Adelaide City chairman Fred Lenzi says a national B-League should not take priority over youth development
New Football Federation Australia chief executive James Johnson needs to address the development crisis facing Australian soccer, according to Adelaide City chairman Fred Lenzi.
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Adelaide City football chairman Fred Lenzi says new Football Federation Australia chief executive James Johnson must address a development crisis before considering a professional second division.
He also revealed Adelaide City isn’t ready to be a part of a proposed nationwide expansion.
Lenzi - a former Soccer Australia board member - said Australia qualifying regularly for Olympic Games is much more critical than the Socceroos making FIFA World Cups.
He said the nation needs to position itself as the strongest development market in Asia, claiming a proposed professional second division would be doomed if it wasn’t atop Johnson’s agenda.
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“I’m excited by the appointment of James Johnson and his incoming philosophy towards developing the game, but unless we start to become a dominance in qualifying for the Olympic Games then the pathways are not working, the arteries to the heart are blocked,’’ Lenzi said.
“They can sell the Socceroos all they want, but even the last World Cup squad how many men were eligible age-wise to play at the Olympics?
“Daniel Arzani was the only one, wasn’t he?
“When I go back to my involvement with Soccer Australia, we were in the top eight countries in the world from the U17s and U19s from 1996 to 2000.
“So if you’re in the top countries with that age group of players … what, all of a sudden they’re not good enough 20 years later?
“Where do they go?
“Most A-League clubs aren’t interested in development due to the pressure to survive in such a tight economic environment.”
Johnson said in his first interview after he was announced as the new FFA boss that “we need to set-up the second-tier national league”, which worries Lenzi.
Another concern is the A-League is close to being fully independent, which Lenzi said would be great only for the clubs in that system.
“So, the A-league are going independent and then who is going to run the B-League? FFA?,’’ Lenzi said.
“Are they going to have their own identity?
“How can you get the structure to work if you have all these independent bodies?
“I think the independent A-League don’t want relegation and promotion, they’re paying huge money for a licence fee.”
And Lenzi said Adelaide City - SA’s most successful club on the national league stage producing 4.7 per cent of Socceroos until 2001 and six captains - was far from ready to enter a national second division.
“Without a local or an overseas investor to the tune of at least $2 million per year, I don’t think we can get it off the ground,’’ Lenzi said.
“For us right now we’ve got the structures in place and we want to be the best NPL club we can be.
“We’ll wait and see when the opportunity comes and work towards being in that B-League.
“If we’re not ready by the time it does kick off, okay, we’ve missed the first round, and we may have to wait and see if any opportunity comes up.
“But we’re definitely not going to go into it without it being sustainable.”
The Socceroos have qualified for the past four FIFA World Cup finals.
The Olyroos qualified for five consecutive Olympics since 1988 - which led to the height of the golden generation - but haven’t qualified since Beijing 2008.