FFA's CEO David Gallop will depart at the end of this year after seven years in the role.
The departure is not unexpected. Putting aside the matters about which football fans might feel aggrieved in respect of Gallop, it is the separation of the A-League from the national governing body which is the basis for his departure.
Quite simply, Football Federation Australia (FFA) does not need a CEO on a reported salary of more than $1.2 million a year to manage an organisation without the relentless day-to-day exigencies, drama and decision-making required to run a national league competition, and with a turnover of what will be around $50 million. The fact is the A-League should have been separated from FFA a long time ago. However, the decision to keep them coupled – acceptable at the outset – has meant that the FFA CEO role has always had to have an eye to the immediacy of the A-League at the expense of the longer-term development issues of building the sport.
Like any person who has been in a job for seven years, especially at CEO level, David Gallop has had his successes and failures in the role. Here are our top five of each.
The successes
1. 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019 World Cup qualification
One of the key performance measures of the CEO – generally with a bonus hanging on the end of it too – is World Cup qualification for the two senior national teams. The reason for this is because the CEO is expected to ensure that the Matildas and the Socceroos have the necessary resources and the right environment for World Cup qualification because that fact alone brings in additional funding to FFA, from FIFA as well as sponsors. Gallop has been at the helm for four World Cup qualifying campaigns.
2. 2016 broadcast deal
The $346 million, six-year broadcast deal announced in December 2016 was heralded by then FFA Chairman, Steven Lowy, as “groundbreaking” delivering approximately $57 million a year to FFA and the A-League. The A-League clubs disagreed – and it was more grist to the mill for the governance challenges which were then underway. Whether it's actually delivered growth and new investment as Lowy promised is an issue for further debate (see also below), but in terms of a set of numbers alone, a 40% increase from the previous deal is a good outcome.
3. Participatiion
For decades, the growth in participation in football has often been seen to be 'despite' the governing body rather than because of it. However, this would be not giving credit where it's due in terms of the increase in the years from 2012 to 2018 because that cannot happen without some strategic input from the top and the game's stakeholders working, if not harmoniously together, at least in roughly the same direction. In the period from 2012 to 2018, total participation increased from 886,000 to 1.7 million (91%). Admittedly, a lot of that is due to the inclusion of registered futsal players in the numbers but, after years of attempts to bring futsal into the tent, that was actually acheived during Gallop's time and it puts the sport in an even stronger position.
4. The rise of the A-League
Gallop's time in charge saw the best of the A-League so far with the 'perfect storm' of Western Sydney Wanderers' spectacular entry into the competition and the star power afforded to the A-League by the arrival of Alessandro del Piero for two seasons. While neither of those were Gallop's doing, Gallop was at the helm of FFA during the A-League's best times with total attendance peaking at almost 1.9 million in 2013-14.
5. 2015 Asian Cup
While the Asian Cup Organising Committee was a separate entity (as required) with its own Board and CEO, Gallop nonetheless had three levels of responsibility with it. First, as CEO of the host nation federation, he had a role in ensuring it was progressing satisfactorily. Second, he would have had to do everything possible to ensure that the Socceroos won on home soil. Third, after the experience of the 2000 Olympics when there was significant facilities redevelopment that mostly benefited non-Olympic sports, he was required to ensure there was a legacy for football arising from the Asian Cup hosting experience, beyond the 'feel good' factor for a few weeks. This was achieved through highly visible measures – eg. out with the Bunnings chairs – as well as the availablity of some modest facilities upgrades elsewhere and the establishment of government-sponsored Asian Cup legacy development grants.
The failures
1. NCIP
Whoever came up with the former National Club Identity Policy (NCIP) in 2014, that was overturned at the beginning of this week, did not understand football's unique culture or contribution to nation building, diversity and inclusion – or why the cutural background and heritage of football clubs were so important to many communities. Further, as with any policy that aims to 'regulate' a relative handful of clubs or individuals whose behavioiur may have required change, it actually placed a heavy hand on the heart of all of football which compromised the game's natural competitive edge with other sports.
Football doesn't need to 'fabricate' diversity like some other sports because that is our game's natural state.
As Stuart Thomas wrote here yesterday, this single measure kept many of football's natural supporters feeling excluded from the game when they should have been embraced and celebrated.
2. Fan shaming and banning
Remember November 2015? The late journalist Rebecca Wilson named and shamed 198 football fans in News Corp Sunday papers who were allegedly on a banned list. Many at the time believe it was at the behest of Gallop and his senior staff although that has not been confirmed – nor, for that matter, denied.
The problem was that some of the people named had protested their innocence on a range of grounds – including mistaken identity – but there was no appeal process. It was also an egregious breach of the Privacy Act (for which FFA was responsible in the first instance as they held the data). While the subsequent reported death threats to Wilson were abhorrent, Gallop compounded the ire of fans by commenting on that aspect of the matter only, and ignoring the leak of confidential data and the substantive issue of a lack of due process and natural justice. As I wrote after the initial report by Wilson:
“Putting aside the World Cup bid, most of the issues fans have had with FFA over the past eleven years have been associated with the regulatory framework. Not necessarily the decision itself but how the regulatory framework is applied, the lack of transparency around the ‘rules’, and the inconsistency of its application.”
3. Culture of FFA
Both the NCIP and the issue around the behaviour of the vast majority of fans were emblematic of a cultural misunderstanding between the then FFA Board and FFA management and many long-term supporters of the game.
In November 2015, in the wake of the Wilson naming and shaming, fans were baying for the blood of the then head of A-League Damien de Bohun. We pointed out that de Bohun would not be acting wthout authority. Earlier this year, when former Matildas coach Alen Stajcic was sacked, Gallop referred to one of the reasons for the sacking as being the 'culture' of the Matildas. We pointed out that, regardless of where one might stand on the need for a “cultural reset” within the Matildas (as Board member Joseph Carrozzi wrote in a tweet), it was unfair for one person – Stajcic – to take the fall.
Add to this the reported high salaries of Gallop and his senior management team (a total of $4.4 million in FY2018), and the continuing 'great big tax' on players (around 7% of total revenue of $133 million in 2018), and the posse of staff (and others) known to attend World Cup and Asian Cup tournaments – all spending football's money – the perception is that the 'culture' of FFA is out-of-touch, ignorant and greedy.
As anyone who has read a management textbook knows, culture starts at the top – and that means the CEO. The culture within FFA has been toxic for years, even before Gallop's arrival, but he did nothing obvious to address it.
4. The fall of the A-League
As we mentioned earlier, Gallop's time saw the A-League peak at almost 1.9 million (average 13.5k) in attendance in 2013-14. Ever since then, it's fallen. Just by a little at first, but last season saw the A-League have its worst total attendance since 2010-11 with 1.5 million (average 10.8k).
TV 'eyeballs' as counted by FOX Sports were also reportedly dreadful, and contributed to double digit redundancies in the football department at FOX Sports since the end of the season, including its Executive Producer Murray Shaw. The decline in the A-League attendance and viewership is one of the reasons why the A-League clubs were so anxious to have self-determination in relation to the competition.
5. Changing coaches
Let's face it, FFA has form in changing national team coaches not long before a World Cup. Some times it was justified and worked; other times it didn't. The two most spectacular failures have been the two most recent: Bert van Marwijk for Ange Postecoglou and Ante Milicic for Alen Stajcic. This is nothing against either van Marwijk or Milicic – they were brought in to do a job in extreme circumstances. But in both instances, the 'extreme circumstances' were of FFA's making.
As Mike Tuckerman wrote in November 2017, we needed and deserved answers about Postecoglou's departure. While it was presented as Postecoglou thinking it was the right time to leave because of the pressure he had endured that year, everyone who knows him well does not buy this. It is out of character and, while the pressure of being a national coach is intense and not pleasant, Postecoglou wasn't one to be fazed by it.
And then there's Stajcic. What more can possibly be said and written about it? Not just the sacking but the appalling way in which it was handled both by the FFA Board (and particularly its deputy Chairman) and FFA management headed by, and on the advice of, Gallop. The result? A grovelling and ignominious apology from FFA and Reid in order to avoid legal action from Stajcic which, on the balance of probabilities, FFA would have lost – badly; more money spent on lawyers to settle terms with Stajcic; and a financial settlement for Stajcic above and beyond what was owed to him if they had merely announced his departure in an orderly fashion similar to Gallop's own departure.
What's next?
The FFA Board will embark upon a search for a new CEO for an organisation that is a lot different from the one over which Gallop has presided – although they really should not look too far and they should save football's money by not spending tens of thousands of dollars on an executive search.
As noted above, with the separation of the A-League, there is an expectation that FFA will be left with total revenue of around $50 million and will be focussed on the necessary factors to help build and position the sport for the long-term. That means a different focus and skillset to what Gallop, as well as his predecessors Ben Buckley and John O'Neill, brought to the role.
It is time to appoint a 'football person' to the job. What that means is someone who understands and knows the game; who understands and knows the real culture of the sport; someone who will champion the sport and its supporters and stakeholders in deed and in word; who can lead the sport in ensuring its culture and diversity are embedded into every program, policy and decision made by FFA; and someone who is invested in its long term future.
Our understanding is that the FFA Board has already started its shortlist of candiates with three names already on it being the PFA's John Didulica, Football Victoria's Peter Filopoulos and Sydney FC's Danny Townsend.