If Queensland clubs and players hit with an increase in participation and registration fees for the 2020 season are wondering why – this might be the answer!
First, the price hike
Last year, a Queensland SAP player paid $85 in registration fees. This year, it has increased to $87.50. That might sound modest enough, but the entire increase is going to Football Queensland (FQ).
To break it down, the total registration fee in 2020 of $87.50 is comprised of three components:
FFA receives $14 per player
FQ receives $35.50 for the competition/league fee, and
FQ receives another $38.
It is the latter component – FQ’s ordinary share – that has gone up from 2019; from $35.50, an increase of 7%.
By way of comparison, the Reserve Bank of Australia reported inflation in the September 2019 quarter (the most recent available data) as 1.7% nationally.
For adult players, the price hike is even more. The FQ component of the 2019 fee for professional men and women has increased from $77.25 to $85.50, an increase of 10.7%, making the total fee for professional men and women $243.25. All of these fees exclude the individual club’s share.
With 70,273 registered players paying an average increase of $3.50 (averaged across all categories of players), that’s roughly an additional $250,000 in revenue for FQ.
In their 2018 financial statements, FQ reported revenue of $8.2 million, 50% of which came from participation and registration fees. They also hold cash reserves of $1.9 million.
The increase in playing costs was advised to clubs soon after the release of FQ’s 2020-2022 Strategic Plan which also included targets of:
increasing total player numbers to 90,000
increasing female player numbers to 22,500
increasing registered coach numbers to 8,820, and
increasing referee numbers to 2,200.
Why the price hike is needed …?
Around the same time, the FQ Board appointed a new CEO, Robert Cavallucci – not that Cavallucci was entirely new to any of them, as he had been a FQ Board Director from May last year.
Cavallucci – a one-term Assistant Minister in the Newman state government – was extremely active in local Brisbane football from November 2016. Not only was he Chairman of the Brisbane City A-League expansion bid which withdrew its candidacy at an early stage, but he was also a director of Jade North’s Kickin with a Cuz, Football Brisbane, Brisbane City FC, an Advisory Board member of Brisbane Roar – and eventually, from May 2019, a Director of FQ.
Four months after joining the FQ Board, it was Cavallucci who, along with FQ Chairman Ben Richardson, informed the former CEO, Richard Griffiths, that his services were no longer required. Two months after that, Cavallucci was CEO.
Richardson, a business owner with his own recruitment consulting company, then picked-up a two-month consulting gig to head the search for Griffiths' replacement.
In a statement to the media on 18 November last year announcing Cavallucci’s appointment, Richardson said that the FQ Board had conducted “a rigorous and competitive recruitment process” – before turning to one of their own to fill the top job.
Richardson received $44,000 for two months consulting work (in September/October) from FQ. The invoice was submitted and paid four days before Cavallucci’s appointment was announced.
Cavallucci is on a salary package a little shy of $320,000 – a figure that is 89% (or $150,000) more than Griffiths was thought to be receiving. (Cavallucci is also on the Board of Phosphate International which has mining interests in Morocco and Mt Isa, and family property development company, Infinitec).
Amongst FQ’s values in their Strategic Plan are transparency, accountability, and “no sweeping under the carpet”. This is referred to “the new normal for the way we work”.
No doubt Richardson, the rest of his Board and Cavallucci will have no difficulty, therefore, in justifying Cavallucci’s transition from Board member to CEO, the almost-doubling of the CEO salary, and Richardson’s consulting fee of $44,000, to their members.
FQ were approached for a response on aspects of this article but they were not able to provide a response in time for publication.