GVE stuff-up is a dark day for the FFA

They are two words that suffuse his business, Westfield, and the working lives of all his employees, whether it be the shopping-centre giant itself, the Lowy Institute for International Policy or the FFA.

What does it mean?

In a business sense, basically checking and checking and checking until you can check no more that something is what it purports to be and is worth proceeding ahead with, such as an investment or takeover.

It can also apply to checking the bona fides of an employment candidate.

So what on earth happened at the FFA when Gary van Egmond walked through the door?

Late on Friday, TWG revealed that the former Newcastle Jets manager, who the week before had been appointed assistant national under-17s coach and head coach at the Australian Institute of Sport, had been dumped by the FFA following meetings between Jets owner, Con Constantine, and the chief executive of the FFA, Ben Buckley.

The FFA apparently withdrew the offer in writing to Jets CEO John Tsatsimas, telling him: “In light of the matter involving Gary van Egmond and his departure from the Newcastle Jets the FFA has withdrawn their offer.”

Van Egmond allegedly assured the FFA during the interview process that he had been “unencumbered” contractually.

According to our information, the FFA then offered to contact Constantine to inform him of their planned offer to employ the coach. Van Egmond persuaded them to hold off, suggesting that he should tell Constantine himself.

On June 28, TWG’s Philip Micallef broke the story. Constantine was not amused at having to learn of it through the media and neither did he find it funny that the FFA should approach a coach firmly contracted to his club with, insists Constantine, no 'out' clause.

And it seems Constantine managed to convince Buckley that the Van Egmond contract had indeed been water tight.

But why, then, didn’t anyone at the FFA check Van Egmond’s contract before he went ahead and committed a football coach’s version of hara-kiri?

With Branko Culina installed as his replacement and Constantine himself declaring the “club has moved on”, there is no future for Van Egmond at the Jets.

The AIS, it was reported Monday morning, has stepped in and offered Van Egmond a role independent of the FFA and any FFA salary. Which is a decent return, given he looked like heading for the unemployment queue on the weekend. But he will be on a vastly reduced salary and his reputation is damaged.

It could be argued Van Egmond let down Newcastle. But equally it could be argued the real villain of the piece is the FFA.

Not only, as Constantine insists during an interview with TWG, did they allegedly not inform the Jets they were interviewing their manager (which would seem a reasonable courtesy to a club that is crucial part of the competition it runs) but, if they didn’t run a fine-toothed comb through Van Egmond’s contract to see if he really was “unencumbered”, they have effectively left him high and dry.

An “FFA spokeswoman” claims: “The real issue here is that Gary van Egmond, who is a former under-17, under-20 and Socceroos player and has the right qualifications to be a coach, had been offered an important national coaching position. One of FFA's objectives is to ensure that home-grown coaches can get into positions like this."

The real issue here is that a national sporting body effectively tried to poach the manager of a club that belongs to a competition it runs, ostensibly accepted that he was free to resign his club job when technically he wasn’t and, on from what we’ve witnessed in the past couple of days, cut him loose the moment it realised it could be hit with a lawsuit.

Dutchy has emerged out of this sorry saga rather unflatteringly but it’s the FFA that really need to take a long hard look at themselves.

For an organisation that usually gets things right, this is one bad result that won’t bear repeating.

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