A-League Fans Protest Banning Orders
Paul Williams
Where does one start when trying to examine the week Australian football has just had?
What started as a full-frontal assault on the sport by the usual anti-football media, something football fans in this country are sadly all too familiar with, ended with a united campaign from all football fans targeting the Football Federation Australia and their blatant disregard for due process.
All the while the FFA itself moved at glacial pace responding to the chaos and as a result got football fans further offside with their refusal to back the sport and its supporters, instead, in the eyes of most fans, preferring to kow-tow to the anti-football media in an attempt to get them onside.
It was an extraordinary misstep from FFA, who failed to read the winds early enough. With David Gallop in India for AFC meetings ahead of the AFC Annual Awards, if ever there was a chance for new Chairman Steven Lowy to step forward and make an immediate statement, this was it.
PR wins don't come much easier than this. Your sport and your fans are under attack, you're new to the role and looking to prove you are your own man and not a puppet of your legendary father. This should've been the easiest of slam dunks.
Instead, Lowy was MIA. Nowhere to be seen. A golden opportunity missed. Fans have long memories; they don't quickly forget these things.
Ironically it came in the same week Gallop wrote an open letter declaring FFA needs to get better at talking to its fans (and you would hope listening to them at the same time). Historically it's not been the FFA's greatest strength, so the fan base was already sceptical. After the FFA's apparent lack of support this week, it's now down right hostile.
Actions speak louder than words, a concept the FFA are having difficulty grasping.
The FFA was quick, and rightly so, to condemn fans sending threats of violence towards Rebecca Wilson, the journalist, and I use that term loosely, responsible for the original article in the Sunday Telegraph. Its silence was deafening, however, when it came to similar condemnation for Wilson and radio broadcaster Alan Jones linking A-League fans with terrorism in Paris.
The fans wanted support and in their eyes they didn't get it. No amount of open letters can engender the goodwill like publicly sticking up for your fans. Actions, not words.
It was words that sunk FFA further later in the week too.
For fans the number one issue out of this mess is the FFA's iron fisted approach to banning orders. They have been steadfast in their refusal to allow an appeals process.
"It's a general deterrent to those who cause trouble that they face long bans with no right of appeal," Damien de Bohun, Head of the A-League, told reporters just over three weeks ago.
It couldn't be any clearer - "no right of appeal."
And yet, after intense pressure from fans and media, including former Socceroo and Fox Sports pundit Mark Bosnich, FFA sought to clarify the situation.
"Since the inception of the Banning Process, it has always been the case that, if a banned person can prove that they did not engage in the relevant behaviour, the ban will not apply," said a statement on Thursday.
"If a banned person can bring the evidence that proves this to FFA through their club, the ban will be lifted."
This was certainly news to the many fans that have sought to appeal their ban, only to be continually rejected by FFA. Some clubs didn't even know this appeals process existed.
Far from helping the situation, FFA's claim that the appeals process "always" existed just inflamed an already volatile situation.
As Bosnich, the most vocal critic of FFA this week, said on Fox Sports on Sunday evening, the time for empty rhetoric is over. It's time for action.
Your move, FFA.
Copyright © Paul Williams and Soccerphile.com
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