Government Money Makes The World Game Go Round

There are no doubt a large section of the community who growing up were told by their parents, ‘I want never gets.”

Every child in every generation growing up tells their parents they want something. Yet the reality is that for a number of reasons the parent cannot give the child what they want. The main reason being it is not healthy, just because a child says they want something that they should have it. How will they learn values such as how to manage finances, that often you do not receive until you have done the hard work.

This past week Socceroos coach Graham Arnold took another swing at the government decision makers claiming a neglect for football in Australia. His comments are understandable as it must be frustrating for him and his players, and embarrassing for the sport that the national football team spent the lead-in to last Thursday night’s World Cup qualifier against Lebanon training on a field with rugby league posts.

However, is this the Government’s fault? Surely the blame should more appropriately be laid at the feet of those running football in Australia?

Football in Australia in the last twenty years would have received more Federal and State Government funding than any other sport in Australia when one takes into account the failed Men’s World Cup hosting bid, the Asia Cup bid and hosting, and the FIFA Women’s World Cup. There was also the Government subsidy to help balance the books of the Football Federation of Australia and numerous other funding arrangements. So much money has been handed over to the sport that as tax payers the country should be asking when is football going to become self-sufficient?

One of the big problems facing football, and many other sports is much of the government funding never reaches those it is intended for.

It would appear that the current models for Governing sport in Australia are broken and are indeed a money pit. Can football really afford to have so many administrative arms and staff across the nation? What the structure shows conclusively is that football is trying to run the game from the top down rather than from the bottom up. History will show that if you adopt such a model it will fail, for you are trying to build something on insecure foundations.

Surely we should be more concerned about offering more facilities where juniors male and female can play than a home for the Socceroos? This would be putting the game’s future on firmer foundations.

To have the national team training on a rugby league ground is an absolute disgrace. It should never happen. So why were none of the other facilities dedicated to football available? Surely an NPL club would have loved to have the National team training at their facility?

Would Arnold have accepted that? Would the pitch have been of a standard these players believe they need or deserve? Would they have been able to offer all the support that surrounds an elite team today?

While a dedicated facility for the national team makes a great deal of sense the venue has to be more than just that. It has to be utilised for other things such as coaching courses, and the like. Maybe a national football museum could also be located there. Just as clubs around the world are finding, you have to use these facilities more than just on a match day or for training, or the return on investment is going to be extremely low, and they become unviable.

We have seen the State Football Centre created in Western Australia which houses Football West, in New South Wales Valentine Sports Park houses Football New South Wales. Surely these or similar in each state are the facilities that should be used for the national team. Is it really viable to build a dedicated facility for a team that does not play that many games at home each year? In 2023 out of the eight matches the Socceroos played only three were in Australia; two in Melbourne and one in Sydney. Does that really warrant such an investment?

If there is a requirement surely upgrading an existing area for the national team to use when they come to play is going to be more viable than building a brand new facility just for the Socceroos?

As many supporters of other sports are understandably asking why didn’t Arnold’s squad use the new facility that was opened in July last year at La Trobe University, in Melbourne? At the time football boasted how this facility was “the most significant infrastructure accomplishment in the history of Australian football.”

This project alone cost over $158m. Football Australia stated that “the project was funded as part of a $101 million investment by the Andrews’ Labor Government into the La Trobe University Sports Park, with the $42.29 million for The Home of The Matildas – the biggest investment ever made by any level of government for a football-specific project in Australia – made in addition to the Federal Government’s contribution of $15 million.”

With that kind of investment surely this is not a facility that is to be used exclusively by the Matildas? Like parents with children of two genders surely Football Australia has to encourage both to play together, to share. If this is exclusively for the Matildas it makes absolutely no sense.

The facility in Melbourne was designed by female architects and we were told will “deliver an experience unparalleled in Australian football and has been designed with the aspiration of becoming the finest female-focused facility in Asia, a living testament to Football Victoria’s goal of achieving gender equity in football by 2027.”

So it would appear that this facility is “female focussed” and that is why the Socceroos could not use it. The interesting thing is Football Victoria, in spite of that is promoting it as ‘achieving gender equity.’

Equity is usually defined as recognizing that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. So are there facilties of an equal standard in Victoria available for the men? Surely they should be aiming for equality?

Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. This would probably be more beneficial for all concerned and certainly would reduce costs.(Equality or Equity which is Really Going to Carry Sport Forward?)

The argument that will be made is that the Socceroos were playing their game against Lebanon in Sydney. If there were no adequate facilities for training in Sydney why would you play the match there? Probably because the New South Wales Government chipped in some money to cover the cost of hosting the event. This is how it seems to work these days, matches are taken where the various sports can secure money to offset the cost of playing the games. This is not just in football but in most sports.

So if you are going to do that, where is the right place to house the Socceroos? Where is home? Australia is not like so many other footballing nations where it is easy to drive between venues. Here you have to fly, so the issue of having a home or a base for the national team is far from simple.

This conundrum once again begs the question how can you be a National Association in charge of our national teams and not have the required funds to host games? Again how many sports in Australia find themselves in this situation, and how has it reached this stage? Does this mean that if the Government does one day turn around and say you need to stand on your own two feet, there will no longer be any games played?

Of course years ago camps were held in Canberra at the Australian Institute of Sport. One of the reasons for this was once again football did not have any money, and by being at the AIS they had access to the latest up to date facilities and expertise in terms of diet, recovery, psychology and the like. Of course when Football Australia shut down the “finishing school” for its young players at the the AIS it probably lost all access to these services.

Football Australia interestingly released the same week as Arnold aired his comments, the report into the Legacy from the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Granted that these are not training facilities, but the various Governments invested $25 million into the Melbourne rectangular stadium, $35million into the Perth rectangular stadium and $11 Million into the Brisbane Stadium. That is a further $71 million. As stated Rugby Union and Rugby League will benefit from these stadium upgrades, but as the report says the Government invested $398,820,066, of which other sports will benefit by 33% which equates to $129 million, while football benefitted by 67% and $296 million.

The report deals in percentages a great deal which is understandable. When producing a document such as this you want to make the outcomes appear truly remarkable. For example a percentage rise of 336% of A League Women’s memberships is colossal, but how many were there before? If you are starting with a low figure then a percentage increase always looks better than an actual figure. It is hard to find what the figure was prior to the World Cup as many clubs do not list this or appear to have it linked to the Men’s memberships as an overall club membership.

According to the PFA the average crowd for the 2022/23 ALW regular season fixtures was 1,233, which as they stated “was still well below the preCOVID peak of 2,139.” So imagine that 70% of that figure of 1233 were members, that gives you a figure of 863. A rise of 336% sees the memberships rise to 3762. This is still a very good rise, but maybe not quite as high as some may have imagined. Especially when spread over 12 clubs, that equates to an average of 313 members per club.

There is no doubt whatsoever the the FIFA Women’s World Cup was a huge success, and the team were superb reaching the semi-finals.

The legacy report is a wonderful PR stunt by Football Australia throwing around percentages to promote the game, but some of the statistics one feels would fall over if put under greater scrutiny. For example a $324million benefit to Australia which is the “Projected social value from reduced health costs based on Nielsen reported inspiration effect from the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023.” This will only be the case if those who took up the sport following the World Cup stay engaged in it. It is a common trend the world over in every country where the sport is played that in a World Cup year and the year following a World Cup participation numbers rise. They then start to fall away two years out from the next event. This is a trend the World Over. So it makes such a claim dependent on maintaining the levels of participation.

The key number that most people want to see is how much money did it generate for football, and where will they spend that money? After ploughing through all 40 pages this figure is not declared.

Football has to stop being like a kid running to its parents – the Government- saying ‘I want.’ It is so disappointing that 20 years on from the game shutting down and rebooting the sport is no closer to being in a financial position to support itself. Why is this still the case?

The sport has had some respected sports administrators at the helm in John O”Neill and David Gallop, but was the jump from rugby union and rugby league bigger than they appreciated? There is no doubt that football in terms of the numbers playing the game and the number of international representative teams playing in world and Asian competition is greater than any other sport, but surely when planning for the future and ensuring the future of the sport this was looked at in detail. There must have been a plan as to how the sport could sustain itself at the time and into the future. It would be interesting to see what that plan looked like and when it was predicted football would reach this stage.

Football has to face facts that the Government is not going to continually hand over money. That the average Australian has seen through politicians election promises to upgrade sporting facilities to gain votes. Also that many of the sporting events do not generate anywhere near the benefits that are claimed; especially the multisport events. So the handouts are not going to be there forever. When they dry up what is the plan then?