Why Play Ball?

For many months “Not The Footy Show” – as well as many others – has questioned the reasons, and the structure of the FFA’s new National Premier Leagues (NPL) competition. Having read through the latest presentation one has to seriously ask why any club would want to be a part of such a competition.

For starters point number one in the draft of the common rules reads,”1. Football West may alter, add to, clarify or delete any of these rules at its discretion. Any changes to these rules will be communicated to clubs.” That is the very first point in the document! Any lawyer will advise you on reading this to not bother reading any further and walk away, as you are handing total control to someone who can change rules to suit themselves.

If you read the presentation that was given to the clubs accepted into the NPL which is on the Football West website this again raises some fairly major issues. First of all it states “Document reflects the standard template provided by FFA and signed by every State/MF and club in 2013.” (MF = Member Federation) Firstly If this is so, surely the terms and conditions are set in stone across the country – an issue Victorian Clubs successfully challenged in the courts – and secondly why has it taken Football West almost two months since clubs were elected for the NPL to present this document? Also why on the next line of the presentation does it state “Discussed and amended over the next month or so?” If this was a truly national competition surely there would be a standard Participation Agreement and no room for movement, or if there was it was discussed months ago. What is even more worrying is that there is no actual deadline for discussion with the league due to commence in four months.

The FFA Cup which is due to commence in 2014 and which is another competition that the FFA promised the AFC but did nothing about and have now been forced to rush through is being billed as ” ‘our’ competition – a Cup to unite the Australian football community” in the presentation. Time will tell on that one. One has to wonder how long funding will allow this competition to run.

WA will have Perth Glory compete in this 32 team competition, as well as the two Cool Ridge Cup Finalists. One of the questions raised several months ago by the Football Union was how much of the television money would filter down to the clubs playing in this competition. It would appear the answer is nil, as according to the presentation “Fox Sports has agreed to heavily promote and broadcast a high number of matches either through pay-TV or via streaming.” Having shelled out $148 million in cash and another $12million in marketing, Fox Sports are unlikely to be injecting more money, and the FFA are unlikely to have any left from what they have promised the A-League clubs.

This competition is supposedly going to go from 32 teams participating in 2014 to “as many as 500-600 clubs participating throughout the country” by 2015.

The presentation then moves into use of the NPL logo at great length before talking about the Participation Agreement that was given to the NPL clubs that evening. After that it declares that the “Top of the Ladder qualifies” for the NPL Championship finals and confirms that WA has already been drawn to play against South Australia’s Champions; It may however be Premiers, time will tell. Is that convenient or a coincidence? We will not know until next year’s draw, surely it cannot be a set draw each year?

The presentation then moves onto the role of the club media co-ordinator, interestingly the two hours proposed for the position has gone, which is just as well as they will have to write a match preview and a match report, tweet, update Facebook, liaise with local media, update the club website, feed into the NPL website and no doubt co-ordinate the filming of the game and the goals with the free camera supplied by Football West, for their goal of the week package. Sounds like a key position in the club and plenty of work.

So using this information and the news that Nike will be a sponsor of the NPL in kind, to the value of $50,000, which is likely to be split between all the participating NPL clubs, so $5000 each, which the clubs were  told would be taken off their registration fees, one has to wonder why a club would want to be a part of such a competition.

Your operating costs are going to have risen purely by having to supply a technical director who will oversee all the paid accredited coaches of your eight teams from under 12’s up as well as a media co-ordinator.  Your accounting fees will rise by having to supply quarterly figures to Football West. You are now going to have to film and do your own match report; a saving to Football West of about $1500 per week, yet that money has not been mooted as being filtered back to the clubs. You are giving up key signage at your ground as well as the production of a match day program, which are both income opportunities. You get no TV money, You get no prize money. In fact you get no money at all, just credit on your registration fees. Oh yes and these have gone up at both senior and junior level.

It will all be worth it to be crowned NPL Champions of WA. Or will it? As Champions of the NPL in Western Australia what do you get apart from that title? Nothing, nada, nil. It is the finalists in the cup who have the kudos of playing in the FFA cup, and it is the League Premiers who will play off for the NPL Championship, even though they are not champions. Surely therefore it should be re-branded the NPL Premiership, and if this team is going to be crowned Champions/Premiers of Australia, the league winners are now the recognised winners of the competition? Or is that too logical?

The only consolation must be that clause we mentioned at the beginning, “Football West may alter, add to, clarify or delete any of these rules at its discretion. Any changes to these rules will be communicated to clubs.” No doubt clubs signing the Participation Agreement will be looking forward to such communication to put their minds at ease.