Australia

Football in Australia is doomed to be a marginal sport unless its leaders show vision | Simon Hill

13-Jul-2020 17:30:27 | Guardian

After many false dawns, football in Australia must finally realise its vast potential by learning from past failures

To understand the latest existential crisis facing football in Australia, one must start at its genesis, which strangely coincided with the game’s highest point in recent memory. In January 2015, the Socceroos lifted the Asian Cup on home soil. The team became darlings of the nation and their coach, Ange Postecoglou, was elevated to something approaching sainthood. The Matildas were about to embark upon a Fifa Women’s World Cup campaign, at which they would reach the quarter-finals - to this day the best result of any senior national team.

And yet, despite it all, trouble was brewing. Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy had presided over the domestic game’s remarkable transformation, but the governing body’s messy 2010 bid for the 2022 men’s World Cup was still fresh in the mind, and the billionaire businessman’s style of rule pitted him against the A-League clubs who wanted a voice. Lowy was due to stand down in November 2015, as per constitution.

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Simon Hill was chief football commentator at Fox Sports from 2006 until 2020.