The new FFA CEO, James Johnson, starts in the job today and here are five issues that will help set the framework for success

The scenario James Johnson faces starting in his new role today as CEO of Football Federation Australia could not be more different from that faced by his predecessor, David Gallop, more than seven years ago.

In 2012, the game was still ruled by Frank Lowy; the A-League had had its best start to the season in its then eight-year history; participation numbers were on the increase (even before Sport Australia started the double-counting in all sports); a $1.5 million surplus was achieved in financial year 2012; and there was a significant ‘war chest’ from the new TV and digital rights deal.

Johnson faces a game that is as Balkanised as ever without the iron fist of the senior Lowy in control (it was Balkanised then, but people were largely treated like mushrooms – in the dark and kept quiet); the A-League is, from all reports, limping along if not on-the-field then certainly off it; thankfully, participation numbers are holding strong – something football has nearly always managed to do with or without the intervention of the football bureaucracy; Gallop ended his tenure with a modest $435,000 surplus; and as for the much-heralded TV rights deal of 2016? Almost dead in the water according to most sources.

On the plus side, Johnson knows football at home and internationally, so there’s no learning curve for him as there was for Gallop and his two predecessors, Ben Buckley and John O’Neill.

There are many specific football issues for Johnson to deal with – the A-League/FFA separation, national second division start-up, elite player development, ensuring participation doesn’t tank, facilities development and more. However, we've come up with the top five impact issues that will be critical to, and set the framework for, achieving long term success.

1. Restructure – and clean out

It’s the old joke that a new CEO always has a restructure, and there are competing theories about whether it should be done straight away or after a period of around six months.

Johnson must not waste time on this one. He needs to do it quickly.

Not only does he need an organisational structure that’s better suited to FFA’s new, more focussed responsibilities, but he needs a clean out. We have previously written about members of the senior management team who have been in their roles too long, and some of them still remain. But eventually it needs to go beyond the senior management team also.

Moving on some of the individuals would also help bring ‘closure’ to some of the key stakeholders – such as A-League clubs and state Federations, not to mention media and fans – around matters that have been allowed to fester for some years.

2. Sort out the Board (and the Congress too but that might be a bridge too far)

One of the things that the Frank Lowy Board was infamous for was not actually functioning like a Board. David Gallop tried to address this by presenting a paper on what the Board should do differently, but it was given short shrift by Lowy senior. (Many say this was the point that Gallop realised he should just strap himself in for the ride and enjoy the pay-check, if nothing else – somewhat like Buckley did before him).

While the Board under Chris Nikou is thought to be far more structured and collegiate in its approach to decision-making and governance, and Nikou has been described by many stakeholders as consultative, as we have written previously, there are many ways in which the Board’s performance can be improved.

Of course, the behaviour of Heather Reid springs to mind, but that’s not all (and more on that another day).

The fact is, under the FFA Constitution, the only people who can change the Board is the FFA Congress. Let’s be clear who the Congress are:

1. nine state federation chairpersons

2. nine Australian A-League clubs (Western United and Macarthur FC are not yet members)

3. one PFA representative

4. ten members of the unelected, unrepresentative Women’s Council – all of whom are aligned to other members of Congress one way or the other.

In other words, as the FFA Board look around the Board table at their colleagues, they can only reflect on the 29 people who put them there – and why.

However, on the assumption that Johnson can only work with the Constitution and Congress that football is saddled with, then perhaps the new Board member, Robyn FitzRoy, who is a governance expert can help. (Let’s hope she’s done a crash course in football politics before she starts!).

3. Win the 2023 World Cup

Joining with New Zealand for the 2023 World Cup is our best option for winning it because, as I have previously written, even big bad FIFA feels a bit guilty about little old Oceania.

The game – rightly or wrongly – sees getting the Women’s World Cup as the panacea for getting the women’s game rightly on to the pedestal to which it belongs. It’s debatable whether a turbo boost of a World Cup will actually achieve that in the long term. Some will argue that it will on the basis of cost-benefit analyses and ‘brand Australia’; there are those are not as certain.

However, more concerning about the Women’s World Cup is how it will be won.

Nikou himself has said on a number of occasions that he will not proceed with the bid if the President of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Shaikh Salman, doesn’t support it, especially as Japan is also bidding.

Unfortunately, that would be the same Shaikh Salman who has been accused since 2015 by almost every civil rights group in Bahrain, and every decent football journalist in the UK media, and Simon Hill, and me as co-founder of a football governance campaign group, and taken up last year by human rights activist Craig Foster, and Chairman of the PFA and Executive Director of the World Players' Union Brendan Schwab – not to mention Hakeem Al-Araibi – of human rights violations.

It is also the same Shaikh Salman whose numbers man is the most notorious man in world sport, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Sabah of Kuwait – former FIFA Council member and still an IOC Council member.

And if we don’t get it, don’t turn around and blame FIFA or Salman or Al-Sabah – as that’s the murky world of international football politics. We don’t want to see Nikou and Johnson do a ‘Lowy and Buckley’ by crying crocodile tears after they missed out, pretending they didn’t realise, when it was bleeding obvious what was going on beforehand.

However, putting all that aside, I know better than anyone that such issues are only of concern to a handful of people (I am one), who believe that sport should stand apart from deals, counter-deals and double deals, with decisions based on merit.

No doubt, if we do win, it would be seen as a very good news story indeed for the game by almost everybody and would mean the FFA Board and Johnson had no excuses in ensuring the women's game exceeds beyond our wildest dreams.

4. Show us the money!

Johnson needs to find some sponsors – and fast.

In recent weeks, the prediction by Stephen Lowy and his friends that sponsors would disappear if he was turfed out as Chairman is apparently coming to fruition, with Caltex [Socceroos], NAB [across the board] and Aldi [Mini Roos] all exiting. Hyundai [across the board but predominantly A-League] is also said to be unhappy with the issues surrounding the Alen Stajcic sacking.

This is exacerbated by the continuing rumours that Fox Sports’ management would like to wash their hands of the sport entirely. According to the rumour mill, the reason the FFA/A-League separation hasn’t happened yet is because lawyers realised there was a giant hole in the Agreement with Fox Sports which might have given them a reason to leave the TV deal, impacting primarily the A-League but also FFA. No-one in an official position will confirm the accuracy of this view, but it might help explain the delay in formal separation.

It would also help explain the recent floating of the idea of returning the A-League to a winter season (which was originally the case in the NSL). While many are scared about that thought because of the other football codes, and it does raise a logistical issue in relation to availability of ground and facilities, a potential sponsor such as Optus might see such a move as a worthwhile investment to help keep their current EPL-motivated subscribers as subscribers for 12 months of the year.

The issue for Johnson here is the extent to which TV rights for the Socceroos and Matildas, and possibly the FFA Cup and a national second division, are tied to the TV rights for the A-League and W-League.

If we accept the Stephen Lowy suggestion that ASX-listed companies make their sponsorship decision based purely on being ‘mates’ with someone, then FFA faces a challenge.

It is only when Johnson can address the funding black hole, and sustain such funding, that the game can start serious consideration about its ever-reliance on what I term the 'great big player tax', that is, player registration costs.

5. Be seen and heard

We desperately need someone so speak up for the game, and this is the role of a CEO (not the Chairman or the Board) – within the football community, in the media, with corporate Australia, within international football powerbrokers and with governments.

That doesn’t mean being ‘JJ Everywhere' – that’s just not possible – but Johnson will earn an awful lot of brownie points, and set himself apart from his predecessors, if he speaks up for the game.

Of course, being “a game of opinions”, it’s not possible to please all the people all the time – and Twitter can certainly amplify the varied opinions of the cross-section of the football community known as #SokkahTwitter- but if 51 per cent of us agree most of the time, Johnson will be doing well.

More to the point, such advocacy needs to start making a difference with the way the media see us and treat us, with how many doors of corporate Australia are opened, and how well governments at local, state and federal level understand the needs and funding inequalities so clearly evident in the sport.

One thing’s for sure – it will be noted if Johnson is out there being a champion of the game, rather than sitting behind a desk in the ivory tower that FFA has become over the past decade and a half. There’s a long way to go in reuniting the game, but listening and talking will help enormously.

We wish him well.

Picture (main): James Johnson in his FIFA role at an AFC meeting (via FIFA).

Picture (inset): Former FFA, AFC and FIFA Executive member Moya Dodd with Shaikh Salman and Sheikh Al-Sabah (via Dodd).