FA boss pays penalty for fractured relationships
Football Australia’s CEO fell out with Sam Kerr and Graham Arnold before falling on his sword.
It didn’t go unnoticed when his name wasn’t on an FA statement on March 31 about “recent events” – in other words, hurling racial abuse at a London copper – involving the Matildas captain.
FA director and former Matilda Heather Garriock stepped in to repair the relationship.
She played alongside Kerr when the Matildas last won a trophy, in 2010.
Garriock has stepped in as interim chief executive while FA looks for a replacement for Johnson less than a year out from the AFC Women’s Asia Cup, which Australia is hosting.
Johnson also had a troubled relationship with former Socceroos coach Graham Arnold, who was thrown under the bus when the FA fined him a whopping $25,000 for breaching NSW self-isolation rules during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Johnson made an example of Arnold – and Arnold never forgot.
Reports out of Beirut earlier this week that Arnold had signed on as coach of the Iraqi national team were premature.
At the time of writing, the 61-year-old was waiting to finalise the deal before jetting off to Iraq for an announcement.
After standing down as Socceroos coach last September, Arnold was never staying away from the game for too long.
His agent cast a wide net across Asia and the Iraqi Football Association snapped him up.
He has quite a job ahead of him if Iraq is to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America with must-win matches against South Korea and Jordan next month.
His job hasn’t been helped by officials sacking the entire coaching staff of his predecessor, Jesus Casas, leaving Arnold with little time to regroup and rebuild.
The last time Iraq played in the World Cup was in Mexico in 1986.\
Tell the NRL boss he’s dreamin’
Not content with taking over the US, Papua New Guinea, Western Australia, buying and running the UK Super League, and poaching South African rugby union players, ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys also wants rugby league on the program at the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.
Rugby league? At the Olympics? Tell him he’s dreaming.
On April 17, in a letter obtained by The Australian, V’landys wrote to Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee chief Andrew Liveris requesting a meeting about rugby league – well, touch football – being included on the program.
“As the fastest, most athletic, inclusive and accessible ball-in-hand football game that exists on the planet, rugby league epitomises the Olympic Creed of ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter’ – ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together’,” V’landys oozed, adding: “The NRL anticipates that the media interest and exposure in rugby league at the Olympics would be significant, providing considerable promotional opportunities for the Organising Committee and others in the broader Olympics ecosystem to leverage.”
Of course! The world will be drunk on rugby league in Brisbane, especially after Wally Lewis takes a drag of a Winnie Blue and flicks it into the cauldron to light the flame at the opening ceremony.
I mean, the cross-promotional opportunities are endless. Maybe Gout Gout can start on the wing for Australia’s touch footy team in between heats of the 200m. Later, Reece Walsh can do his best on the parallel bars. Or just at the bar.
The NRL has obviously seen the inclusion of other “sports” at recent Olympics and concluded if breakdancing can get a start in Paris, surely touch footy can in Brizzie.
It doesn’t work like that. The organising committees of host cities can put forward sports they want, but the IOC has the final say. Mostly, it comes down to money and how much a sport is prepared to tip in for it to even be considered Olympics-worthy.
Flag football will make its debut at the Los Angeles Games in 2028 after heavy lobbying – and significant investment – from the NFL, which has more money than God.
More than 20 million people play the sport in 100 countries with close to seven million in the US. Touch football has 607,000 adult and child participants in Australia, according to V’landys’ letter to Liveris.
In LA, cricket will be played at the Olympics for the first time in 128 years. The IOC wants to tap into the billions of fans on the subcontinent and the billions of dollars it can add to broadcast rights.
Netball also wants to be included on the program in Brisbane, although its struggle has less to do with participants as gender parity, which the IOC is big on these days.
V’landys’ push for inclusion coincides with his dramatic about-face on another Queensland team entering the NRL.
Only three weeks ago, V’landys and chief executive Andrew Abdo told this column another franchise “wasn’t on the agenda” but then – abracadabra! – both said publicly at Magic Round last weekend that it suddenly was.
The remarks certainly surprised some of V’landys’ fellow commissioners, who said it was all news to them.
AFL kicks another own goal over Rioli imbroglio
All week, the AFL wrestled with itself over what to do with Willie Rioli.
What’s the difference between banter and a legitimate threat? Does what happen on the field really stay on the field? And what if the threat is a direct message to a rival player via social media the day after a spiteful match?
The main question: how could the AFL so royally stuff this up from start to finish?
But there was a deeper dynamic at play, and Port Adelaide president David Koch raised it on SEN on Wednesday when he claimed racial abuse should be considered when sanctioning Rioli for sending a threatening message to a Western Bulldogs player about teammate Bailey Dale.
“It’s a build-up of pressure and abuse that they’ve received and every individual handles that differently and that’s what we’ve got to take into account,” Koch said. “There’s no excusing that … but we have a duty to support the players and turn a bit of attention on to what society is doing to these players.”
The AFL is completely bamboozled about how to address this question, perhaps gun-shy because of the game’s tattered reputation when it comes to its treatment of Indigenous players.
At the start of the week, it opted against sanctioning Rioli for the private message, in which he allegedly said words along the lines of, “I have lots of friends in NT, he (Dale) should be careful about leaving the hotel in Darwin next week”.
By the end of the week, the AFL had banned Rioli for one match, although it was hardly a brave decision because he had stood himself down earlier that morning.
Revelations that Rioli had previously made threats on the field against players from Essendon and Geelong gave AFL general counsel Stephen Meade an easy excuse to issue a suspension he didn’t have the courage to do in the first place.
Rioli has a lot going on. A week off, especially from an emotional Showdown against Adelaide, feels like the right thing for him to do.
In normal circumstances, a one-match suspension would feel excessive when you consider Rioli apologised to Dale, who accepted what the Port forward had to say. The Bulldogs declared the matter over, while neither Essendon nor Geelong seemed to care too much about the historical incidents involving their players. But this is the AFL. Last year, it fined Rioli’s coach Ken Hinkley $20,000 for pretending to be a plane.
Koch’s sentiment is honourable and understandable given his club is one of the few that doesn’t have falling numbers of Indigenous representation.
But that doesn’t mitigate Rioli’s behaviour, on and off the field.
Whatever he endures on social media as a black man should have no bearing on how he’s sanctioned as an AFL footballer.
Sharp-dressed men
We live in very different sporting times. Gone are the days when athletes wore boring old tracksuits before and after competition.
Instead, they walk into NBA finals and NFL matches and onto centre court like they’re stepping onto a yacht.
More and more, we’re seeing sporting giants partner with global fashion brands: Paris Saint-Germain x Dior; Manchester United x Balenciaga; Juventus x Gucci; and so on.
It’s a “collab”, as we call it in the fashion business.
You can now add the NSW Waratahs to this fine list. It’s collaborated with the booming North Bondi fashion label Motorino, which is owned and operated by their scrumhalf Jack Grant.
The Australian lifestyle leisurewear brand this week reached an agreement with the Waratahs outside of Grant’s playing contract with the Super Rugby franchise.
“It’s a really special moment for me, not just as a player, but as the designer and owner of the brand,” Grant said. “I’ve always drawn inspiration from sport and Australian sport, in particular. Often, we look to American sports for influence, but there are so many cool people and cool things happening in rugby in Australia. I think it’s time we celebrate what the game has to offer.”
When Grant isn’t training and playing for the Waratahs, he’s spending every minute of his spare time on his booming business.
Gus’s guest list
When I heard on Monday that Canterbury chairman Adam Driussi was throwing a surprise party for general manager Phil Gould to celebrate his 50 years in rugby league, my first thought was, “Oh yeah, Gus will love that – a surprise.”
Gould, you see, can be a bit of a control freak, as we explored in great detail on this site in March.
According to the very small circle of people who attended, he was initially uncomfortable but eventually warmed to the idea that his contribution to the game was being recognised.
Guests included former Channel 9 boss David Gyngell, NSW coach Laurie Daley, and Fox Sports’ Yvonne Sampson and Andrew Voss.
Former Roosters coach Ricky Stuart and captain Brad Fittler were in attendance, but there were no other representatives from the club he coached for five seasons. There was also no representative from Penrith, whom Gould steered to a maiden premiership in 1991, nor from the NRL.
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