Daripada ngurusin Fiona telanjang, nih saya copy-kan artikel yang ditulis wartawan The Age Melbourne mengulas keberhasilan reformasi (revolusi) sepakbola Australia. Sapa tahu di sini ada pengurus PSSI hehehe.... :p
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The fathers of Australian soccer's success November 19, 2005 The reform of soccer by Frank Lowy and John O'Neill nearly did not happen, Michael Lynch reports. FAILURE is an orphan and success, so the saying goes, has a thousand fathers. Australian soccer, for so long the problem child of Australian sport, is poised to become the glamour star of the sporting landscape, thanks to the Socceroos' stunning success over Uruguay in dramatic circumstances last Wednesday night. There are many with justifiable claims to a key role in the triumph. The coach, Guus Hiddink, his assistant Graham Arnold, Hiddink's predecessor, Frank Farina, and the players themselves, of course, who did all the work in Montevideo and Sydney to finally end the 32-year World Cup drought and win a place in Germany next year. But from an overall perspective, the real architects of this triumph and the men who can claim to be the fathers of success are Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy and his chief executive, John O'Neill, the man Lowy expensively (and controversially) recruited from rugby union only 20 months ago. They have wrought a revolution on the game, both domestically and internationally, and, with the public glowing over the Australian success, it is easy to forget how far the game has come in such a short time, and how it all nearly did not happen in the first place. Following the debacle in Montevideo four years ago, when Uruguay defeated the Socceroos 3-0 and progressed to the World Cup in South Korea and Japan, there was near universal agreement that there was an inescapable need for massive change in the Australian game. Prime Minister John Howard even entered the debate when FIFA boss Sepp Blatter came to Sydney, joining state premiers Steve Bracks and Bob Carr to support the idea that Australia should bid to host the World Cup. But the politicians made their pledges of support with one key proviso that the people in charge of the sport embraced the need for wholesale reform and huge structural change before the state and federal coffers would be opened and any public largesse put their way. For the (largely) ethnic powerbrokers who had controlled the sport for so long, this challenge posed grave difficulties. Yes, they wanted the game to move on, to take the central position in Australian sporting life and culture that they and all its fans believed it should. But, for the main, they were very reluctant to surrender the positions of power and influence they had amassed in control of state federations, clubs and on the board of Soccer Australia, despite all the evidence suggesting they were incapable of running the game efficiently or broadening its supporter base. THE Federal Government's route to revolutionising the game was through the Australian Sports Commission headed by Mark Peters, a man who was committed to pursuing a reform agenda for the game. The ASC, with the backing of federal Sports Minister Rod Kemp, commissioned the Crawford report, a long investigation into the governance, organisation and structure of soccer conducted by insolvency expert and leading financial adviser David Crawford. Crawford's findings were manna from heaven for those who wanted a revolution in the sport, but bad news for the entrenched old guard who wanted to retain their fiefdoms. He advocated wholesale change, a new league and a raft of revisions, which were resisted by many. Lowy, the Westfield property and shopping developer whom BRW's latest rich list last year valued at $4.8 billion, was the man both Howard and the ASC wanted to take charge of the moribund, debt-ridden Soccer Australia and turn the hulking ship around. Lowy, a soccer-loving Czech-born migrant who encapsulated the emigrant dream of success, was an inspirational choice, even if he initially needed convincing to take on the burden. The now-septuagenarian businessman had bitter memories of his time in the sport in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the club he controlled, Sydney City, was a dominant force in the newly established National Soccer League. Lowy, weighed down even then by the internal politicking, wrangling and self-interest, walked away from the game he loved, and it was touch and go whether he could be persuaded to return. But a request from the prime minister is powerful motivation, and Lowy said he was ready to take on the new challenge and become chairman of Soccer Australia. He brought with him a high-profile slate of candidates for election to the board, including Melbourne events supremo Ron Walker and advertising guru John Singleton, all with enormous pull in business, commercial and media circles. It looked like a no-brainer, but it was not that simple. While some state federations recognised the inevitable and accepted the need for change, others, including Victoria, took their time to get behind the new high-profile candidates. The so-called "rump board" of Soccer Australia (those who had not resigned or left following the Crawford findings) held firm and forced elections. To the horror of all those desperate for change, it became clear there was no certainty that Lowy and his colleagues were going to win the day. Meetings were held in private rooms, deals were done in the corridors and cafes of hotels near Sydney airport as the horse trading intensified while the election dates loomed. Eventually, common sense prevailed, the old guard stood down and Lowy and his group assumed control. Within months, the old debt-laden Soccer Australia had been killed off and wound up, with a new body, the Australian Soccer Association (which later morphed into Football Federation Australia), being formed. The Federal Government had been true to its promise and delivered a $15 million grant in the shape of a soft loan to help fund the revamp that was so necessary, as the search began began for new executives without any of the old factional loyalties. A handful of staff were retained Socceroos coach Farina, his assistant Arnold and team manager Garry Moretti chief among them. But in the administrative area the winds of change blew fiercely. Lowy, whose presence guaranteed that the top end of town finally would take approaches from soccer seriously, was determined to find the best administrator he could to drive the cultural revolution the game needed. He settled on O'Neill, the former merchant banker and rugby union supremo who had just masterminded the most successful rugby World Cup in history. O'Neill, by his own admission, was an unlikely figure to spearhead the revamp. He openly made it clear that he did not know soccer and that his children were keener on rugby. But, from his days running the Australian Rugby Union, he was acutely aware of the potential the game offered. He voiced publicly what all executives of other sporting codes would acknowledge only privately, that when he was in charge of rugby, he could not believe his luck that the then-soccer administration was so bad. With Lowy's backing, O'Neill ignored the post-Crawford recommendations of an NSL taskforce calling for the establishment of a new league with 10 teams and announced the creation of an eight-team competition, with only one club from each major city in Australia and New Zealand. There were to be minimum capital requirements of $5 million a club much greater than required for the old NSL teams and a raft of other conditions that consortiums bidding for the teams had to satisfy. Crucially, the clubs chosen were to be "broad-based" and capable of attracting the support of the whole community rather than narrow sectarian groups. The successful ones were to be given a five-year guarantee of exclusivity in their region a guarantee O'Neill argued was necessary for the new clubs to establish themselves and build supporter loyalty in their market places. The howls of protests from the traditionalists were as loud as they were inevitable, with people querying his knowledge, commitment, understanding and empathy for a sport he knew nothing about. But Lowy knew that O'Neill's proven track record of success would open doors through the commercial sector, and his appointment would make it clear to the media and corporate Australia that this time the soccer revolution was serious. This, after all, was a man who had been one of the architects of the move to professionalise rugby union through the creation of the Super 12 competition, the most significant turning point in the 100-plus year history of that sport. The duo drew up three key objectives. The first was to successfully establish the new domestic competition, to be known as the A-League. The second was to end Australia's international isolationism in world governing body FIFA's tiny Oceania Confederation and move to the burgeoning soccer region of Asia. And the third was to qualify for the World Cup. All three have now been achieved, but as both men said this week, not without a lot of heartache nowhere more so than in the decision to change coaches so close to the World Cup qualifier. That, more than anything else, illustrates the ruthlessness and the pragmatism that have enabled O'Neill and Lowy to generate such success in other fields. "We really worked our butt off to put the structure in, to find enough money to get the right people to build a team to be able to achieve this," Lowy said this week as he reflected on the efforts of the past two-and-a-half years. "There's only one winner and very often it is only by the thickness of a hair. But if you prepare yourself for winning, you can win. The decisions you make sometimes are very, very hard and and you also have some doubts that you are going to make the right decision. "It was a risk (dumping Farina), but whenever you have such a decisive decision to take, you don't know if you are doing the right thing but you feel you are doing the right thing. We were going to appoint someone (Guus Hiddink) who was worth it. There were quite lengthy discussions and negotiations (with Hiddink), trips, anxious nights, telephones, but John delivered." O'Neill echoed his chairman. "Frank and I have taken quite a few risks in the past 18 months, and they have been calculated to achieve the trifecta this year to qualify for the World Cup, to launch the A-League successfully, and the most important strategic move in the history of this game, our integration with Asia, next year. "Those three achievements will secure the long-term future and viability of this game in Australia. I think 2005 will go down as a year to remember (but) we have got to keep our feet on the ground. "We have got a participation level that is the envy of many other sports. We have got an A-League that looks the goods, and we have got a national team that is performing at the very highest level. We are a very serious player now in mainstream sport and I really think our positioning vis-a-vis the other football codes has been substantially enhanced. "I am not saying we are going to be the No. 1 football code in Australia within X number of years, but certainly our chances of achieving that have dramatically improved." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 1.2 million kids a year are victims of human trafficking. Stop slavery. http://us.click.yahoo.com/WpTY2A/izNLAA/yQLSAA/2_TolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> HAPUS BAGIAN EMAIL YG TIDAK PERLU SEBELUM ME-REPLY. ========================================================== Milis Tabloid BOLA Untuk KELUAR DARI MILIS INI. 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