Football Australia chair Chris Nikou remains silent on mystery new AFC deal

Football Australia chair Chris Nikou has declined the opportunity to defend or explain the extraordinary commercial manoeuvres at the Asian Football Confederation.

Football Australia retiring chair Chris Nikou has declined the opportunity to defend or explain the extraordinary commercial manoeuvres at the Asian Football Confederation.

A week ago, the AFC announced that they were ending commercial contract with Football Marketing Asia which was heralded as the most lucrative deal in AFC history when agreed in Moscow in 2018. Then teams of external accountants and lawyers ensured the validity and integrity of the process for a contract deemed to bring in more than $A3.5 billion.

But last weekend, the spectre of the old AFC was raised when less than 48 hours after ending the FMA deal, a new arrangement with the Dubai-based Asia Football Group was announced.

Football Australia retiring chair Chris Nikou. Picture: Dan Himbrechts

No figures of expected income or details of the group were released, nor was Nikou, an AFC executive committee member, willing to comment.

Instead, this masthead was referred to the secretive AFC media department, whose director was spending time this week at a regional Indian state board meeting. The same director of communications didn’t attend the Women’s Football World Cup in Australia but sees the need to go to the Karnataka state football board meeting

The failure of the AFC to reveal details of the new deal is raising pertinent questions about who is behind this new Group, with suspicions it is another Saudi takeover of the Asian game.

This was clearly suggested by the New York Times this week in a tweet that said simply: ‘Move over China it’s time for Saudi’.

Until the AFC answers questions on the ownership of their commercial rights and while member associations such as Football Australia stand quietly aside, there will be more doubts about the direction the game in Asia is taking under the leadership of Sheikh Salman bin Khalifa and his hapless administration.