Craig Foster calls on football new FFA board to talk to the football community to build a new culture

The newly elected FFA board cannot remain beholden to corporate culture. The veil of secrecy must come down and football’s growth must be achieved with the participation of the community, writes CRAIG FOSTER.

Craig Foster on the future of football.

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Some stakeholders during the FFA election said that electing me as chair would be like electing Che Guevara to the presidency.

They were right in one respect, that we need a cultural revolution to unify our game and reach our true potential. What they failed to understand is that it has already begun.

A revolution of football culture, player and fan participation, value system, democracy, trust and unification. Led by our community itself.

The football community has to be at the heart of the game. (AAP Image/Brendon Thorne)

Community consultation delivered a deafening message that many of our people feel disengaged and undervalued. Our culture is corporate, not football. Even as corporate boards are under wide-ranging public review, sport worships at the altar.

While the crossover benefits both parties, if business drives culture, sport is the poorer. We may grow, but we are empty inside.

This is a lesson that cricket, and the outgoing board, learnt too late. Football is a business but business is not football. And our community feels the difference.

This is why greats of our game must accept their responsibility to lead. This message was a little premature, even for our own profession, but a barrier has been challenged and will eventually fall.

Foster pulled out of the race due to lack of support.

The players’ value system is desperately needed to build a new culture. Sacrifice, game over self-interest, ethics and putting football first, our profession is the ultimate meritocracy the broader game needs to become. We achieve by being the best and always want the best around us, no compromise. These three principles alone can light the way. Token appointments of champion players are no longer enough. Not for us, nor the game.

Our community united in their call for a more democratic, transparent game yet resistance is deeply embedded in the football governance psyche. An independent audit of the election process will help develop a new culture of inclusion and transparency. From the nominations process to the AGM, historically, our game conducts business behind the veil and we will be so much stronger when it is torn down.

Stakeholders at the Football Federation Australia (FFA) AGM. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)

Streaming the election is little use when the door of secrecy closes when ballot time comes. They are your representatives, and you have a right to know who nominated, and voted, for who. The community can be kept on the outside no more.

Trust in each other, at all levels of the game is the foundation of our long-term success. This can only be genuine when policy trumps politics, when we respect our players, fans and our history and have oversight of every decision-making process that guides our game.

Former FFA Chairman Steven Lowy believed leadership isn’t just about football. (AAP Image/Brendan Esposito)

And unification means all of us coming together to shape and share in a grand vision. Stakeholders should be careful not to interpret unity as collaborating at Congress to the exclusion of the rest of the game. To reach our true potential, everyone must be onboard. Representatives are custodians for their constituents. All participants must be kept fully appraised and given a direct voice in decision making.

Chris Nikou (left) was one of those elected to the board. (Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

The challenge was to move from one model of control to a more representative board while ensuring an independence of mind to act in the interests of the whole game during historic, structural change. I have voiced my concerns about independence and wellbeing of the whole game and prosecuted the case for an authentic football culture when the moment came.

Now all of us must be more vigilant than ever to provide scrutiny, oversight and accountability. Thankfully, in the past few weeks, you became more aware, vocal, impassioned and unified than our game has ever witnessed before.

This gives greater hope for the future than any electee can provide, myself included.

So, let’s maintain the extraordinary positivity for an authentic football culture, player and fan participation, new values, democracy, trust and unification. And together ensure this wonderful game reaches the heavenly heights we believe in and know it deserves.

Long live the cultural revolution of football.

Comrades one, and all.

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