By David Gold
December 26 – Australia’s football pioneers have been acclaimed at the 100th anniversary of the formation of the country’s national governing body.
Delegates from most states of Australia, as well as some from New Zealand, met in Sydney in December 1911, calling themselves the Australasian Football Conference, and the meeting ended on December 21, exactly 100 years ago today.
The outcome of the meeting was the creation of the Commonwealth Football Association (CFA) to govern football in the country, the predecessor of the Australian Football Federation (FFA).
Yet bizarrely, there was no official celebration, with the Sydney Morning Herald quoting a spokesman as saying that they were unaware of the landmark.
Nonethless, football in the country has come a long way in the last 100 years, with Australia playing its first game against New Zealand in 1922, and the CFA was then suspended during the First World War before being reformed ten years later.
It was suspended in 1960 by FIFA, reaching the World Cup three times and today the game is played by 1.7 million people across the country.
Last year Australia missed out on the chance to host the 2022 World Cup as they lost in the first round of voting.
Following the failure of that vote and concerns over the state of football in the country, the Smith Report was commissioned, and it was made public earlier this month, setting out a plan for the coming years for the FFA as they look to strengthen the game in Australia.
Back in 1911, concerns over the standard of play, utilising the power of the press and youth football were key parts of the agenda, remarkably similar to those recommendations set out in the Smith Report.
Some things may change, others stay the same.
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