Bonita Mersiades

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. ^{[1] [2]}

Football administration and FIFA reform

In the late 1990s, Mersiades was team manager for the Australian national football team. In 2001 Mersiades was part of a delegation that lobbied Frank Lowy to return to football administration. ^[3]

In 2007, Mersiades was appointed Head of Corporate and Public Affairs with the Football Federation Australia. ^{[1] [4]} She left on 24 January 2010.

She is a FIFA whistleblower ^[5] and has written and spoken extensively on the need for reform of the world governing body of football, FIFA. In November 2014, ^[6] she was identified as a whistleblower in the summary report of the Garcia Report. She was one of the featured people in the 2016 documentary film Dirty Games ^[7] by Benjamin Best.

Mersiades became co-founder of an advocacy group campaigning for independent reform of FIFA, #NewFIFANow along with British MP, Damian Collins, and Australian-Swiss businessman, Jaimie Fuller. #NewFIFANow held their first forum at the European Parliament in Brussels ^[8] in January 2015, in where Mersiades spoke along with Harold Mayne-Nicholls and Lord David Triesman.

In 2020, former politician Robert Cavallucci was hired on nearly double the pay of the last chief executive of Football Queensland at almost A$320,000 a year. The CEO was recruited via a two-month consultancy that earned the president of the board Ben Richardson $44,000. ^[9] Mersiades is being sued by Football Queensland (FQ) chairman Ben Richardson and its CEO, Robert Cavallucci, for a total of $800,000 over an article she published in January this year on her website Football Today. ^[9]

Corporate affairs

In the early 2000s, Mersiades worked with the government company National Food Industry Strategy. ^[10] Mersiades later worked as National Public Affairs Manager for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. ^{[11] [12]} She previously worked in the senior executive service with the federal public sector in Canberra and Brisbane.

Writing

Mersiades in 1998 ghost-wrote a biography of Australian footballer Frank Farina. ^[13] In 2004, Mersiades edited an anthology of stories by women in the food industry. ^[14] Mersiades was a contributor to football fansite ozfootball.net. ^[15] and has written for Sports Business Insider, The Guardian, World Football Insider and others. She is publisher of an Australian curated football news site. ^[16]

In 2018, Mersiades published a book titled "Whatever It Takes: The Inside Story of the FIFA Way", an investigative piece detailing the bidding process into the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively, and what ultimately led to Australia's failed World Cup bid. ^{[17] [18]}

References

1. "Bid team". Football Federation Australia. Archived from the original on 17 June 2009. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
2. "Key Contacts". Football Federation Australia. Archived from the original on 30 December 2010. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
3. "Can one man save soccer?". The Sydney Morning Herald . 12 April 2003. Archived from the original on 16 June 2009. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
4. Fink, Jesse. ""Old Soccer" gets its due". soccerphile.com. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
5. whistleblower
6. "Bonita Mersiades: How my life changed in 2014". The Daily Telegraph . Archived from the original on 2 February 2018.
7. "Dirty Games – das Geschäft mit dem Sport - W-film".
8. January 2015
9. David Mark (14 August 2020). "Football advocate Bonita Mersiades wins support from former Socceroos over defamation case". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved 25 November 2020.
10. "Workshop to discuss food profits". ABC Online . Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 17 March 2004. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
11. "Blood processing could move offshore". The Sydney Morning Herald . 19 April 2006. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
12. Robotham, Julie; Metherell, Mark (8 March 2007). "Blood bank battles to meet demand for antibody therapy". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 16 June 2009.
13. Farina, Frank; Mersiades, Bonita (c. 1998). My world is round : Frank Farina a personal playing history / as told to Bonita Mersiades. Milton, Queensland: Vox Peritus. ISBN   0-646-35946-0.
14. Mersiades, Bonita, ed. (2004). Women of taste : a collection of real life stories of women in the food industry / edited by Bonita Mersiades. Kingston, ACT: National Food Industry Strategy. ISBN   1-920988-00-9.
15. Mersiades, Bonita. "Australia 1 - New Zealand 0". ozfootball.net. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
16. "Home". footballtoday.com.au.
17. "Why I wrote the inside story of the FIFA Way | FootballToday.news". footballtoday.news. Archived from the original on 14 February 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
18. Mersiades, Bonita (2018). Whatever it takes : the inside story of the FIFA way. Cheyenne, Wyoming: Powderhouse Press. ISBN   9780999643105. OCLC   1025335856.