- Fifa decision on FFA crisis

Later on Monday, in a conference room in Zurich, the 19 representatives of Fifa’s Member Associations Committee will gather to sift through the wreckage of Australian football’s governance crisis. It seems impossible this body could do anything other than recommend Fifa intervenes decisively to resolve an increasingly bitter dispute, one that plumbed new depths either side of last week’s AGM.

Australian soccer is on tenterhooks ahead of a FIFA meeting in Zurich overnight that will shape the future of the sport.

FIFA's member associations committee is due to meet on Monday to determine whether or not the global governing body should take control of Football Federation Australia.

We’re into injury time at the end of extra-time, and the referee needs to call a halt to the futility. An in-house resolution is surely now a pipe dream and the longer this situation is allowed to drag on, the more damage it will cause.

The Member Associations Committee will be presented with a catalogue of dysfunction. They will have to acknowledge that Australia has the smallest governing congress in Fifa and that chairmanship of FFA’s board passed unopposed from father to son. They will be pressed to consider why FFA has been unable to reach consensus among stakeholders in an imbroglio that has dragged on nearly two years.

The embarrassing Fifa/AFC delegation visit in August cannot be ignored, nor can the reams of acrimonious correspondence, topped off by the ill will that bookended the AGM. That last point in particular has to resonate strongly in today’s deliberations.

Last Thursday, A-League clubs questioned one of the cornerstones of the current leadership – its independence, and they did so in a devastatingly pointed and calculated manoeuvre. This follows earlier allegations FFA gerrymandered congress to guarantee board appointments.

Later that day FFA chairman Steven Lowy described anybody who voted against his agenda as heralding a return to “the bad old days”, taking specific aim at clubs for grasping for power and money.

Faced with a total breakdown in working relationship at the apex of Australian football, it is incomprehensible a circuit breaker would not be recommended. Irrespective of blame, something has to give. Yet the fight continues.

In an FFA media release in advance of the AGM, Lowy outlined the possibility for a negotiated outcome as opposed to the imposition of a normalisation committee. “FIFA has advised throughout the process that there is a range of possible actions and we would discuss what suits the circumstances in Australia,” he said. By Thursday evening this had become: “We believe we will be able to work with Fifa on sorting this out going forward.”

Under the circumstances this seems fanciful. FFA’s leaders have had two years to resolve this issue and the longer they’ve failed to do so, the more rancorous the atmosphere has become. How can further mediation be expected to change anything?

Lowy’s defence – that he is looking out for the best interests of the game as a whole – may be just, and it would be naive not to believe that A-League clubs are operating to advance their own causes. But this situation is broken, the enmity between warring parties too acute, and the game needs to move on.

The Member Associations Committee communicates its advice to the decision-making Bureau of the Council. This seven-person panel handles Fifa’s urgent business when it is imprudent to wait for the next full Council meeting. If called upon, this group will likely convene later this week, or early next week, probably in the UAE where key representatives will be attending the start of the Club World Cup.

The Bureau of the Council is chaired by Fifa’s president Gianni Infantino, a man who has crossed paths often with Lowy. As recently as last week the pair were in each other’s company at the AFC annual awards ceremony in Bangkok.
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Australian football is in limbo. There are big ticket items that require urgent attention that cannot be addressed until all stakeholders are working with a unity of purpose. There is no evidence to suggest prolonging this standoff in the hope of a breakthrough is realistic.

It may be embarrassing, it may be unsettling, but it may now be in the game’s best interests to end the week under the control of a Fifa normalisation committee.