FFA chairman Steven Lowy forced to delay EGM as battle over power reforms goes down to the wire
STEVEN Lowy’s efforts to push through controversial football power reforms will go to the 11th hour, after the FFA chairman was forced to postpone an emergency general meeting.
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STEVEN Lowy’s efforts to push through controversial football power reforms will go to the 11th hour, after the Football Federation Australia chairman was forced to postpone an emergency general meeting in the face of increasing opposition and likely defeat.
Lowy had called the EGM to seek backing for the changes he has championed for FFA’s Congress, but backed down after key stakeholders demand he return to the negotiating table and seek wider consensus.
The EGM will now not happen until November 27 – just three days before a FIFA-imposed deadline to have in place a new model for Congress.
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As the intensity of the battle for control of the sport deepened even further, Lowy had summoned the presidents of the nine state federations to a meeting on Tuesday evening at which it was expected that he would seek to offer enough compromises to secure the eight votes he needs to pass his reforms to Congress.
Lowy was told on Monday that the votes of both Football NSW and Football Federation Victoria would be cast against him at the EGM, as well as the A-League clubs’ combined one vote, leaving the FFA chairman short of the eight out of 10 votes he needs.
As the civil war that has defigured Australian football for months inches enters its final stages, the players union (PFA) had also added to pressure on Lowy to scrap the EGM and reopen talks with them and the A-League clubs.
The postponement gives Lowy extra time to try to secure the extra vote he needs, but it takes the Australian game perilously close to the point at which FIFA has warned it will take over.
FIFA has long made clear that if an expanded Congress is not in place by the end of November it will impose a “normalisation committee” to run the sport, sacking Lowy and his existing board.
The nine state associations, and the A-League clubs combined, make up the 10-vote electorate that FIFA has deemed undemocratic.
Under Lowy’s model the states would continue to have nine votes and the clubs four, with the PFA and a representative of the women’s game getting one apiece.
But the clubs, backed by the PFA, will not accept less than five votes because that would prevent the state federations from being able to appoint FFA’s board of directors by themselves.