to build a club ready to take the field in October would be fraught with danger.

As for us at FourFourTwo – we are a magazine for Australian football fans rather than an Australian football magazine and the distinction is important as our standing and future here has never been indelibly tied to the fortunes of the A-League although clearly it helps massively when there is a healthy domestic competition for us to support through our local editions.

It’s been said that the best way for a billionaire to become a millionaire is to buy a football club, so maybe Clive will eventually consider his exclusion a blessing in disguise.

I see David Gallop has opened his arms to him over at the NRL. At least he likes that sport. Or so he claims. At the end of the day who really knows? And most football fans will no longer care.

Andy Jackson
Publishing Director
FourFourTwo and The Football Republic

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