The Independent Soccer Review Committee published a report in 2003 on the governance of soccer in Australia popularly called the Crawford Report. The committee was announced by the then Minister for Sport Rod Kemp and the Australian Parliament after extensive media publicity surrounding alleged mismanagement and corruption in the previous governing body, Soccer Australia. The impetus for reform was more acute after the public had witnessed the spectacle of the 2002 FIFA World Cup which contrasted with the near-bankrupt state of the local game.
A series of incidents highlighted the critical state of Soccer in Australia:
(taken from the published report).
The stated objectives of the review were published as follows:
Despite initial attempts to scuttle the reform process, the majority of reforms and recommendations have been implemented by the National and State Football Associations. In particular, resistance to reforms at the National level were largely destroyed by the threat of the Australian Sports Commission to withhold funding to Soccer Australia. Restructuring of the governance of the Associations has led to a more democratic approach and the enfranchisement of groups not previously represented (e.g. referees, women's players, etc.). In more substantial terms, it led to the resignation of the Soccer Australia board en masse. [1] The replacement body, the Football Federation of Australia was established with a board led by Frank Lowy. [2] The decision to establish a new governing body was made after the then Australian Soccer Association, now Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy stated that the state of the existing governing body was not repairable and that there was no reasonable prospects of Soccer Australia ever being in a state to be reconstituted. [3]
The Frank Lowy led board completely replaced the organisation with a new one called Football Federation Australia It has achieved financial stability. It has acquired high profile sponsors including Foxtel and Hyundai. The relaunched domestic competition (the Hyundai A-League) can be seen as a by-product of the recommendations of the Independent Soccer Review Committee's report to change the form and organisation of domestic competition within Australia. [4] Lowy controlled the A-League and Football Federation Australia until 2018. Having ensured his son Steven Lowy would take over the role in 2015 following his term limit enforced exit, Steven quit after a protracted conflict which culminated in the Lowy family and their supporters failing to stop the movement to split the A-League into an English Premier League style structure independent from the federation, that had one stage caused FIFA to threaten a normalisation committee. [5]
The Fédération internationale de football association is the international governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded in 1904 to oversee international competition among the national associations of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, its membership now comprises 211 national associations. These national associations must also be members of one of the six regional confederations into which the world is divided: CAF (Africa), AFC, UEFA (Europe), CONCACAF, OFC (Oceania), and CONMEBOL.
The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) is one of the six continental confederations of international association football. The OFC has 13 members, 11 of which are full members and two which are associate members not affiliated with FIFA. It promotes the game in Oceania and allows the member nations to qualify for the FIFA World Cup.
Football Australia is the governing body of soccer, futsal, and beach soccer within Australia, headquartered in Sydney. Although the first governing body of the sport was founded in 1911, Football Australia in its current form was only established in 1961 as the Australian Soccer Federation. It was later reconstituted in 2003 as the Australian Soccer Association before adopting the name of Football Federation Australia in 2005. In contemporary identification, a corporate decision was undertaken to institute that name to deliver a "more united football" in a deliberation from the current CEO, James Johnson. The name was changed to Football Australia in December 2020.
John Norman Warren, MBE, OAM was an Australian soccer player, coach, administrator, writer and broadcaster. He was known as Captain Socceroo for his passionate work to promote the game in Australia. The award for the best player in the A-League is named the Johnny Warren Medal in his honour.
A-League Men is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competition for the sport. A-League Men was established in 2004 as the A-League by the Football Federation Australia (FFA) as a successor to the National Soccer League (NSL) and competition commenced in August 2005. The league is currently administered by the Australian Professional Leagues (APL), contested by twelve teams; eleven based in Australia and one based in New Zealand. The men's, women's and youth leagues have now been brought together under a unified A-Leagues banner.
Sir Frank P. Lowy is an Australian-Israeli businessman of Jewish Slovak-Hungarian origins and the former long-time chairman of Westfield Corporation, a global shopping centre company with US$29.3 billion of assets under management in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe. In June 2018 Westfield Corporation was acquired by French company Unibail-Rodamco.
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The Senegalese Football Federation is the governing body of football in Senegal. It is based in the capital of Senegal, Dakar, and was founded in 1960. The FSF aided in the development of football in Senegal, specifically for its professional and amateur leagues, youth and women's football and academies. Currently the FSF oversees the professional leagues, run by the Ligue Sénégalaise de Football Professionnel (LSFP) and fully organises the national teams, youth, women's and amateur football and all football administration.
Soccer, also known as football, is the most played outdoor club sport in Australia, and ranked in the top ten for television audience as of 2015. The national governing body of the sport is Football Australia (FA), which until 2019, organised the A-League Men, A-League Women, and still organises the Australia Cup, as well as the men's and women's national teams. The FA comprises nine state and territory member federations, which oversee the sport within their respective region.
The Australia men's national soccer team represents Australia in international men's soccer. Officially nicknamed the Socceroos, the team is controlled by the governing body for soccer in Australia, Football Australia, which is affiliated with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the regional ASEAN Football Federation (AFF).
St George FC, commonly called Saints or Budapest, is a semi-professional Australian soccer club based in the St George district in the south of Sydney. The club was founded by Hungarian immigrants in 1957 as Budapest Club and by 1965 was renamed to St. George-Budapest Club.
Bonita Mersiades is an Australian corporate affairs practitioner, sports administrator and writer. Until 24 January 2010, Mersiades was Head of Corporate and Public Affairs with the Football Federation Australia and was also a member of the Senior Management Team for the Australian 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup bid.
The Expansion of the A-League Men is the ongoing process of establishing new clubs in the A-League Men. The A-League Men was established to replace the NSL as the top soccer division in the Australian league system and is the only fully professional league in the country. It was founded in 2004 with eight teams commencing competition in 2005 and has since expanded into new markets across Australia and New Zealand. The league is currently contested by 12 teams, although a total of 15 have competed at some stage in its short history.
Women's soccer, also known as women's football, is a popular sport in Australia. The sport has a high level of participation in the country both recreational and professional. Football Australia is the national governing body of the sport in Australia, organising the A-League Women, the Australian women's national team, and the nine state governing bodies of the game, among other duties. Women's participation of modern soccer has been recorded since the early 1920s. It has since become one of Australia's most popular women's team sports.
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Steven Mark Lowy is the former co-Chief Executive Officer of Westfield Corporation, a leading global shopping centre company that was acquired by French company Unibail-Rodamco in 2018 in what was one of the largest transactions in Australian corporate history. His principal activities now focus on investments associated with the Lowy family’s private company, Lowy Financial Group, as well as a number of philanthropic and community roles including as Chairman of the World Board of Trustees of Keren Heysod-United Israel Appeal and President of the Hakoah Club.
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