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By Michal Roucek
FFA CEO Ben Buckley, some may say, has had a pretty tough two weeks at the helm of the beautiful game in Australia as a five part nightmare has unfolded publicly in the media.
Firstly came the news that Gold Coast United club owner and mining magnate Clive Palmer had re-instituted the farcical crowd cap.
Then 2007-08 A-League Champions Newcastle United Jets FC indicated that the club was facing potentially crippling financial problems that had, until the FFA and PFA stepped into the breach, resulted in players’ wages being withheld for two weeks.
Then came the news that the dual A-League Championship winning Sydney FC, the team from the biggest market in Australian domestic football, had drawn their lowest ever attendance of 7,558 for its match against Adelaide United.
This became a double dose of bad news in the A-League’s largest market when Sydney Rovers admission to A-League in 2011-12 was called into question as a result of a lack of capital in damaging headlines across the national papers.
The fifth and most damaging part of the story has enveloped the broader problems; the comments of former league boss Archie Fraser who made a series of disparaging remarks regarding the FFA and their management style not being appropriate to this stage of the game’s development.
So how did Ben Buckley respond to these challenges? Well, I’ll provide that after I provide you loyal Football Sackers with some details from Mr Buckley’s fairly impressive CV and career thus far and extrapolate what this has meant in the context of the A-League’s development to date.
I will attempt to show that Ben Buckley’s stewardship and its suitability to the organisation is very strong, but that the game currently being a corporate structure needs to mature beyond what I have termed the “Create and Consolidate” stage. The finished product for the Hyundai A-League is one that reflects the embodiment of the passion and unflappable determination of artistic players and tribal fans for the celebration of that single goal, that single moment when a match reaches its zenith and art and finesse of movement brings the release of pressure and ensuing celebration that lasts the week through until the next match.
* Pauses to gather breath and thoughts * Er, anyway on with Mr Buckley’s CV.
Ben Buckley had a successful AFL career at North Melbourne between 1986 and 1993. In 1994 Buckley commenced working at major sports equipment company Nike in 1994 as Director of Marketing in Japan. Buckley later became the Director of Marketing at Nike Australia.
Ben Buckley later moved on to be General Manager of EA Sports Australasia and then returned to where it all started as the AFL’s General Manager for broadcasting, strategy and major projects before becoming COO of the AFL proper.
Following John O’Neill’s decision to return to the office of the CEO of Australian Rugby Union in 2006, Ben Buckley was appointed as CEO of the FFA.
At the time it was a sound choice. The game required a steady hand to steward the development of the game which had been so well carried out since John O’Neill inaugurated the A-League by implementing the findings of the Crawford Report and positioning the game well.
Buckley has to date shown great patience and calmness under pressure providing good governance and stability to the game in Australia which had previously been tainted by corruption and in-fighting.
From embryonic inception Buckley and O’Neill have been exceptional servants in creating and implementing Crawford’s first recommendation; the transition between soccer and football. This was the period of Create and Consolidate.
A new period dawned in Season Five and the case for expansion was founded and executed. But the FFA mistook this period for a Create and Consolidate Mach Two. This overlooked the need to develop existing markets that at this stage were flourishing but this, as the crowds began to taper, did not occur.
Over the past two seasons, the case for change has become abhorrently apparent. Something has to be done at FFA level to arrest the fall. The FFA needs an innovator. The FFA needs a footballing figurehead to drive it forward. To lead it out of the funk and drive it forwards towards its apex.
Now the time has come in Australia’s football development to enter a new period at an administrative level. The new period needs to recognise that football is not merely a corporate structure or administrative foundation.
This recognition is not merely symbolic and will necessarily involve a football person. To date the two CEOs of the FFA have been sports administrators par-excellence but have not had a passionate relationship with the beautiful game.
The passion is something that is inextricably linked to its unique place in the Australian sporting experience and indeed that of the globe. It is something that every football lover has, but has not been shown from the CEO’s office to date. The CEO must be somebody who understands that engaging in a conflict with the AFL will harm a World Cup Bid, but recognises that as a corollary of this it is similarly damaging to a brand in a battle for domestic hearts and minds when football doesn’t defend itself, when football doesn’t show the market its’ true identity.
Buckley seemingly cannot engage in the discourse of footballing passion.
It essentially comes down to this: corporate platitudes and other prosaic statements do nothing to advance the knowledge or understanding of football in the minds of non-football people and simply serves to disenfranchise the football family who deserve a lot more. Football, as it currently stands, is in stasis and the FFA needs to act.
So when faced with the five part fortnight from hell outlined at the top of this article, something that resulted directly with the FFA’s continuance with Create and Consolidate management, Buckley responded in kind with more statements affirming strong core business values of the A-League and a belief in the corporate structure:
“I think it's extremely positive... I don't see issues at a select number of A-League clubs as cataclysmic for football”.
The combination of the “extremely positive” and the “cataclysmic” all in one deposition says it all and says nothing and consequently bares the hallmark of the administrator.
So where do we go from here?
Unseating Buckley at this time is not what FFA Chairman Frank Lowy will have in mind. Despite the success the English World Cup Bid has had in dumping Lord Triesman following his effusive statements regarding the Russian bid and bribes, the Australian bid would not be served well by this.
It is also worth pointing out that Buckley has not made statements and decisions deserving of this sort of treatment. His shortcomings are as a result of not making correct decisions at the correct time. Furthermore losing Buckley at this time would make headlines and destabilise and delegitimise the bid in the eyes of the FIFA Executive.
Lowy knows about numbers, economic health and consumer behaviour more than most. As Australia’s richest man and a world leading businessman he is not blind to the fall of the A-League brand. Lowy may instead choose to reserve a decision on Buckley until December when a decision on the World Cup host nations for 2018-2022 is made.
Win or lose the bid in December, the time will be ripe for renewal. If we win Buckley can be celebrated rightly as a champion of the rise of football and being wished well in his future. Lose the bid and Buckley should still be congratulated for his efforts in an extremely competitive bidding process and wished well in his future.
The game requires an appointee whom is well known who shares the passion of the football family and with the profile to garner enthusiasm in the broader community. The appointee should be one whom is well credentialed in corporate governance too, so that Buckley’s hard work is not undone. But the broader community already knows about football and what they like but are not finding it in a vanilla A-League at present.