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Not since that night in 1912 has something promised so much hope, looked so water-tight and yet become such a spectacular failure, leaving so many demanding an explanation as to how it could have happened.
Season seven of the Hyundai A-League promised so much for Football Federation Australia.
The decision to extend the off-season to include the finals series’ of the rival ‘football’ codes was the right one, and created a level of enthusiasm and expectation for the start of the new season which has probably not been met since season one.
Season six’s thrilling Grand Final between Australian football’s new darlings, Brisbane Roar and the underdog Central Coast Mariners will be remembered as one of the greatest contests in Australian sporting history.
Both of those sides were led by young Australian coaches, both of those sides were based around a core of young Australian players.
FFA really had a product to crow about now, and to top it all off, two of Australia’s greatest ever players, Harry Kewell and Brett Emerton, decided the time was right to come home and settled in Melbourne and Sydney respectively.
In terms of preparation, all the pins were set up, FFA just had to knock ‘em down.
Unfortunately it didn’t quite go to plan. Whilst the standard of football on the park was up, the standard of refereeing was incredibly poor.
The saga on the Gold Coast with Clive Palmer and all those empty seats became a stick with which fans of rival codes could use beat football fans with. Gold Coast United was like an old family dog that kept peeing on the rug and shedding hair. Even though it was part of the family, it was suffering, and hurting us all, and it ultimately came as a relief when the trip to the vet was made and the needle administered.
What the family didn’t need, however, was to lose another member just weeks later.
It is an understatement to say that when news first broke of Nathan Tinkler and his Hunter Sports Group, who ran the Newcastle Jets, handing back their A-League license to FFA, it came as a shock to the football community. Since Tinkler had taken over, ticket prices were dropped drastically, attendances and memberships had increased drastically. The team ditched their flashy gold kits and went back to playing in the sporting colours synonymous with the region, red and blue. Football in the Hunter had their team back and everyone was happy. It made no sense.
Then the explanation came, Hunter Sports Group had been fleeced, sold an A-League licence at ten times the price that same license was sold to Clive Palmer for his Gold Coast franchise. All of a sudden it wasn’t such a shock any more.
FFA had dropped the ball again. Their dodgy dealings had let the people of the Hunter and fans of the game across the country down again.
In typical FFA fashion, for some odd reason their first response to all the commotion was to issue a statement saying that they would soon be issuing a statement. What were they waiting for?
It was the equivalent of a teenager hearing his parents coming up the stairs as he attempts to hide his stash under the mattress, calling out in desperation ‘Just a minute! Give me a minute! Don’t come in yet!’
FFA then had the hide, after pulling the rug from under both the North Queensland Fury a year earlier, and then Gold Coast, to insist that HSG had no right to just walk away from their agreement with FFA.
In the mean time, super villain Clive Palmer had set up Football Australia, an organisation whose mission was “to act as a think tank and idea hub to improve the governance of the game in Australia.”
Clive even tried to sponsor Adelaide United for their Asian Champions League campaign by making Football Australia the Reds’ shirt sponsor in a deal worth $300,000 to the South Australian club.
However the Asian Football Confederation forced Adelaide to remove the logo, after FFA came crying to them, citing that it was in breach of FIFA’s stance that there is to be no political involvement or sponsorship in football.
But what is political about Football Australia? It’s a think tank. Not a government or political party. It’s got nothing to do with politics.
FFA had no right to run to the AFC for help, and the AFC had no right to strip Adelaide United of their major sponsor. They’re the ones who have lost out, they’re three hundred grand in the hole thanks to FFA’s vanity.
That’s a lot of money for an A-League club, FFA should know, they’re propping up another one in Western Sydney as of next season. Their panic buy to fill Gold Coast’s gap in the fixture list and ensure they have a ten team competition to sell for television rights next year.
Proclaiming that Western Sydney is the ‘heartland of our game’ during the unveiling of the new franchise, the obvious question then follows:
If that’s the ‘heartland’, why weren’t they given a team from day one?
Western Sydney is a crucial part of football in this country, but to FFA they’re not the ‘heartland’, they’re the back-up plan.
The captain of the Titanic the night it sank was E.J. Smith, who, as all respectable seamen do, held himself accountable and went down with his ship. The chairman of the White Star Line, Bruce Ismay, infamously escaped the sinking ship in one of the few lifeboats available in an act of extreme cowardice and survived.
Despite the demise of North Queensland Fury the season before, the Hyundai A-League started season seven with hope, dignity and still 10 teams.
It finished it with shame, a laughing stock yet again, and with only 8 teams.
And yet Football Federation Australia CEO Ben Buckley still remains. Untouched. Safe in his lifeboat, wearing his life vest. One of Australia’s highest paid sporting administrators.
If season seven of the Hyundai A-League is representative of the demise of the Titanic, then Ben Buckley is Bruce Ismay.
Football Federation Australia’s grade for season seven of the Hyundai A-League: FAILAnd if your grades don’t improve fast, you’re staring at expulsion, young man.