By Samindra Kunti
August 17 – Steven Lowy has said he will not seek re-election as chair of Football Federation Australia. His departure, following a bitter governance battle within the game in the country, will bring an end to his family’s 50-year association with football in Australia.
The announcement marks the end of an era for Australian football, long bossed by the Lowy family. Frank Lowy presided over the FFA from 2003 until 2015. The billionaire businessman sought to bring the World Cup to Australia in 2022, but was outbid by Qatar.
“I’m taking myself out of the equation because for those that want a different outcome to the board and what the board believes in, I and my family are used as a distraction to the real issues,” Steven Lowy told The Australian.
“I want to remove from the debate once and for all any suggestion that the struggle to maintain an independent FFA board has anything to do with my personal interest or ambition.”
In November the FFA is set to hold its annual general meeting, but Lowy had become increasingly cornered after a protracted battle between the FFA, A-League clubs, Professional Footballers Australia and the state associations over how the domestic game should be governed. The stalemate between the stakeholders has left the future of the local game unclear, according to Lowy.
“The main purpose is to give the game every possible chance over the next couple of months to expand the [FFA] congress and at the same time preserve the independence of the FFA board,” Lowy said.
The clubs have long argued that the A-league should be run independently from FFA and that they should be granted greater powers in the congress.
“There is a possible outcome that stakeholders take a step back and … agree on a compromise that delivers an expanded and balanced congress, charts a course for greater autonomy for an expanded A-League, but also retains a structure for an independent FFA board,” said Lowy.
The clubs want to take a larger share of the revenue from the game,” said the FFA chairman. “By definition the national team and the grassroots will lose out. We shouldn’t allow representation to be driven by money. We should not move to a model where the money flows back automatically to where it comes from. The governance model advocated by our critics leads to the trading of political favours between a few individuals who would control the many.”
World governing body FIFA installed a working group to resolve the issues in Australian football and the group has offered its backing to the clubs, furnishing a number of recommendations that will go to a vote in September. The FFA board opposes those recommendations, but in a worst case scenario FIFA could intervene more stringently and replace the FFA board with a normalisation committee.
Lowy also shot back at some of his critics, foreign club owners. In 2015, the 55-year old took charge of the FFA in a move seen as nepotism by many in the Australian game, but Lowy defended his record, after having secured a record six-year broadcasting deal with Fox Sports in December 2016, worth $346 million, and having enlisted Caltex as a major naming rights sponsor for the Socceroos after Qantas opted not to renew its sponsorship.
“No fair minded person could say that the game overall is not in a much stronger place than it was 15 years ago, or even a few years ago,” said Lowy. “We are now at a tipping point, the game could get stronger or it could break, if vested interests prevail.”
“We welcome foreign investment in our league,” continued Lowy. “It is more than welcome; it is crucial. But when it comes to the whole of the game, it should not be controlled by foreign interests. That is what is at stake here.”
“To those who are tired of the debate and wish for an outbreak of peace so that the game can get on with life, I say: be very careful what you wish for.”
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