Time for Australian football to reassess its direction

Avatar

On Tuesday morning, the A-League followed in the footsteps of the NRL and AFL and postponed its season.

There were last ditch attempts to bring all teams into New South Wales and play the remaining matches of the season there, but ultimately those plans were impossible to pull off due to the impact of the COVID-19 situation.

The FFA will further assess their decision on April 22, in the hope of completing the season later in the year.

The J-League is one of the first football competitions to announce they will aim to restart their competition on May 9. Fans will be allowed inside the stadium; however, every second seat is to be left empty.

While the health of the community is the biggest priority, like other sporting organisations and businesses as a whole, Australian football will face financial problems and uncertainties.

According to the Australian, if the season was entirely cancelled it would allow Fox Sports to send the FFA a breach letter which gives them 10 days’ notice of the cancellation of their deal, because there was “no seamless continuity of services”.

Under the deal, the FFA must provide Fox Sports with a 27-round season as well as a finals series.

If the season is abandoned, these provisions allow Fox Sports to terminate the current $57 million dollar a year contract or break the deal and re-negotiate a much lower price for the rights.

These will be options that Foxtel will continue to explore as they try to address a loss of sports subscribers due to the suspension of the NRL, AFL and A-League.

Speaking to SBS TWG, head of consultancy at Global Media and Sports, Colin Smith, explained:

“The reality is that this is as tough for Fox Sports as well since they’re about to lose most of their Kayo subscribers because there’s literally no content, both locally and internationally.

“They’ll be looking to make savings and won’t be paying rights fees to any sport (NRL and AFL included) while there’s no content.”

Smith also predicted the end could be near for the A-League on Fox Sports.

“In terms of the A-League, I would suggest firstly they won’t get any new payments and secondly, I understand, Fox Sports have the right to withdraw altogether (from the final three years of the six-year $346 million deal).

“They might not embark on that course right now – but I think they’ll be keeping their options open to say ‘thank you, we won’t continue to broadcast … feel free to go with anybody you want to’.

“I would imagine they have Force Majeure clauses and everybody will be going back to read the fine print.”

Smith claims the A-League clubs would have to expect a lower broadcast fee in the future, whether they are with Fox or a service like Optus Sport.

“It’s clear Fox Sports is in cost-cutting mode – and if they were to walk away from football, in the current circumstances you would fully understand it,” he added.

“I think the A-League will need to plan not only for a life without Fox Sports but for a significantly lower rights fee, whomever they deal with (in the future).”

So, how will the possible loss of the Fox Sports deal affect the A-League?

In its current setup, the A-League would be unviable without the Fox contract.

A smaller rights fee (from wherever it comes from) would mean the current A-League model needs significant re-modelling as it can’t be so reliant on a single revenue source from a broadcaster.

The signs are definitely there, that change is needed.

Australian football needs to adapt to a true global standard and think long term, rather than focusing on short term reactionary fixes.

FFA CEO James Johnson knows this. His stand out line in his opening press conference referred to the need to act local and think global.

Plan for a sustainable whole of football pyramid, embrace those participants, clubs, volunteers who know how to operate within their own means.

Give them the opportunity to play at the highest level in Australia.

The possible collapse of the current A-League model will hurt Australian football right now, but an overdue re-build will be successful if the direction is there.

Of course, it will be difficult, it’s easier said than done.

Money will always be a question mark, but the game will always be there.

Avatar
Philip Panas is a sports journalist with Soccerscene. He reports widely on football policy and industry matters, drawing on his knowledge and passion of the game.

A-Leagues Independent Chairman Stephen Conroy on how the APL will evolve post-World Cup

Avatar
Stephen Conroy - A-Leagues Chairman
Image via KEEPUP

For Stephen Conroy and the Australian Professional Leagues (APL), it has been a time of significant change.

In his new role as Independent Chair, Conroy has recently seen the departure of former Chief Executive Officer Danny Townsend, leaving A-Leagues Commissioner Nick Garcia and KEEPUP Managing Director James Rushton to lead the APL.

Ahead of launching the 2023/24 A-Leagues season, it has proved to be a very busy period for the APL in amongst the CEO change – with the reversal of the Grand Final decision, announcing the brand-new U-Nite Round to take place in Sydney, confirming the sale of Perth Glory and identifying the preferred bidder for the Auckland licence.

After bidding farewell to the APL’s inaugural CEO, the focus has shifted to restoring faith in the A-Leagues fanbase – as the men’s and women’s World Cups need to be the kick-starter for football in Australia.

Speaking at Melbourne Victory’s Chairman function at AAMI Park before the Round 2 match against Newcastle Jets, Conroy reflected on a whirlwind period for the APL and football as a whole.

“It’s an exciting time coming off the back of the exceptional performance of the Matildas,” Conroy said.

“The standalone women’s round for the Liberty A-League was hugely positive with the record crowd and atmosphere we saw at the Sydney Derby.

“You’re seeing the enthusiasm with 1.6 million Australians and two million New Zealanders watching the two respective nations play.

“In funny because people almost forget the Socceroos and how well they did at Qatar – we talk about 2006 and the Golden Generation, but genuinely the performance in this tournament was absolutely stunning.”

The record attendances and memberships have been a huge plus for Conroy and the APL, particularly for women’s teams with numbers reaching unprecedented levels.

“As an example we’ve already seen Melbourne Victory go past 20,000 for memberships, so that’s a huge tick,” he said.

“With record turnouts and memberships, we are getting the sense that it is really happening now for people around the country in football.

“There’s so much in front of us at the moment.”

An integral part of the APL has been KEEPUP, which has recently undergone a revamp to split A-Leagues content into its own site.

Conroy outlined the digital strategies behind KEEPUP which has been a major inclusion since the APL’s inception.

“KEEPUP was launched when we unbundled from Football Australia – recently people might have been wondering why the app has morphed back into A-Leagues,” he said.

“In the rush to unbundle, we didn’t own the rights to call it the A-League app, but now we’ve got that sorted.

“What we will now start to see is a more rich product and this turns eyeballs into bums on seats or viewing on TV.

“KEEPUP’s mission is to drive people to watch the game at the ground, through free to air or streaming.”

Conroy also linked back to the numbers we saw from the Women’s World Cup, and how that will be a motivator for future growth of the A-Leagues.

“For all of us that went to any of the World Cup matches, part of it was needing to download the FIFA app,” he said.

“As we saw earlier, there’s 1.6 million Australians who want to watch a game of football – so we’ll be sitting down with Football Australia to work out how to succeed together.

“What we want to see is which team people want to support, get them to more games in-person and turn more casual fans into fully-fledged members.”

KordaMentha Partner Scott Langdon on why the Newcastle Jets need long-term investment

Avatar
McDonald Jones Stadium - Newcastle Jets
Image credit: Grant Sproule

The sale of Newcastle Jets has been announced by the club’s Executive Chairman Shane Mattiske, where they have appointed professional services firm KordaMentha to oversee the formal process.

A consortium of parties formed in 2021 that was linked to other A-League clubs was initially started as a provisional measure to maintain the Club, to put out a team that could compete and strong growth during a challenging period for the Jets in the middle of the Covid crisis back in January 2021.

KordaMentha is an independent and reliable firm providing their knowledge on cybersecurity, forensic, financial crime, performance improvement, real estate and restructuring services across the Asia-Pacific region.

Fast forward to now, the owners of today have been responsible for the successes of the increasing membership signups, captivating more sponsors and developing a strong core of talent through the Youth Academy.`

KordaMentha Partner Scott Langdon spoke to Soccerscene – providing an insight of his involvement in the sale process, what he hopes to achieve for the club and the A-Leagues as well.

“The shareholders reached out to us a few weeks ago in relation into commencing a sale of the club – they considered at the time to put Newcastle Jets on the market and find a long-term owner, for someone that won’t be there for a short period of time,” he said.

“The current shareholders didn’t have the intention of being there long-term, so we need to be there for Newcastle to get them through a challenging period.

“Shane has done a great job in getting the club as a business back on its feet – it’s now in a position where it’s stabilised and it’s time for a long-term owner in a natural progression stage for the club.”

Langdon explained what he sees in Newcastle and why should someone should get behind them, tapping into the unique area they represent.

“In the last couple of weeks that l have been involved, it has been overwhelming, for the local community and the region that Newcastle has and the support for them,” he said.

“l think that whilst we are looking globally to find an owner and we are having conversations with people throughout the world, there is a great ability to connect within the Newcastle region which is a very passionate soccer region.”

“The strong local links to the community is another key reason why we’re involved, and it’s an exciting opportunity to be part of the process.”

As recently seen with Perth Glory and their new Australian consortium owners Primeland Group signing the contract, Langdon shared whether KordaMentha is looking for someone within Australia or abroad.

“We are definitely looking on a global stage for a long-term owner – we have attracted interest within our first 48 hours from around the globe,” he said.

“We are all focused on completing it by Christmas which we think is entirely achievable.”

Newcastle Jets now has highly competitive men’s and women’s A-League teams, underpinned by a strong academy containing 13 boys’ and girls’ teams delivering exciting talent into these squads.

It is now a key time for the club to follow suit with what has gone ahead at Perth Glory, to lock in a sustainable future.

Most Popular Topics

Editor Picks

Send this to a friend