Following the announcement of the new board members at Football West I was asked if I knew if the Chairman Mr Kevin Campbell AM, who was appointed in the role by Frank Lowy, had been at Channel 7 when the network screwed the game of football.
I did not know, but have since checked.
For those of you who were part of the “Nobody screws soccer like seven” campaign you may be interested to read that Mr. Campbell was from 1991 to 1999 Chairman and Managing Director of TVW Enterprises Ltd (Channel Seven Perth).
In 1998 Channel Seven bought the rights to the old NSL as it believed that a revamp of the league was in the offing, but when this did not eventuate chose not to show soccer/football at all. Instead they loaned the rights to the ABC and only showed some finals on their network.
Looking at the dates and his position with Channel 7 at the time it would appear that Mr. Campbell would have been part of that decision making process.
Knowing that now, it seems strange that Mr. Lowy would make such an appointment when one of his first tasks when coming is as Chairman of the FFA was to dissolve the disastrous Channel Seven deal.
What is most galling to fans of the World game is that Seven Executives were quoted a few years ago in a government survey into Pay-TV, that shutting down soccer did benefit its own coverage of AFL.
So any conspiracy theorists out there, this should make your weekend!
