FIFA agree to a working party to decide new FFA Congress with the proviso that they and AFC are "fully involved"
FIFA's Member Associations (MA) Committee was relatively benign with their determination on Australia's ongoing 'Congress Wars' but if you were at FFA Headquarters, you wouldn't be popping the champagne corks.
The Deputy Secretary-General of Football, playing great Zvonimir Boban (main picture), came back with advice that the MA Committee agreed, in effect, on a normalisation committee when you're not having a normalisation committee.
The letter from Boban to FFA Chairman, Steven Lowy, was helpfully shared on social media by Donald Sutherland. You can read it here.
This came about for two reasons.
First, at least two state federations - notably NSW and Victoria - were of the view that concensus could still be reached through a mediated settlement.
Second, Lowy wrote to FIFA on 1 December putting forward the prospect of concensus - despite more than two years of not doing so - as tantalisingly close.
What did the MA Committee do?
They said yes to the working group - named as the Congress Review Working Group - but with one rather important proviso. FIFA and AFC are “fully involved” - that is, in charge, not the FFA Board.
To this end, FIFA and AFC representatives will return to Australia in January to ensure that it actually happens. Their objectives are twofold:
To meet with the stakeholders of the member federations, the A-League clubs and the PFA - as well as other relevant parties with the AAFC specifically named.
And here's the bottom-line, via objective number two:
“Based on the feedback received, to define the terms of reference of the Congress review working group, which include its objective, composition, mandate and timeline.”
Once FIFA and AFC make their determination in January “based on the feedback received”, the FFA Congress will be on an inexorable pathway of change.