Football Federation Australia chairman Chris Nikou had a glorious chance to show a congregation of football lovers at the iconic Jamberoo pub that is better known as the Johnny Warren Museum that the new administration would shed the common perception that the more things change in our game, the more they stay the same.
And he missed the opportunity.
Nikou came to power four months ago on the back of a bitter revolt that ousted the previous administration led by the unpopular Steven Lowy.
When Nikou was asked for a reason for throwing his support behind Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa's bid to become Asian Football Confederation president for a third term and why he did not abstain from voting he clearly said he and his fellow south-east Asian football members were obliged to do so.
"Abstaining was not an option, we were required to cast a vote," Nikou said at the Football Writers' Festival.
The AFF council meeting in Siem Reap in Cambodia two weeks ago was attended by an AFC representative whose mere presence might have influenced the 'vote' which actually was not a secret ballot but an open show of hands.
Of course, there is no such thing in the AFF statutes that obliges its members to vote and when challenged by the floor in Jamberoo Nikou expanded on his earlier statement.
"We had to show solidarity with ASEAN football," he explained.
"Sheikh Salman has been good to us in the past. I had to look after the interests of Australian football."
To me Nikou's justification for supporting Sheikh Salman did not absolve him and the FFA of their failure to make a moral stand against the autocratic Bahraini ruler for his role in the wrongful incarceration in Bangkok of footballer Hakeem al-Araibi, who has since been released and become an Australian citizen.
And it did not let him off the hook for earlier trying to mislead the audience.
Even if given the benefit of the doubt, why could he not be straight and tell it the way it is in the first place?
Why try to pull the wool over genuine football aficionados in much the same way as the previous administration often did?
Why, after the controversial sacking of Matildas coach Alen Stajcic two months ago, did Nikou persist with telling the game's constituents only what he thought they needed to be told?
This is the sort of twisted mentality that has put the game's administration offside with its constituents.
Football fans around the country will accept the odd faux pas from the FFA if it is made in good faith but they will not put up with being treated like gullible customers by administrators who, remember, are there to serve the game not their own self-interests or ambitions.
The new board were put in place on a platform of reform and trust and, to be fair, work has already started in several areas.
But unless FFA can convince the game's disgruntled stakeholders that it is fair dinkum about its modus operandi, we'll be talking about the same issues over and over again.
