FFA directors say football in Australia must capitalise on grassroots strength

Football needs to show “more anger, more passion” in promoting itself and seeking greater government support, two of its new leaders have declared.

FFA director Joseph Carrozzi says football needs to get more vocal in Australia. Picture: Jonathan Ng

• Reds to part ways with coach Kurz
• Ninko: ‘We must be more ruthless in front’

Football needs to show “more anger, more passion” in promoting itself and seeking greater government support, two of its new leaders have declared.

Calling for more government investment and a “greater sense of urgency”, new Football Federation Australia directors Joseph Carrozzi and Remo Nogarotto said football needed to unify its message at all levels.

A range of directors and management faced a range of criticisms and questions from grassroots representatives at FFA’s fourth “community forum”, especially horror stories over the new online registration system for grassroots clubs and players.

Asked what football could do to counter the resources being spent by the AFL and NRL at community level, Carrozzi – previously a director of the GWS Giants – said football should sing its own praises.

FFA director Joseph Carrozzi says football needs to get more vocal in Australia. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“One of the things that we in football need to do is develop that sense of urgency,” said Carrozzi. “Anyone who comes to Australia from another country knows about football.

“The other codes have to work harder with freebies, tickets and so on. We need to get more mobilized, get more angry and vocal.

“Listening to this forum, the passion in the room is amazing. Part of it is about putting our collective weigh together and making representations.”

Nogarotto, a veteran political consultant, said football needed to operate as effectively as the other codes in lobbying government.

“I don’t think our game is getting its fair share from government, that’s the bleeding obvious,” Nogarotto said. “There are many reasons for that.

“But the strength of the NRL and the AFL is visibility in the marketplace and they’ve leveraged that magnificently in a political sense.

FFA director Remo Nogarotto.

“Our level of visibility is much lower but our great strength is in the grassroots. There’s an old adage in politics, that all politics is local. Our strength is at a local level and we’ve got to stop being polite about that and let politicians know how strong we are.

“I can tell you politicians are very susceptible to messages at a local level.”

As debate ranged over the shortage of facilities and niche parts of the game to linking the grassroots with A-League clubs, the fiercest criticisms came from club volunteers lambasting the new system FFA put in place this season for players and clubs to register on.

Officials claimed players had been lost to the game and volunteer registrars were forced to work through the night dealing with faults in the system that had driven some to despair.

FFA was told it had failed to take accountability for a “rotten system” that was delivering “death by a thousand cuts”, and which had to be radically improved by next season.

Though FFA CEO David Gallop said resources to a helpdesk for users had been doubled, director Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said the board should institute an inquiry into how so many problems had been caused.

“It’s not acceptable and has to be fixed without delay,” she said.