Australian football is at a fork in the road after so many false dawns, writes Tom Smithies

Australian football is at a fork in the road. As new CEO James Johnson prepares to unveil a ‘confronting and unapologetic’ blueprint for the future, Tom Smithies looks at where the game really stands.

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In the end, it’s the hope that kills you. The hopes raised many times over the years, with every World Cup, with the Wanderers exploding into life, with Del Piero signing, with brilliant grand finals in front of packed houses … surely, you think, Australian football has made it this time.

And then comes the disastrous (men’s) World Cup bids, flares and heavy-handed policing, clubs at war with the FFA and fans staging boycotts. No wonder the mindset of so many football fans in this country perpetually fear the worst.

But suddenly there is new hope with the 2023 Women’s World Cup coming our way.

The game in Australia is full of good people with smart ideas. But the inability of these people to make headway driving the sport forward at the professional level has been the source of all the frustration as I step away from the role of chief football writer at The Sunday Telegraph.

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Alessandro Del Piero’s signing for Sydney FC was a high point – but also a false dawn.

In 2005, when I started this role, football was holding its breath. The A-League was newly born and the sense of a fresh start engendered by Frank Lowy and John O’Neill worked. The problem was the game couldn’t build on it.

When the Wanderers launched in a rush to energise the competition in 2012, that energy was gone within three years when fans boycotted matches in response to their perceived alienation by the Football Federation of Australia.

Football now stands at a fork in the road. Next week, the FFA’s new CEO, James Johnson, will unveil a provocative blueprint based on 11 principles to grow the game.

It is said to be confronting and unapologetically direct in laying out the issues the game faces and how the solutions to those issues may discomfort people. Implementing them will require turkeys to join a discussion about Christmas.

The A-League clubs need to understand how sidelined their competition has become and how becoming relevant and exciting will require significant investment. Those who can’t will have to make way for those willing to spend, and we may well see movement on that soon.

Keanu Baccus in action before the COVID-19 shutdown. Picture: AAP Images

Equally, owners need incentives to spend — especially on the football product. Giving every team the same central grant is a recipe for mediocrity. Beyond base funding, disbursements to the clubs should be based on their success.

And tie the players into that. The salary cap served a purpose once but has little use now. Instead, players should be incentivised to win, with bonuses for victories and for rising up the table.

What about the suits? Across the country there are more than 50 paid CEOs in Australian football, many of them on six-figure salaries.

Many have the game’s interests at heart but naturally they guard their territory. It’s an insane duplication of resources.

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In recent weeks we have had multiple “return to play” COVID-19 documents issued across the country for grassroots football, each slightly different per state but essentially the same principles – hours and hours of the same work.

Johnson is well aware of all this — and the opportunity in front of him to reshape football to stop the wasting of money, start generating money and give the game the leadership and sense of common purpose.

This is my final column for The Sunday Telegraph. Thanks for reading.