Cup concept takes FFA back to the future

What is new is the fact former Soccer Australia boss David Hill, a well-known supporter of Football Federation Australia, has come out in the press and declared a 
“knockout FA Cup-style competition would be something clearly in the best interests of football” and “is something that can't really be argued with”.

This from a man who famously wanted to ban ethnic logos from the National Soccer League.

Near a decade on from the dissolving of the  NSL, Sydney United and Melbourne Knights still have the Croatian “tablecloth” on their logos.

In the New South Wales Premier League, Bonnyrigg White Eagles has a badge like the coat of arms of Serbia. In the Victorian Premier League Dandelong Thunder might as well be wearing the flag of Albania as their kit.

In both comps there are enough Macedonian-based clubs with references to the Vergina Sun in their livery to provide electricity free of charge to a large metropolitan suburb for a year.

The imprint of our migrant communities in our state-based football competitions is never going to go away. And it shouldn’t. It’s part of the fabric of the game and the FFA should stop pretending “old soccer” is extinct and just embrace it with open arms, in so doing, in the words of Branko Culina, “[Giving] life to the clubs who have been the heart and soul of football in this country for 50 years. This would be a chance to unite everyone in football.''

He’s absolutely right. Too many “old soccer” fans have felt alienated from the A-League for too long. But equally there has to be some understanding from NSWPL, VPL and other clubs with those ethnic associations that any undue carry-on – flares, provocation, chanting of nationalistic anthems and the like – is not acceptable.

If they want to take part in an “Australia Cup” or whatever it might be called, they must give that guarantee. That is what the FFA is afraid of and frankly, based on past form, they have every right to be.

But the opportunity presented by such a Cup to really unite Australia’s disparate football tribes – from the Chinese kid supporting Sydney FC to the old Italian fart with his cane watching Marconi – must take precedence over indulging that fear.

The disconnect between old soccer and new football remains the one great failure of the present administration and a Cup is its one available opportunity to ameliorate it once and for all.

The FFA doesn’t need to apologise to anyone for where the game from.We all know football was an ethnic game. It still is. But it’s also every Australian’s game and that is the message a Cup, more than any other initiative, could send to FIFA’s executive committee seven months out from decision time for the hosting rights of the 2018 and 2002 World Cups.

To take the game forward, it’s time for the FFA to go back to the future.