Summary of March 2018 AAFC roadshow Melbourne edition

Introductory remarks
Derisory as I am of the idea of promotion and relegation in Australia, attending the Association of Australian Football Clubs roadshow event in Melbourne last Thursday seemed like a no-brainer. This meeting was meant to be held in Sports House in Albert Park, but a text message received while I was on the train up there said that a burst water pipe had necessitated the relocation of the event to the South Melbourne FC social club.

Of course. What else could they have done at such short notice?

Nursing my gin and tonic I had not intended to tweet much about the event, but rather take some brief notes on my phone (I'd not bothered to bring pen and paper as I do for say, South Melbourne AGMs), but after getting a polite request and checking that I had enough battery left on my phone, I decided to give it a go. I did note that Shouty Mike was also in the room, and though long since blocked by him on Twitter, I guessed he would tweet at least some of what was happening on the night, so there's always that if anyone wants an alternative view of proceedings.

There were also summary notes taken by freelancer/interested onlooker Matthew Galea, if one cares to go back far enough in his time-line, and there has been a positive overview of the night by journalist Jonathan Howcroft on Football Nation Radio. Also on Football Nation Radio is an interview with Tom Kalas.

Through my limited internet trawling, there appears to have been very little comment made about any of the roadshow meetings outside the Melbourne event. I'm not sure why that is the case - was the roadshow not publicised well enough, or is there just inherently more interest in these matters in Melbourne? One thing which came across during the Melbourne meeting is that there were at least slightly different messages given to different AAFC constituencies. This makes sense because, as I'll reiterate later, each state's experience of the National Premier Leagues, let alone Australian soccer, is quite different from each other.

The crowd built up to about 40-50 people, mostly in casual (non-club) gear, with a few exceptions. I recognised (and learned over the course of the night) that there were representatives present from South Melbourne (Andrew Mesourouni and Leo Athanasakis), Northcote, Heidelberg, Goulburn Valley Suns, Bendigo City(!), and North Geelong, but not much more beyond that. There were some non-club representatives - that is ordinary fans, and one bloke from local Greek media who I see around a lot but don't know the name of nor who he works for - but otherwise the audience seemed to be mostly committee members of various NPL teams.

It is interesting that more ordinary fans didn't show up. That being said, AAFC only has a couple hundred more followers on Twitter than I do (I have no idea about their reach on Facebook), so maybe this was actually about as good a turnout as one could expect. Indeed, we were told on at least a couple of occasions that the Melbourne meeting had the biggest attendance of any of the AAFC roadshow sessions up until that point, with only Newcastle yet to come. Why was that the case? I suppose it helps that Victoria has one of the larger NPL setups in terms of numbers of clubs, at over 30, and more NPL teams means more people likely to turn up.

(As an aside, when AAFC representatives were asked who were the Victorian NPL teams not under the AAFC umbrella, it was noted that Whittlesea Ranges and Sunshine George Cross were among them. Ranges I could understand, I guess, from their Victory/sponsor connections - though Moreland Zebras/Victory man Joe Mirabella was in attendance on the night - but the Georgies one has me a bit stumped to be honest.)

There's also a continuity in recent times in terms of Victorian clubs getting together to fight the establishment, namely, the (mostly) united front by leading and aspirational clubs against Football Federation Victoria's original NPL framework. Indeed, two of the key figures in that campaign - Tom Kalas and Nick Galatas - are now key members of AAFC. There's probably other factors for the larger turnout too, like the more obvious seething antipathy in Victoria for Football Federation Australia compared to other states, which would extend to the general distrust of New South Wales' dominance of Australian soccer. Neither do Victorian clubs, even the powerful ones, have anything like the facilities (on field or off) of the wealthier New South Wales clubs. Add in existing under the Aussie rules hegemony, and I guess everyone feels a bit more vulnerable than they'd like to admit.

(As another aside, FFV president - and according to one source, also currently acting FFV CEO - Kimon Taliadoros was absent, due to a competing engagement. FFV had some representation at the meeting in the form of Gary Cole, recently hired by FFV as "Manager, Football Strategy and Special Projects". While an FFA representative attended AAFC's Queensland roadshow meeting, it was speculated out loud that FFA were not likely to attend a Victorian meeting due to the hostility they were likely to receive from members of the audience.)

Representing AAFC on the night on the front table/panel of sorts were Dean Hennessey, current Pascoe Vale technical director, ex-coach and TD of a few places; Tom Kalas, ex-South Melbourne board member, interim AAFC chairman during parts of 2017 and frequent spokesman for the group; Nick Galatas, South Melbourne chairman until very recently; and AAFC chairman Rabieh Krayem, one time Northern Fury chairman. Oddly, of those four only Krayem offered any significant contribution to the night's proceedings, with Krayem at times sharing the stage or delegating proceedings to AAFC treasurer Christo Patsan of Northern New South Wales.

From then to now
The evening began with an address by Rabieh Krayem, giving an overview of AAFC's progress and success up until now. He outlined the reasons for the establishment of AAFC, a summary of AAFC's rise to (relative) prominence, and noted the ongoing unity of AAFC member clubs. This theme of unity was returned to throughout the night, out of a certain degree of truth no doubt, but also in its own way acting as a polite reminder to AAFC member clubs that anything which would undermine that unity would be detrimental to their collective aims.

But as with so much of what AAFC is about, it's about adding a positive spin to everything that they do; thus extolling AAFC's ability to unite so many disparate soccer clubs, and celebrating an unprecedented collective effort in "putting football ahead of self-interest". This was reiterated by comments such as the unity of the AAFC clubs apparently confusing FFA. Added to the repetition of the need for continued unity were the virtues of focus and patience; not everything would happen at once, and the keenness for reform from NPL clubs needed to be properly directed.

Krayem went on to list the three broadest issues which the NPL clubs suffer under and which AAFC hopes to fix:

1. Unsustainable NPL model. 
2. The high costs of junior soccer. 
3. The limitations on growth for NPL clubs under the current system.

Some of these issues were covered in relative brevity, either by the night's two main hosts, or during the workshop period of the meeting. As best as I can recall, no specific details were offered in terms of fixing points 1 and 2, but point 3 was addressed in detailing what AAFC hoped to achieve as part of its aim to help create a truly national second tier.

The Championship/Second Tier discussion
After announcing its initial framework for a second tier model (among other demands) last year (see my take here; or the guest point-counterpoint here), AAFC announced at the roadshow meeting that it is in the process of creating a working model group for the second development stage (out of three) for its second tier/Championship model. The intention is to finish this stage by June, and seeing as how AAFC met its own October 2017 deadline for releasing its original/stage one proposal, we can be optimistic that we'll see the results of stage two sometime in mid-year.

Sceptical as I am about many facets of this plan, one development (or the absence of) I was interested in seeing was whether other relevant Australian soccer parties - federations, players, etc - would become involved in trying to develop a second tier model. And this is where one of the more interesting - and as it turns out, also contentious - parts of the meeting took place. AAFC claimed that it would be working with FFV, Football New South Wales, and Professional Footballers Australia to develop the model; indeed, that those three groups would also provide funding for the necessary research. Apart from the (however vague) political vote of confidence that such a collaboration implies, the news that there would be pooled funding for the working model group caught the attention of a few onlookers both at the venue and among those observing online.

Later on though there emerged conflicting reports about whether FFV had actually agreed to provide funding for the working model group, as opposed to merely providing moral and/or logistical support. In communications I had with different people, from the AAFC side there was insistence that FFV (and even FFA) had committed to funding the working model group, while two sources from the FFV side insisted to me that no financial commitment had been made by FFV. Confusing things further, from the AAFC side I later received "clarification" that AAFC was still in discussions with the different groups about the possibility of funding the working model group.

When combined with the suggestion, made at the Adelaide meeting, that AAFC member clubs would be asked to contribute financially to the working model group, there seem to be mixed messages floating around about how the working model group will be funded.

Not doubting Paul but FYI - at the Adelaide stop of the roadshow it was suggested member clubs of AAFC would be asked to contribute to cover this instead. I think it was $500 pa per club up from the token $100 it cost to first register w AAFC. All attending seemed to agree to it.

— Mathew Doolan (@mdoolsy) March 8, 2018

So far, AAFC has apparently spent $90,000 on research - originating I assume from a mix of club donations, but principally from the generosity of some of its wealthier patrons. It's an expensive business getting together not just the conceptual framework for your new competition, but also putting together the mechanics of how you claim it will all work.

It's also necessary, not just from a "prove the doubters wrong" aspect, but also from a "putting in a competing framework to the only one that currently exists" aspect. When the NSL Taskforce Report was released many years ago (perhaps the most overlooked document in Australian soccer history, because everyone keeps focusing on the Crawford Report, the latter of which was related to governance, not the league), it had the added heft of being based on the research of the PFA, at the time "the most stable and cohesive institution within the game" according to Joe Gorman. The PFA model is what the A-League was born from, albeit not in its pure form; nothing is ever taken straight the shelf, much like the FFA governance model wasn't a direct lift from the Crawford Report.

The main point however is that long ago the one prominent organisation in Australian soccer that had not been sullied by Australian soccer's reputation of mismanagement and corruption was the only one that came up with a plan, funded by itself. In a moment when confidence in Australian soccer's leading institutions is once again at a low ebb, AAFC has the opportunity to do something similar to what the PFA did in the past, by transitioning from being a fledgling advocacy group to something which has its own intellectual property in the form of a firm plan - not just ideas - about how to improve the game in Australia. In an environment where the best ideas anyone else can come up with to rejuvenate the A-League and by extension Australian soccer are "maybe we should add a couple of teams, maybe..." and "all we really need to do is have an independent A-League" - as if either of those alone would be anything other than short term solutions - a bold, costed, detailed and logical plan would stand out.

If some observers of my Twitter feed were upset by the suggestion that FFV and/or FNSW would use "junior fees" to pursue the dreams of a collection of rebellious/ambitious/arrogant clubs, it wasn't just those people that had their jimmies rustled by information provided during this segment. When a slide was put up showing a comparison of current NPL club costs compared to possible Championship model costs, some in the audience were a bit stunned by the figures of current NPL costs, thinking them too high, especially in terms of wages.

The broad range offered by the AAFC's slide claimed that current player wage bills were up to $800,000 a season; the exclamation from some in the crowd was that most clubs would be paying, at best, half that amount. Along with questions about how AAFC got those figures, reasonable comment was made from the floor that this section of the presentation should have included "bands" of spending to more accurately reflect current spending trends. And I agree that there should have been more detailed information about how many clubs were in different wage spending bands, (as well as other costs) and that this data should have also included a breakdown of these details by state, so AAFC members and interested onlookers could see a more complete economic picture of Australian soccer at the second tier level.

Of course, this means more clubs opening themselves up to the kind of scrutiny that few clubs at this level would be comfortable with, but what price the greater good?

With costs, including wages, obviously rising across the board for a national second tier model, it felt to me for a moment that for some clubs the penny may have finally dropped about how realistic participation in a national second tier would actually be for them. But then the discussion moved on to whether second tier teams would be obliged to spend that much, or whether they'd be allowed to get away with spending a lot less. And therein lies one of the problems to be worked out among those arguing for a national second tier. There is a very broad spectrum of people discussing things like a second tier and associated reforms, ranging from a complete laissez-faire approach to something much more regulated, but which side of that ideological ledger will AAFC's second tier model prioritise?

Among those who criticise the A-League, much of that criticism centres around things like the salary cap, the salary floor, minimum player wages, and the assortment of other measures which see the A-League operate as a cartel like the top competitions of the other major Australian football codes. (This includes what might be called the Rolls Royce model around fan experience, stadiums, etc). Apart from disagreeing with that cartel approach from the position of "it's not how a real soccer economy or system works" or "it doesn't replicate the global standard", the argument also claims that the cartel approach entrenches mediocrity. Teams that struggle on the park have less incentive to immediately do better in order to secure their position in the league; successful teams have artificial barriers preventing them from actually putting out the best product that they can, because they must be kept in relative check with all the struggling teams

Cost is one thing, revenue quite another. Of course a lot of the doubters are wondering where the money will come from, especially as costs increase. While some potential national second tier clubs are reasonably well placed to cope with the wage increases (and some will have the benefit of less travel than potential competitors), there will still be significantly increased costs which will need to be covered. In the discussion which reiterated the preferred administrative model for the hypothetical national second tier, there was also some discussion about pooled revenue and profit sharing. Uneducated as I am about these matters, it nevertheless seems to imply a certain degree of cartel discipline, and thus a step removed from a no-holds-barred spending model. It also says something about the fact that AAFC believes that there will be profit to be shared.

But where someone like me sees problems, AAFC sees opportunities. AAFC is frequently on record with talking about how much money is generated by its member clubs for the Australian soccer ecosystem (some would counter that by claiming that it's mostly generated by the junior fees paid to NPL teams), but also about the limitations placed upon teams outside the A-League because of Australian topflight soccer's closed shop. Almost inevitably, AAFC expects that increased sponsorship opportunities will emerge for teams participating in a national second tier. But aside from that, AAFC believes there is an opportunity to take advantage of a changing media landscape, which for me is code for non-traditional (and non-terrestrial) broadcast media.

Previously, if not from AAFC itself than from people advocating for similar outcomes, the idea (or hope) was that SBS would be a partner of a national second tier, an idea which I never had much confidence would be realised. For starters, SBS's Australian soccer content - indeed its soccer content outside of its lone EPL game a week at midnight Saturday -  has now regressed to an almost negligible existence. What could possibly prompt them to spend the necessary funds to show a second tier competition with limited opportunities for recouping any investment? This suggestion, which goes back years before the existence of any tangible second tier movement - and which was originally formulated around showing live state premier league games - has always left me stumped.

Should this subtle rhetorical shift in emphasis - from securing a traditional and established broadcast media partner to a non-traditional equivalent - concern prospective members of a national second tier? It's something that certainly bothers me, but I'm already long gone on the prospects of this thing even working. For those more open-minded on these matters however, it should still be something that they keep an eye on - every cent that The Championship model doesn't get from a broadcast deal is that much more revenue that will need to be collected from other sources to make up for it.

In terms of player recruitment for The Championship, Krayem was adamant that it was "not designed as a retirement home", and that rules would be set up in order to promote younger Australian talent. This was clearly a riposte to the geriatric progression of the A-League, but also perhaps a critique of the NPL as it currently functions with regards to player recruitment. For example, does the luring of players from Queensland to Victoria help Queensland soccer? It may help those individual players by having them play in a higher standard competition, but it also weakens the standard of Queensland soccer. And what does the Victorian appetite for recruiting players from outside Victoria - previously British backpackers, currently Queenslanders and players from smaller states - say about the lack of opportunity given to Victorian players? And in the case of bringing in players from Tasmania, might this actually be much more justifiable? It's a lot to chew on.

Regarding questions from the floor about the transfer model to be used in The Championship, and Australian player transfer reform in general (as part of the now longstanding grievances state league clubs have about their players being poached by A-League teams, including the latter's designated NPL sides), the short and only answer given was that this was something that would be worked on.

The Championship would be a summer competition, with men's and women's components. I was not able to ascertain on the night whether successful applicants for The Championship would need to field both men's and women's teams as part of their participation. (update: see the comments section for clarification) This is an interesting point for how women's soccer exists in Australia. More often than not, the wealthiest soccer clubs in Australia (below the A-League level) are those which have a long tradition of successful male teams, with their female teams, where they exist, being an afterthought. Meanwhile those state league clubs which have historically been most successful at running female teams - often by women themselves and existing in the void left by the absence of a strong senior mens' program - would struggle to find the means to support a grandiose venture such as ongoing participation in a national second tier competition.

There was no elaboration on the matter of promotion and relegation to and from the A-League, or from and to the extant NPL competitions. While perhaps this meeting was neither the time nor the place for an explanation of how the different league layers would be formally linked together, it did leave a gaping hole in the area most casual onlookers (admittedly not in the room, but among those observing online) wanted to know. Krayem said that the NPL would persist; insofar as my understanding goes, this positions The Championship as the mechanism by which Australian soccer begins to achieve a necessary realignment of the its competition hierarchy.

Christo Patsan said that the founding principles and intent of the NPL and National Competitions Review were sound and largely still relevant and worth pursuing. I'm not sure that feeling is shared by everyone. If I was to summarise what I think AAFC want, it is a nationally consistent NPL approach (and eventually second tier) where clubs have the ability to control their identity and destinies. Are the ideals of a consistent framework and the freedom for clubs to do their own thing compatible concepts though?

That the NPL competitions would continue means that there needs to be a lot of work done to sort out how this is all going to come together. I mean, that much is obvious to everyone. Even among the advocates for a promotion-relegation regime however, there are a range of views of how this would work, ranging from a "quasi-cartel, necessary criteria to be met" model, to something much more cut-throat and free-market. At the moment. it also appears that apart from Victoria and New South Wales, most states are only paying lip service to AAFC's aim of a second division. Cue the NSL conspiracy again. Should the Championship become operational, AAFC says its administration would be based in Melbourne, a deliberate challenge to Sydney's dominance of Australian soccer administration.

(And while really not important from the fact of its obvious implausibility, it is worth noting that there was also the odd call from the floor - with slightly more than muted approval from the guests in attendance - that if FFA and everyone else didn't want to get a second tier up and running, that the clubs should just breakaway and form their own competition. This idea had cold water poured on it from AAFC panel members, but it does highlight that there are very diverse views and attitudes to Australian soccer matters within AAFC's constituency.)

The most left-field proposal on the night...
Was AAFC's desire to hold an annual junior tournament for AAFC member clubs. The age range would be 13-16, for both boys and girls teams, with the event held in a single location. The annual extravaganza would also include conferences and seminars. Aiming to start in April 2020 - one assumes over the Easter break - this is a logistically bold, perhaps even insane proposal. It would require accommodating thousands of travellers (kids, parents, coaches, support staff), would cost a lot of money to organise, would require a lot of grounds, and all sorts of other things which someone like me who has never organised or been involved in such an undertaking could possibly think of.

Credit for the scope of the idea, but its scale is such that I'd love to see how this would all come together. Reading online, this idea was a hit with the Canberra people in particular.

FFA Congress progress
Another one of the key issues was the status of reform to FFA's Congress. FIFA and the AFC representatives had recently been in the country and left again, and looking in from the outside it appears that not much has changed. Naturally those involved closer to the action have a better idea than us mere plebs. In terms of AAFC's hope of getting a seat on FFA's reformed Congress, it all seemed to depend on who was speaking for AAFC. Krayem said that Victoria was the only state federation which was for AAFC having a vote on FFA's Congress, while Queensland was happy for AAFC to have observer status.

(A non-AAFC source later told me that most state federations were happy to let AAFC have observer status, until such time as AAFC could "prove themselves", whatever that means. I assume it means in part holding itself together through what will be the much more difficult phase of actually getting some of its grand schemes up and running.)

Krayem was hopeful but cautious about whether AAFC would get its seat in the FFA Congress, but Nick Galatas, making one of his rare contributions during the evening, piped up to say with uncharacteristic confidence that AAFC will get there. This belief is based on the support that AAFC believes it is receiving from FIFA and the AFC; they certainly aren't being made to feel welcome by FFA and the A-League teams, and probably quite a few of the states. This international support gives AAFC a kind of leverage that forces their inclusion into discussions.

The issue of representation
Every state and region is going to be different when it comes to its soccer experience; in fact, this is a problem that cuts across almost every aspect of Australian sport, that rather than anything resembling a uniform and universal sporting culture, we are instead a nation of micro-sporting cultures. One thing I didn't note earlier on about the make up of the audience was how overwhelmingly male it was. I don't think there were any women present at all. Intentional or not, it is not a good look for an organisation that will need to argue that its attempts to reform Australian soccer also include the best interests of women and girls, and not just high level senior male players. Indeed female football was very much an afterthought to the entire evening's proceedings, with AAFC talking heads mentioning little about the topic, and the questions from the floor referencing nothing about women's soccer at all.

This is a serious issue, and I don't doubt for a second that those representing AAFC don't take it seriously. However, apart from the issue of optics - never mind female participation and professional pathways being the zeitgeist of Australian sport - the lack of any almost any reference to the female side of the game plays right into the hands of those who would oppose AAFC solely on the accusation that the group was merely a front for a collective of culturally regressive ethnic clubs who had been unable to keep up with the times. And to be fair, some of those accusations would not be too far off the mark. The room was made up of at least some clubs who represent conservative or traditional ideas of what soccer is about in Australia on this and other issues. Related to those clubs would be those who, like South Melbourne perhaps, espouse a cautious modernism in its approach to women's soccer.

(Albeit a modernism as yet untested by what happens when the female program's principle advocate, in South's case Gabrielle Giuliano, moves on. The matter of cultural and club continuity has always been at the forefront of women's soccer.)

At the same time, apart from your different flavours of ethnically derived conservatism and cautious modernism, you have clubs which exist outside those frameworks, and those which go across several demographics. So while there are clearly clubs in the AAFC movement with a chip on their shoulder about FFA's treatment of ethnicity, there are also those clubs for which ethnicity is not even close to being at the top of their list of complaints. Then there are the clubs from regional areas. The ambitious clubs who have no NSL history. The clubs from states and regions which have never had national representation of any sort, and no obvious development pathway for their talented kids. All of these groups are being presented by AAFC as a unified collective with a common purpose, and not as the motley collection of clubs that this group actually is.

And it's not all smooth sailing. There was some discomfort from the floor about some of the decision making and negotiating processes of AAFC, namely that it does not consult as much as it could or should with its member clubs about key issues.

(I'd also add in the strange and sometimes unprofessional social media antics of AAFC. I think they'd be better off sticking to a conservative online approach - discussing only their affairs, and avoiding clogging up their timeline with stuff outside their immediate remit of being a representative organisation for second tier clubs. At present their social media efforts lack focus - probably operating on the whim of whoever's in control of the relevant social media accounts - while also coming across at times as petty. They need to at the very least get an off-the-shelf social media policy.)

But for the time being, in those narrow schemes where people actually pay attention to any of this stuff, AAFC is winning. It's winning the ideological battle because it is presenting a positive outlook for Australian soccer (even while often talking down present day Australian soccer); it's winning because its opponents have been successfully portrayed as out of touch and stagnant. And whatever the flaws with its social media/PR game, AAFC has also succeeded in having its public face, its front office if you will, obscure whatever disquiet and misgivings clubs under the AAFC umbrella have.

We are all in this together, but for how long?

Unity and patience are the virtues preached, but old habits and attitudes die hard. The nature of soccer in Australia has been, at least since after the migrant lead boom, one of self-interest and self-preservation. (The A-League has been the notable exception to that.) The pursuit of excellence (in all its forms) applies first to your club, and good luck to the others trying to catch or keep up.

But at one point during the meeting Krayem made the salient point - the kind of comment that can deflate a room full of fighting optimists - that "what may be good for football may not be good for your club". Amid the positivity and reinforcement of what it is that AAFC is trying to achieve, it's a message that cuts through, and it's certainly a message that we will look back on if and when a second tier gets up and it's not to everyone's liking.

Of course what the common good is insofar as Australian football goes depends on who you ask, and I'm in no good position to answer that. To me it's at best a nebulous concept, one that's been tainted because more often than not it's been used as a weapon rather than as the vague ideal that it is. For whatever it's worth, I don't think Krayem used the "good of the game" argument here in any sort of malicious way, more as reiteration that even within this group of (for now) united clubs, there would be winners and (at least relative) losers from AAFC's plans.

A word on the "NSL conspiracy"
There are some few pushing the line that AAFC and all of its associated antics are merely a front for getting ethnic NSL clubs back into the national soccer system. At the most extreme end of that argument is the accusation that AAFC is a front specifically set up to get South Melbourne Hellas back into the Australian topflight.

Such thinking (whether directed at ethnic NSL clubs or South Melbourne more specifically) requires two pre-existing notions in order to get off the ground. First, it requires the ethnic NSL teams having the necessary political, financial and grassroots clout to re-emerge from their otherwise terminal decline and irrelevance to Australian soccer (a terminal decline and irrelevance diagnosed by their detractors no less). Second, that these clubs would have the capability and competence (again, both of which their detractors claim these clubs lack) to establish and sustain such a complicated and unwieldy campaign in order to get back into the national league system. Needless to say, I find such conspiracy thinking beyond laughable. Truly, it is at the level of the conspiracies cobbled together by the so-called "bitters" of Australian soccer over the past decade and more.

Whatever else AAFC's faults, or the disagreements one may have with the aims of AAFC, it has been established and managed to succeed beyond the limits placed upon it by its detractors and opponents for a number of reasons. We have already mentioned the support AAFC is receiving from FIFA and the AFC, however much that support may be overstated by AAFC representatives. It has also managed to keep its broad constituency together for longer and greater ends than many people expected. Just as importantly, in an Australian soccer situation which reeks of stagnation - especially with regards to FFA and the A-League - AAFC is putting forward the boldest and most optimistic view of what Australian soccer could become. Whether their approach has gained any traction with people outside those few interested in the narrow field of Australian soccer politicking is almost beside the point; within the demographic that does care about such things, they come off looking more often than not like the good guys.

Something rather obvious that gets missed however is that AAFC exists to represent clubs which exist in a rather strange and hitherto unprecedented "between space" in Australia's football chain of command. The NPL clubs play under the auspices and control of their respective state federations, while at the same time participating in a system largely designed by the national federation. While in cases like Victoria, NPL clubs are able to perhaps organise well enough to exert a measure of influence over the running of their state federation - and thus alter elements of their own NPL environment more to their liking - they have no ability to act as a collective to put pressure on the body which set up the NPL framework in the first place, that being FFA.

Because of this bizarre operating system, no state operates NPL in the same way. When one person from the floor of the Melbourne roadshow complained (fairly enough) about A-League teams having more visa players at their disposal when they play FFA Cup matches against Victorian NPL teams, Krayem noted that when Victorian teams played against Queensland teams in the same competition, that Victorian teams had a PPS cap of 200 compared to Queensland's 170. Meanwhile other states have no restrictions on visa players. Not all of this is FFA's fault, and the clubs themselves - certainly in the case of the Victorian NPL - are also to blame for the mess that NPL has become.

But the point is, while ethnic ex-NSL clubs may be best placed to push for national second tier participation, they are not the only ones doing so. Neither are all of the former ethnic powerhouse NSL clubs best placed to take advantage of any changes. The goal here clearly is to start a competition which adds value across the country, and not just in forgotten suburban pockets of Melbourne and Sydney.

But still, what is it that South Melbourne Hellas is trying to do?
(I included this section because Leo Athanasakis asked what I thought was an unusual question, on the matter of potential A-League expansion and NPL/second tier queue jumping. While this was directed at other A-League consortium bids, I felt the queue jumping element could have - and indeed already has - been directed at South itself. Also South of the Border is a South Melbourne blog, so you know...)

When the campaign against FFV's original NPL model was begun by Green Gully and Melbourne Knights, South Melbourne - represented on this issue by one Tom Kalas - notably took a different tack, preferring to remain what it called "in the tent", believing that it could effect change more effectively from within the system rather than fighting against it from the outside. Then, like magic, South gradually changed its position to the point where it (and to be fair, a whole bunch of other Greek clubs) somehow became the leader of the movement against FFV and its NPL model.

Among those clubs who care to remember that this happened at all, there is understandably distrust and resentment about how that all played out; that the more obnoxiously regressive clubs on all sorts of issues who stuck their necks out on principle (however misguided that principle may have been) only for a bunch of Greeks to come in and take all the credit for getting not just a solution to the NPL impasse, but credit as being the leaders of a re-found boldness for clubs to stand up to the post-Crawford federations for their rights.

Me, I liked the fanciful idea that I invented that it was all coordinated; that certain clubs that had a more uncompromising ethos when it came to rejecting forced modernity would do the initial head kicking and grunt work, allowing more palatable alternatives - ie, us - to come in and finish off the job.

But the truth is that ever since it was compelled to vacate its position in the Australian topflight by the forces which took over Australian soccer, as well because of its own decrepit state, South Melbourne has had one distant goal in its sights above all others: to get back into the big-time, as soon as possible, and by any means necessary. So we bid for the second Melbourne A-League licence under the Southern Cross gimmick, losing out to Melbourne Heart. We tried to buy out the then failing Central Coast Mariners, under a scheme which may have included keeping some games in Gosford for however long it took for people to realise it was a stupid idea and just have all our games in Melbourne. Then we tried buying out Melbourne Heart, and failed there too. Currently, we've thrown our hat in the ring for the zombie A-League expansion process which may not even have ever existed.

They say that you miss all the shots you don't take, and when it comes to failed attempts to get into the A-League, no one's taken more shots than South. And yet, for whatever reason, South has never been at the public forefront of AAFC, other than by proxy association. To its own members, South has played AAFC and promotion-relegation issues as low-key affairs, preferring to put up a wait and see approach. The emphasis has always been on first and foremost getting into the A-League under its own steam (even if details of those attempts provided to members are sparing), and not through wholesale reform of Australian soccer's league structures.

And yet in most recent times, those paying attention to the social media contributions of especially our president Leo Athanasakis indicate a shift in our prior reticence to openly support a promotion-relegation model. Such a shift leads easily to the allegation from within the AAFC tent and from promotion-relegation fellow travellers alike that South Melbourne is not really ideologically committed to the principle of promotion-relegation; rather, South Melbourne is only committed to whatever South Melbourne believes will get it back into the topflight soonest. And if that happens, the rest be damned.

While not serious enough to threaten the unity of the AAFC revolutionary project by itself, it's the kind of fissure that people will need to keep an eye on; when persistent calls are made about unity and its virtues, any deviation from that ideal invites the possibility of infighting and sniping.

The question of heart and soul

I tried to write and re-write this section a number of times, never to my own satisfaction. So I'm going to try to keep it short and sweet.

Community, authentic, grassroots, corporate, franchise, elite. Words like these and many others can be useful in describing the cultural schisms that afflict Australian soccer. Used carelessly however, instead of clarifying the ways in which Australian soccer is divided, these words serve mostly as an act of self-justification.

By any measure, FFA and the management of several A-League teams have treated NPL teams poorly. There are countless examples of this, some of which were given on the night. But it's possible also that NPL teams are seen in a similar light by teams far lower down the food chain.

Claiming the moral and ethical high ground is a dangerous business. Anyone making claims for their own purity of support of the game is on dangerous ground. Resorting to the kinds of rhetoric which filled up forums a decade ago, and which paints simplistic pictures of an "us and them" which does not actually exist, is a tactic fraught with issues.

The focus should be on the actual examples of disrespect given by the top tier towards everything below it. Emotive language which loses sight of that should be avoided.

Final thought
During the aftermath over the next few days, it was funny to see the same info I'd received from different parties via Twitter DMs and text messages - sometimes intended for clarification, sometimes intended for further dissemination - make its way out to the public domain via other trusted vessels. It was like a proxy social media battle in the broader war for hearts and minds, except that I don't think anyone but the already interested even noticed.

Comeback (ahem) Kings - South Melbourne 2 Port Melbourne 1

Jesse Daley's shot flies past Port's keeper for the equaliser.
Photo: Rob Cruse.

If you're in the mood for jokes, copious Simpsons references, and the usual sorts of hilarity, this week's post will likely disappoint. Wednesday took a lot out of everyone, including myself, and it's going to take a little while to recuperate. That's why this week most of the good gags are stolen or woefully out of date.

But as for Sunday, what a pleasant late afternoon's work it was. There was a chill in the air even as the sun shone, there was a rainbow, there was a little bit of rain, and we worked our way to another win and third place on the ladder. It was great having to once again only half care about what was taking place on the field. No hype, and no glory even in victory, just like most other weeks.

If there was one lesson to be learned from our embarrassing 4-0 loss to Port earlier this season, it was 'don't let them shoot'. So of course we let them shoot, and got lucky - one shot rattled the crossbar if I remember correctly, though I could well be remembering another game - except for the one time where we weren't lucky. Did Andreas Govas' shot bounce over Nikola Roganovic's arm?

Either way, we fell behind, but did we even care? As one of the lads in the stand noted, after Wednesday, what was left for us to do? It was kind of like one of those thrill seeking adrenaline junkies that's pushed the envelope so far that it's impossible for them to get excited about anything. Nevertheless, the team worked its way into the game, working the wide positions well, which is when we're at our best under this current iteration. On a narrower ground, with an opponent more apt at closing down the passing lanes, we'd be a lot less convincing.

I'm not saying we were great, because we were not. Everyone expected that we'd be flat, and we were, except for the unsung hero of Wednesday, Jesse Daley, who was in manic form. He was everywhere, and it was through him that we got the equaliser, when he blasted his shot past the Port keeper. By this stage we had gained control of the match, and apart from some slack marking in the middle park, there should not have been to many issues with overcoming the visitors.

The second half saw Daley - who was in an especially mouthy mood - put in a number of good crosses, with one eventually being met by the head of Milos Lujic. There was a period of five or so minutes where we struggled to get the ball out of defensive third, but apart from that, Port posed little threat. Even with an assortment of Stellas coming onto the field, Port's biggest chance lay with us being stupid. Cue Tim Mala badly misreading a passage of play, and getting sent off for his troubles, as he committed a foul as the result of needing to furiously track back. At least the resulting free kick missed, and we got the chocolates..

The only downside was having to ponder the consequences of winning in this way, with yellow cards mounting up and real or imagined reinforcements still some time away.

*record scratch*
*freeze frame*
Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation, etc

Next game
I don't know. It's supposed to be Avondale at home on Sunday afternoon, but there's all sorts of wild rumours going around about postponed matches, Brazil using Lakeside, and Dockerty Cup scheduling, that who knows what's going on. Check the official sources for any changes, but maybe wait just a bit for the Roberto Carlos circus to leave town first. If South of the Border hears anything, we'll let you know.

It can only end well
A bloke who can't coach, hired for a team that doesn't exist, for a competition that's not desperate for either. But of course if you talk like this, 'they' get upset and start murmuring things in the bowels of Lakeside, believing that you can't hear them. Guys, even if I don't type it, I'm thinking it. And even if I can't hear you say it, I can imagine it.

I mean, I've started joining in wrestling gags, and I don't even watch wrestling for crying out loud.

Chants
An unusually productive day yesterday, motivated mostly by the tenacious work of Jesse Daley and Luke 'The Luckiest Man in Show Business' Adams coming back from Bali without a tan,

• 'Bill Paps is on fire, the truth is terrified'
• 'I wish that I scored Jesse's goal / where can I score a goal like that?'
• 'Jesse talk it up, talk it up, Jesse talk it up'
• 'Where's your tan at?'

A big opportunity was missed when we failed to tie Adams' midweek absence to Schapelle Corby's return to Australia.

Comings and goings
Fahid Ben Khalfallah (still no idea who he is) ended up signing with Brisbane Roar. What a pity.

Letter to the editor (including how to contact South of the Border)
Following on from Wednesday's win against Dandenong City, South of the Border received some welcome feedback and commentary, including a timely and appreciated reminder about choosing certain words more carefully.

[Although I was a bit taken aback by one regular reader who saw only an attempt to be a curmudgeon - which was certainly the not the point]

One of the more interesting bits of correspondence came through the comments section (though I did not publish it for reasons which shall reveal themselves), which reads as follows:

Greetings Mr Paul, wow I've just discovered your blog and love it. I read in some very early posts you sometimes ask fans to contribute articles. I would like to contribute this below if you think it is appropriate regarding Hellas’s A-League bid. Sorry for posting in this wrong area – I just didn't know how to contribute this article.

Well, of course I'm always delighted when new readers discover South of the Border, especially when it's South fans doing the discovering. And I'm even happier when they want to contribute something a bit more substantial than a comment - not that there's anything wrong with contributing solely through the comments.

As for the best way to go about contacting me, email is my preferred option - blackmissionary@hotmail.com is my address. If you want to more immediately get my attention, and you have a Twitter account, then you can find me @paulmavroudis.

Here is our new friend's submission, on the matter of the rhetorical conduct of South Melbourne's A-League bid. Keep in mind that this was sent before yesterday's shenanigans.

Bill Paps was off in the world of make believe again today.

SMFC A-League bid strategy – wrong approach
I write this piece with a heavy heart. I have been a South Melbourne Hellas supporter since I was a young child – probably like most South fans. I have experienced agony, frustration, sadness and plenty of lost sleep whenever I think about our omission from the top flight of football in Australia. I wouldn't say I am a great fan of the A-League or its structure – but I am mature enough to recognize the NSL needed to replaced. I just always thought that South would be at the forefront of soccer in Melbourne and indeed the highest competition available in Australia. I like most have waited patiently knowing that some day our time will come. Melbourne is a big city growing by 100,000 people per year and it’s inevitable that at some point a third Melbourne A-League club would be looked at. That is indisputable; at some point expansion will happen again in Melbourne. This has always provided me a glimmer of hope even in the dark times when I felt sick at the prospect we will be stuck in the wilderness forever.

I absolutely do want to acknowledge that the board of SMFC have done a terrific job re-building the club which let us never forget was on the brink of oblivion circa 2004. The stadium deal, the refurbishments, the social club are massive achievements. These are no small feats, they have secured our future. So why the heavy heart and frustration and countless nights lying awake in the middle of the night? It is because I unequivocally and firmly believe that we are squandering the best chance we will ever have to position ourselves to get back into the top flight. This shouldn't be the case but we actually are shooting ourselves in the foot and on various fronts becoming a laughing stock. Here is why:

We need to stop our arrogant approach, we need to stop the rhetoric that it is our ‘Alvaro Recoba’ divine right to be in the top flight. I would like to know from the board who thought it was a good idea to have Bill Papastergiadis head our bid and be a spokesman? Wrong choice. In all his public appearances and interviews the ridiculous comments regarding over inflated crowd figures, the whole Real Madrid ‘link’ which is misconstrued garbage and the let’s not get started on the ‘Roberto Carlos’ angle. This is all GUFF – this actually harms the credibility of our bid. I cannot overstate this.

Bill is obviously an intelligent person, great lawyer etc., but he should not be representing our hopes and aspirations. That he is the President of the Greek Community of Melbourne and the spokesman for our club does nothing whatsoever to demonstrate to the masses that we are looking for broad based appeal bid, it rather just reinforces prejudices that unfortunately the majority of people hold.

Other bids speak of how they will engage the community. Someone please, correct me if I am wrong but I have not heard from anyone associated with the bid team or the board how we will be a broad based bid – how we will attract new fans. Other bids talk about alliances with local communities, teams or football associations. But for us it’s been left to assume that the ‘thousands’ of poulimenoi will come back to follow us. Wrong, wrong, wrong! If this is our great hope – we are gone.

The other angle I wish to tackle is our relationship with the FFA and indeed what the A-League is and represents. Key people from our club and some supporters continually diss the FFA and the A-League. Geez! Where is our diplomacy? Does anyone think this approach will actually bring a groundswell of support to our bid? Do we actually think it is a great idea to have Tom Kalas being pivotal in forming and becoming a spokesman for the AAFC? Agitating change, sniping comments against the FFA but then at the same time asking to be considered for an A-League license? Again – no diplomacy at all. Where is our humility?

I will end here with a comparison to other A-League hopefuls. This quote from Robert Cavallucci of FC Brisbane City A-League aspirant is a pearler and sums up perfectly all that is wrong with our bid team strategy:

If you've got a commercial argument, if you've got a football argument for what you’re doing, stop doing it by antagonising and picking a fight with FFA. Through positive presentation of who you are, demonstrate to the football community, the A-League clubs, the governing body, why you deserve to be there.

Bang! Spot on! Let’s repeat this and shout it from the rooftops to our bid team, Mr President Leo Athanasakis, some board members and some of our social media fans. Please say after me: “stop doing it by antagonising and picking a fight with FFA”. And again: “stop doing it by antagonising and picking a fight with FFA”. Through positive presentation of who you are, demonstrate to the football community, the A-League clubs, the governing body, why you deserve to be there.

In concluding, I would please urge our board and the bid team to reconsider our approach. This might be our last shot for a very long time. Do what is right, be humble, focus on what we bring to the table and demonstrate how we can attract new fans. Make it a football bid – not just a selfish we deserve to be there SMFC centric bid.

Regards, T. Arvanitis, Murrumbeena, VIC

Around the grounds
$7 for a souv means $3 for the raffle
Standing in a particular position at McIvor Reserve on Saturday afternoon, it looked like there were twice as many people at Yarraville vs Altona East than there actually were. But enough about metrics. Both teams have had their difficulties in 2017, but there's struggling and then there's struggling, if you catch my drift. The team that was struggling less scored within the first few minutes, scored a penalty at the end, and were rarely troubled by Altona East in between those events. I don't remember Tommi Tommich, who was in goal for Yarraville, having to make much more than a solitary save.

Final thought
Very saddened to hear of the passing of former Heidelberg player and president Jim Mangopoulos. Back in the 1990s in his guise as a lawyer, he represented my folks in a civil case when so many others refused - and got them a result of sorts. It was an incredibly stressful time for us - his support was and remains appreciated by my family. Sincerest condolences to his friends and family, and to all at Heidelberg Alexander.

Notes from the 2015 AGM

Necessary preamble and summary
The following account of the 2015 South Melbourne Hellas and South Melbourne FC AGMs will not be presented in strictly linear fashion, because some points made later in the evening related to earlier presentations - also, I didn't keep a good record of what was said when. As usual, not every question that I would have liked to have seen asked managed to get through. At least some of those questions will be applicable to the next AGM though. Perhaps I should have taken the advice of the person who said I should have submitted them to the club, in order to compel them to deal with them. Food for thought. Apologies for there being no pictures or links to off-site hilarity.

Overall this was an orderly and worthwhile meeting, with good debate and questioning from the members, and what I felt was mostly clear and open information provided by the committee. However, it was in those moments where the board either did not answer queries related to governance or sought to push aside those concerns, that I believe the concerns of many members will remain for the foreseeable future - unless the board somehow drastically improves on that front.

Why the AGM was so late - and the myriad problems that caused
Before the AGM had even officially begun (approval of previous AGM's minutes, etc), committee member Bill Papastergiadis sought to speak to the members in attendance in order to inform them that the agreements related to the Lakeside lease had finally been resolved - making the point that terms had been agreed upon only as late as 2:00PM yesterday. From this fact one could imply - as many have suspected - that this was the primary reason why the AGM had been held so late.

Whether that was the case or not, it still does not excuse the committee for holding the AGM at such a late date, during the first quarter of the next season, on a weeknight, in the week after the grand prix, all of which made attendance of the broadest possible eligible audience far more difficult than it should have been. The question, too, of whether the board had sought permission from ASIC for an extension to the AGM date remained without a definitive answer. Nick Galatas, on behalf of the board, claimed that the club did not need to apply for an extension, while some on the floor contended that Galatas was wrong.

That lack of a definitive answer or explanation was perhaps the most troubling of the night, speaking as it did to the apparent problems of governance and compliance. The contemporary effectiveness of the members to act beyond an annual three hour meeting may be easy to deal with for the current board, seeing as how we have had no alternative tickets front up to add additional pressure on the current board since the end of the NSL - but compliance issues which fall under the jurisdiction of the state and similar third parties will be much harder to deal with.

Apart from the legal issues involved, the delay of an AGM means that much of the information presented was not only long out of date, but that so many more issues piled up (along with the resentment of the members) that more questions and queries than usual failed to get the attention they deserved.

Bill Papastergiadis resolves the Lakeside lease saga, to our apparent satisfaction
Regarding the apparent resolution of the Lakeside lease issue, Papastergiadis elaborated on the process needed to successfully negotiate an agreement as close as possible to the terms of the memorandum of understanding the club's members agreed to in 2009, the mechanisms by which those agreements will be enacted, and the strain of the effort required.

All three extant agreements needing to be signed - the funding agreement, the exclusive lease with regards to our areas (social club and affiliated areas), and non-exclusive areas (playing arena) - have been signed by South Melbourne, and are now simply awaiting for the government to execute their part of the contracts, which Papastergiadis expects to happen this week. We then wait for the funds to released for the reconstruction of the social club, which will be a 90 day build - with the construction of the office spaces to be the first order of business. Should things proceed well from here - and I put forward that hope cautiously, because we have been through such an ordeal already - then it is feasible that the social club will be ready by the end of this season.

Having sealed the deal, Papastergiadis seemed to feel freer to elaborate on the difficulties of attaining the deal to our satisfaction. He was now unafraid to point the finger directly at the State Sports Centres Trust, including their previous management group, who sought to delay us through lengthy legal battles, by providing self-serving and incorrect information to the relevant ministers, and finding any way possible to make our tenure at Lakeside as difficult as possible. This included incurring large legal expenses of their own. We will probably never know whether or not this ended up adding up to such an amount as to prevent the various tenants at Lakeside getting renumeration above their mandated minimum annual stipend.

Even the change in government from Liberal to Labor saw the SSCT attempt to go back and start from scratch, despite the then Liberal government having agreed to terms we would be satisfied with. Making the point that ministers are dependent on the advice of the public service, Papastergiadis noted that the way to tackle the problem was not in legal terms - though that would play a part - but rather through political connections. And thus Papastergiadis emphasised the weight that came to bear on both the Liberal and Labor governments via influential members of the Greek community, and the notion of the Greek community as a whole.

The manifestation of the agreements will both please and annoy our supporters. The pleasing aspect is in terms of the duration of the lease, in that the five years we have already spent at Lakeside since our return from John Cain Memorial Park, will not be counted - so we get 40 years from the signing of the lease starting this year, applicable to the social club and the playing arena. Crown law being what it is though, it will not be a single 40 year term - that while the social club is a single 40 year term, the playing arena will be 21 years, with an option of 19 after that, with Papastergiadis emphasising that the only possible way the 19 year option will not be honoured is if we are in serious breach of the conditions of the lease, a situation which he does not believe the club will find itself in (using words to the effect of burning the joint down to the ground).

Less pleasing, but perhaps inevitable news, is that in all likelihood the club will need to borrow money in order to finance the completion of the social club reconstruction. This is despite the fact that at previous AGMs the board had claimed that this would not be the case. Later in the evening, president Leo Athanasakis updated and/or clarified the plans for the social club, including the providing of a floor plan. As has been noted on previous occasions, the club plans to use the social club and futsal spaces both as a way of creating a sustainable revenue stream from its members and other users of Lakeside Stadium, but also as a means of attracting more people to our spaces from the local area.

Having seemingly completed the herculean task of securing the lease arrangement on terms that we were comfortable with, my mind turned to whether Papastergiadis would continue as a board member after this year. It was not a question that I was able to get to ask, but since this was the main reason he was brought on to the board, it will be interesting to see if he will continue.

Emphasis was made, as has been the case at many such meetings, that Papastergaidis has offered the services of his law firm at a comparatively low cost, as well as having a dedicated member of his staff working on this project. One hopes that with the end of this legal affair, that whatever legal costs we did incur will see at least some savings made in future budgets. Longer term, the financial and working tolls taken by our numerous legal battles over the past few years - against the FFV for the Heidelberg tribunal matter, the Toumbourou affair, the NPL, etc - has been a burden the club could have done without.

Finances
For the 2014/2015 financial year, the club made a small profit of about $7,000. Turnover was over a million - with the ambition to get up to two million - and sponsorship at a very healthy level. The club still has to pay off the loan it took out to pay the Toumbourou loan, but Athanasakis reported that this debt would be settled by October 2016. One expects then, with the onset of the operation of the social club, the lack of this bank loan (albeit the possible addition of another), and the increased efficiencies based on economies of scale from the unification with the women's side of things, that the bottom line will improve significantly.

There was an attempt by some members to ask if the club was running insolvent - based on the overdrafts being made during the course of the year - but that line of inquiry was shut down quickly by a Business 101 explanation of why overdrafts exist and how they work, an explanation that came not only from the board, but also from other businessmen within the membership.

There was, too, a question asked about the football budget, with some confusion based on the figures being provided being different for the members and those being presented. The explanation that one was consolidated, and the other not, didn't wash with some people. Nevertheless, most seemed to be satisfied with the spend on the football department, which had not changed markedly over the past three seasons, and was necessarily elevated in the second half of 2014 due to the continuing success of the club on the field.

Of more concern for me - and judging by the questions submitted here, to others, too - was whether the level of sponsorship we had achieved was sustainable, and what we were doing to make it so. One part of that which got a good reception from the floor was the business and sponsor networking the club is setting up. My concern on whether much of this sponsorship success was dependent on qualification to the FFA Cup (and what would happen if we missed qualification, say, in consecutive years) was not quite answered to my satisfaction, despite the claims that we were not like other clubs who were playing what Shaun Mooney has dubbed the 'crap-shoot' of FFA Cup qualification. Again, time will tell.

The women (mostly) return to the fold; plus constitutional changes
There was a motion at this AGM to make changes to the constitution. Two of these changes were fairly straightforward, seeking to update rules and terms from a bygone era. One of these moves was to change the term 'committee' to 'board'. The second was to change the make up of the board from 11-21 members to a minimum of seven and a maximum of eleven.

The biggest change though, was to ratify the board's motion that there be a minimum of one female board member at all times. Apart from those resistant to quotas in principle (or perhaps using that as a front for being dismissive of women involved in football at all? I wouldn't want to rule that out entirely), there was concern among some that the club, by virtue of not having eleven board members for much of its recent history, had not been abiding by its own constitution, a claim brushed aside all too readily by the board. Then again, without anyone having a copy of the constitution at hand, how were we going to resolve the matter then and there?

Of greater validity though was the complaint that all three motions were bundled up in a single vote. Now this may have been a ploy to head off the expected resistance to the quota motion - sometimes even my thought processes can go off on strange, conspiracy laden tangents - but if that was the case, then I don't think it was worth the ploy, and that the members should have had more trust put in them to pass each motion individually. As it was, the motion passed with overwhelming support.

Recently added board member, and former(?) president of South Melbourne Womens FC, Gabrielle Giuliano, was introduced to the overwhelmingly male audience, and made what I felt was a passionate and non-condescending presentation to the members. Giuliano made the point that the women were not here to take over the club, but that they mostly wanted to maintain the level of facilities and access that had prior to the reunification, which was a part of the agreement they'd signed last year. Giuliano thus made the subtle point that it wasn't only the men who had something to fear from reunification, but that the hard work of the women to develop their own club, on far fewer resources, was something they valued dearly, and were thus protective of.

Solid arguments were made about the inherent improvements in the economies of scale, but also to what the inclusion of the women - as players, as a network of people, and also as a hitherto untapped demographic for South Melbourne - would do for the club. The term 'super-club' was thrown about, as were notions of trying to be ahead of the curve. It's often hard to tell whether the club is being genuine about modernising itself, or whether it thinks that the appearance of doing so is more important than the objective reality of making those changes - on this matter though, I think it was sincere. It will also be interesting to see how the overwhelmingly male dynamic of such things as AGMs changes when more women begin attending.

As to plans for the future, this is where it got interesting as far as I'm concerned. SMWFC was still seeking answers as to the reason its WNPL application (made separately from SMFC) was rejected. To that end, SMFC will be seeking to apply to enter the WNPL in 2017. Should the club be successful in achieving that aim, then those female teams will come under the auspices of SMFC. The community/participatory aspect of SMWFC will continue as a community club, maintaining those community connections developed by SMWFC over the past decade. Of course with any community club 'offshoot' of an NPL club (mens or womens) is how do you control them, considering the fact that you cannot have the same board? SMFC's answer seemed to be via control of the facilities, a solution which will be interesting to see applied in practice.

Chairman Nick Galatas did note that in time the constitution would need to be given a more rigorous overhaul, and while this was not quite the time for that, these changes were as good a place as any to start.

Lots of success, but also disappointment - football report
As noted earlier, the wage bill of the club in terms of player payments has remained steady. Nicholas Maikoussis (representing the board on the senior aspect of the club) outlined the successes of the past season or so, while noting with clear exasperation the club's failure to win the grand final, progress further in the FFA Cup, and especially the devastating loss to Hobart Olympia. Maikoussis made the point that more resources had been deployed to football (fitness, conditioning - even for juniors -, and opposition analysis), and that overall the change room culture was good. When I made the point about my (and perhaps others') being uneasy about player agents being in the change rooms after games, I was rebuffed with a response of obvious irritation. So it goes.

Andrew Mesourouni (representing the board on the junior aspect of the club) made note that the club will seek to have 80% of the under 20 team made up of South juniors, and that three members of the senior squad every year should come from that under 20 side. I raised the question of the affiliation of Genova International School of Soccer, and whether we had any formal arrangements (apart from sponsorship) with them, to which the answer was 'no'. Unfortunately I was not able to dig further into my list of questions on the matter, and while I appreciated the candour of Mesourouni's answer - including the fact that GISS is just one of a network of organisations South Melbourne liaise with - I feel that there is still much to discuss on that front.

On the matter of whether we are interested in joining a cut down/split division National Youth League, the club seemed to indicate that there had been no confirmation that the NYL would take that path just yet, but that the club has been approached to gauge its interest, and that should the opportunity present itself, then the club would certainly be interested in taking up that opportunity. With regards to renewing its NPL licence, the club believes it is well on track to do so.

The Epifano affair finally got its time in the AGM spotlight. The board explained and defended its position, mostly reiterating things that they have already said, but also admitting that they had unintentionally mislead when making one response to a particular member during a conversation. Those members who have been the most obviously critical of Epifano and the board's handling of the affair got to have their say, even making some good points about the double standards with regards to spectator and player codes of conduct, but it was almost inevitable that this was going to end up in a stalemate, and that in that eventuality, the board's way would prevail.

Now that players are mostly(?) on professional contracts instead of 'amateur' ones, several codes of conduct have been introduced or updated, including for social media and sports betting. Next AGM of course will see womens reports also be tabled, for the first time in a very long time. Hopefully they will be treated in a more kindly fashion than they were way back in the early VPL days.

Protecting the brand (security and related matters)
Interspersed somewhere during the two meetings was a discussion on security. It began, I believe, by discussing the problems that with more people coming to games, that the possibility of a return to an older flare lighting culture - which costs the club money, and possible further sanctions - is of concern. This is less of a problem at Lakeside, what with the plethora of security cameras available making it easier to identify culprits, but that the behaviour of some alleged South fans at away games where the lighting and security situation is less than ideal means that the fans themselves will have to be vigilant.

Of course this is not to everyone's cup of tea, due to a wide range of factors and ideologies, but president Athanasakis made what I felt was the valid point that now that we had secured Lakeside as our home, we had an obligation as members to protect it (and by extension the club) from those who choose to damage us via their antics. Equally though, a good point was made from the floor that the services provided by Blue Thunder security could sometimes leave a lot to be desired, and that relying only or mostly on supporters to do the policing was not the way to go about things.

Farewell to Tom Kalas
The last presentation of the night fell to Tom Kalas, doubling up as his farewell from the board. So that meant one last legendary Powerpoint presentation, complete with technical hiccups, but also a useful reminder that while we can get lost in the imperceptible nature of incremental progress - and I say this as a card carrying incrementalist - taking the time to step back and see the bigger picture is a necessary step in reminding us of how far we've come. In South Melbourne's case there were the practical issues of survival - lease, finances, on field competitiveness; the issues of consolidation - reuniting with the women, reforming the juniors; - but also the less tangible issue of resurrecting our reputation.

In that sense, Kalas was right - we have come a long way - but that's all the more reason for the members to continue to apply whatever pressure they can on the board to live up to its own hype as a progressive and professional outfit. For the sake of the future prosperity of the club, it can't just be words - it needs to be backed up by action the whole way through, and not only when it suits this or any other board which may one day represent us. In a near future that will see us operating not just a much larger soccer club, but also a restaurant/bistro and futsal centre, one hopes that such disregard for proper procedure will get us into trouble very quickly. Still, it was nice to leave off on Kalas' unadulterated and unaffected sense of optimism.

Other notes

It was good that some refreshments, in the form of soft drinks, were provided to the attendees.

After suffering from some sort of parasite and being in poor condition for round one, the Lakeside surface is looking both lush and verdant.

There was a mini-infestation of some sort of insect in the President's Room. Very irritating at times.

Any AGM that has a Bouboulina reference can't be a complete waste of time. Equally so when you hear a board member utter such an archaic phrase as 'γαμώ το στανιό σου' (fuck your compulsion). I thought it was just me and my mum that still said things like that.

South of the Border Awards 2015

Player of the year: Nikola Roganovic. I thought about this for awhile. Couldn't give it to Nick Epifano. Iqi Jawadi was good, but was he 'meaningless internet award' good? Brad Norton had some good games, Milos Lujic scored a ton of goals again. Andy Brennan wasn't there long enough. But one horror mistake aside, Roganovic earned us a lot of points this season, especially early on when we were not playing particularly well.

Under 21 player of the year: The Cliff Hussey Memorial Trophy goes to Iqi Jawadi, who I thought had a very consistent season, even adding goal scoring to his repertoire this year.

Goal of the year: Andy Brennan vs Dandenong Thunder, you know, the goal that no one saw.

Best performance: All things considered, the demolition of Oakleigh in the Dockerty Cup final was a real standout, especially after the disappointment of the FFA Cup a few days previously.

Best away game of the year: For those that went, I assume Palm Beach. For me, Green Gully away, for obvious reasons. Overall though it was a season where the atmosphere and excitement of the home games really came through a lot more than away fixtures.

Call of the year: Yes I could have gone with any number of Epifano related moments, but my favourite was still the call made at the 2014 AGM, by an unknown person at Tom Kalas: 'You're not going to try and get our hopes up again, are you?'

Chant of the year: Directed to Andy Brennan during the home game against North Geelong. 'Newcastle is broke, Newcastle is broke, stay with South, Newcastle is broke!'

Best pre-match/after match dinner location: There were crepes, pancakes and galettes, some pretty ordinary pub burgers, visits to two different places doing Korean fried chicken, and three trips to Mexican restaurants. The winner though has to be the day Gains and I did banh mi and cannoli on the same day while waiting for the bus to Avondale. If only there was a half decent team in Footscray so we could eat out of there more often...

Friends we lost along the way: My old laptop.

Barely related to anything stupidity highlight of the year: Steve from Broady convincing one of the barmaids at the Limerick to exchange two Heineken scratchies which had won him free hats, in exchange for a rugby ball. I guess you just had to be there.

Assorted reactions to FFA's Whole of Football Plan

Now I'm not going to go into too much detail about a document whose contents were already decided before they'd even conducted their infamous box ticking consultation from 2014 (for some reason the most popular article ever on this blog). So they want to be the number one sport and cement their autocratic rule by abolishing the states. They told us that months ago - and if we're fair dinkum, there is nothing in this document that should surprise any of us. So here are a bunch of mostly hysterical reactions to this announcement.

Misplaced anger
Some people have been upset by the For Modern Football site's satirical take on South's press release. If anyone should be upset though it should be me, because I was doing this kind of stuff years ago.

Cynical
The stated aim of making soccer more affordable to play, especially junior registrations, is a motherhood statement that should be eclipsed by certain realities of the situation, including the backgrounds and statements of those putting forward that rhetoric.

When during the NPL consultation process former FFV CEO Mark Rendell compared the then potential cost of the NPL junior fees to a sport like swimming (as well as classifying South's then $3,500 program as a 'Rolls Royce' program); when Tom Kalas tried to justify the cost of that South program by comparing it to dance, music or karate; and when Kyle Patterson compared the costs of junior soccer to his kid's violin lessons - what does this mean in the context of making soccer more affordable for kids?

At best it's another motherhood statement in a document full of them; at worst, it's insincere about soccer's attempts to go middle class. It's language which speaks to an aspirational segment of Australian society which is not concerned primarily with cost, but with value. In the same way that increasing numbers of middle class people scrimp, save or make sacrifices to send their children to expensive private schools - and to hell with those left behind the in the public system - it's the perceived value that's more important than the price of that sacrifice.

[A side note - whether there is also a cultural and class consciousness element to this is also worth considering. Several years ago on a certain forum, a bloke posted his observation that some middle class English people were moving towards the upper class game of rugby union, in part because of the persistent and/or residual association of soccer with the working class. I don't know if that observation was accurate, and the English class system is obviously quite different to Australia's, but there is I think something intriguing about that assertion, and something that could very well be applicable to those who see soccer as providing a more cosmopolitan sporting option than the insular and boorish (bogan?) Aussie Rules and rugby league cultures.]

In other words, soccer is now a middle class game. The participant is only useful so long as they can be leveraged for more and more money. It's not about fun any more, or belonging to a club, or even being able to take up one sport during the winter and another during the summer. Each soccer loving individual in this country has had a monetary value placed upon their head, whether they are a player, parent, volunteer, fan, media person or even - and while undoubtedly a sign of the times, also a bit frightening - someone mostly interested in soccer video games. And like the cult-ish Evangelical mega-churches the 'we are football' branding and rhetoric reeks of these days, it's bring your credit card with you when you come to worship.

Of course if your bank balance is smaller, or if your involvement in the game generates minimal value for the upper tiers - or heaven forbid, doesn't agree with every part of this Great Leap Forward - you can go and get stuffed. This is disturbing to me because in my line of work I'm required (and want) to see the best in people and their potential. FFA does the opposite. The concept of people getting into and enjoying soccer as an end in itself has been thrown under the bus.

As increasingly seems to be the case these days, I'm reminded of a comment Melbourne Heart CEO Scott Munn made at an academic conference a few years back, about the relative pointlessness of school visits by his organisation.

As an aside, one of the more curious things that was said by Munn, was that one off attempts at trying to convert people to your cause like school clinics were almost doomed to fail (he used some clever analogy about pissing on your own leg - I can't remember how it went, but it was quite funny). 

This was a point expanded upon at last year's Whole of Football Plan meeting in Melbourne, when the failure to leverage soccer's existing base for the A-League was something which FFA wanted corrected (fair enough), but was a point nevertheless which showed how different the priorities of those at the top and those at the bottom were.

The FFA... seemed to think that things like school visits and absurdly inflated participation numbers - which included intangibles like kids playing street soccer - were all about converting kids into being A-League fans. The difference with those of the community club sector was the community club representatives were showing annoyance at the lack of school visits not because of the missed opportunity of getting kids to follow the A-League, but to get them involved with the game of soccer as opposed to other sports.

Some people think soccer is first and foremost a great game to be involved in. Others think the most important thing is not how much you enjoy the experience, but how much they can fleece you for. I guess this is why I'm not in marketing.

Gallows humour

SMFCBLUES07 wrote:

I'll do the honours here Press release: smfc wish to announce since there is no future in football we have abandoned ship and will refocus our efforts in strip clubs not social room

The one with a forced literary allusion
In Toni Morrison's novel Beloved,  the slaves learn that 'definitions belong to the definers, not the defined'. The FFA has spent the past ten years applying that lesson. Soccer is, among other things, wogs, violence, incompetence and marginality. Football is other things: good things, Australian things, mainstream things. Most importantly, FFA has learned from the disparagement that soccer received from other codes over the decades, and vowed that it would never succumb to the same fate - not only this, but they have striven to take it to the next level, by appropriating the language of the oppressor and using it as a successful example of wedge politics.

Terms like new dawn and bitter, mainstream and ethnic, new football and old soccer  - they all create division, and almost everyone has bought into them, this writer included. From our side of the fence, there have been those like the long gone Pumpkin Seed Eaters who have attempted creating other names, such as foundation clubs; journalists, when they weren't completely on the bandwagon, traditional clubs; FFV and FFA when they tried to find the most patronising PC term possible, community clubs. The net effect of all these definitions though was to point towards two directions - the past and the future.

Regardless of whether one got sucked into using the terms created by those with the power, or those without it - even my facetious and petty 'I am soccer' catchphrase in response to 'we are football' - the debate has been had on the powerful's terms. It's too late now to to start using different language in the hope that it will somehow turn everything around, but it's not too late to define ourselves outside of the parameters that have set. How we would do that, and what would be appropriate terms to use is an etymological process I'd be interested in seeing developed.

Official
The club released its own response, and it's another in a recent line of measured posts.

MEDIA RELEASE – THE POSSIBLE END OF ASPIRATIONAL FOOTBALL
May 6, 2015 

South Melbourne FC welcomes Football Federation Australia opening up the dialogue about Australia’s football future with the ‘Whole of Football Plan’ released on 5 May 2015. 

However, the current FFA Plan spells the possible end for aspirational football in this country. 

The proposed Plan currently provides no obvious club pathway that allows any club that aspires to develop and improve their process, systems and connection with their communities – or more importantly succeeds on the field – to be promoted as occurs throughout the football world. 

We are also disappointed that the FFA does not detail plans for further development of a second tier of Australian football, to facilitate the intended expansion of the Hyundai A-League and ultimately the implementation of a viable promotion and relegation system. 

Promotion and relegation would assist the improvement of the quality of our top division and provide a breeding ground for players, coaches, officials and aspiring clubs. 

More generally, a key component of all successful ‘plans’ is ‘implementation detail.’ We are keen to review that detail when it gets released. 

The FFA has certainly made great in-roads for our code’s development (for example football broadcasting and the launching of the Westfield FFA Cup), however we are mindful that strategic errors have also been made in the past. 

As a key stakeholder of football in Australia, we will be contacting the FFA to understand and obtain greater detail about their planning processes and to ensure the long term viability and growth of our club. 

Leo Athanasakis, SMFC President
Tom Kalas, SMFC Director

Whatever I may think of the club's approach over these past few years, I'm not going to go out and fault it. They tried to play nice, they tried to be conciliatory, they tried to be collegiate. Melbourne Knights tried to be difficult, tried to dig their heels in, tried to make a scene. No issue with that either. The fact is if they don't want you, they don't want you, and no amount of niceness or hostility is going to change things. Still, it'd be nice if some people, outside of those who are with us now, could have made a bit more of a fuss, if only for show.

Abandoned

This photo is the one the club chose to use to illustrate its press release. I made a comment on the club's Facebook page that it was slightly mischievous. It's a pointed reminder of what we once were, and where we are now. More importantly, it's a reminder that those who could, at the very least, speak up for us - not in an outrageous way, but in a way that they believe that we are still relevant - have chosen not to do so.

That the photo contains two of our most beloved members adds to the sting. And where's former president George Donikian? Spruiking the A-League semi-final with George Calombaris. Where is the Greek community?  At the A-League or the footy, or making fun of us on our Facebook page, telling us we're doomed, that we should give up because they have, and that there's a newer, shinier toy to play with. To be marginalised by the authorities is one thing, but to be marginalised by your own, that's the biggest insult. Making fun of us because we don't get the crowds we used to, as if the people pointing that out aren't part of that problem. And where will Enosi 59 be this week?

Boy, I really didn't see that one coming/Defeatist
Now the part of the announcement that most South fans (plus assorted remnants of old soccer and their associated new dawn sympathisers) picked up on was the FFA finally putting to rest promotion and relegation to the A-League. I am of course on the record as stating that I don't believe promotion is suitable for Australian soccer, and I still hold to that position. But no matter how harebrained I think that idea is, there is something I admire in it, and which seems to have been lost in the wash - and that is that at some level a belief in promotion and relegation is actually an endorsement in FFA, the last ten years and in the future of Australian soccer. It puts forward the belief that there is a viable future soccer in Australia, not just for the 'mainstream' but also the 'traditional'. It's a belief that's not about the old antagonisms, but about sharing a space.

If that's an example of the circumstances of the past ten years creating a sort of forced humility, then so be it. The problem with FFA's approach of incrementally increasing the number of teams in the top flight is that there is still no detail about what plan they'll use. Their own history on the matter is full of contradictions: last October Frank Lowy says that promotion and relegation will happen soon; now they rule it out; David Gallop says they'll fish where the fish are from now on, but now adds that any region with a population of 500,000 will be looked at, despite the problems of Central Coast and North Queensland; they briefly mention in the Whole f Football document that applications for an A-League licence from an NPL team would be possible, but offer no details, no pathway, no method.

Absurd (sans Simpsons reference)
So how do we get back to the top? If the A-League teams monopolise the majority of youth development, if no matter how well you do on and off the park you're effectively locked out, where's the incentive to excel by the processes of reform and self-improvement and by trying to follow the rules such as they exist in the NPL? To merely achieve the honour of being the longest lasting of the ethnic club museum pieces? When I asked on Twitter, rhetorically of course, for someone, anyone, to at least show us the hoops that we need to jump through to make the grade, Mark Bosnich offered to explain it to myself along with the others involved in the relevant discussion, in person next time he comes to Melbourne.

@jgrb @PaveJusup @pavlaki1969 simple,u guys r in Melbourne yes? When I'm down next time let me take u 2 lunch and listen 2 ur fears.xmb

— Mark Bosnich (@TheRealBozza) May 5, 2015

While I appreciate the gesture, and would happily take part in such a meeting, I'm curious as to what Bosnich thinks it will achieve. Does he have some special insight or inside knowledge that's not available to the rest of the soccer public?

Absurd (with Simpsons reference)

What I imagine Mark Bosnich will feel like if he ever follows through with his promise to meet with the bitters.

Personal
This isn't just a story about old soccer fans, or South fans in particular. This is a story that has deep resonance to me as an individual. Now I've never run a club, but I have the utmost respect for those people that do put their hand up to do it these days - even when I disagree with them, and even when they fail. No one is closer to the coal face than they are in terms of seeing the problems and institutional injustices every day, and no one understands them better.

But having written this blog for seven and a half years, and having been involved in the online arguments for long before that, I feel I have a unique relationship to this problem. Getting reconnected with South Melbourne in 2006, and having my writing on the forums praised and encouraged (especially by Ian Syson) has lead to a number of peculiar outcomes.

Firstly, for better and for worse I have become the chief voice of South Melbourne fans outside of what the club controls and what some fans on certain forums put out. My self-declared desire to be the reasonable one, to play a straight bat so to speak, has won me some admirers; but the overall effect has been that the necessity and rigour of trying to fine tune the arguments combined with the increasing and ongoing marginalisation of South means that I have found myself backed into an ideological corner.

I'm not alone in that corner, but that's not really the point. There have been plenty of times when I've been jubilant or outraged, cautiously optimistic or maudlin, inspired or defeatist - these are the general swings and roundabouts of being involved with the game at any level. The point here is that because of South Melbourne I have ended up with the career of sorts that I have now, and the option to be broader and more engaged with Australian soccer such as it exists these days.

Every few months I end up having a discussion with Ian Syson where he worries about my own increasing marginalisation in the soccer writing world, a world where he thinks I can contribute intelligent and cogent arguments to a wider reading audience than I do now. And yet every time we have this conversation, I find some myself being more adamant that I can't make myself be the kind of writer that Syson (and others) would want me to be; and instead of embracing those possibilities of taking an interest in and writing for a broader audience, with each passing year I find my focus getting narrower, and my outlook become one that can allow fewer compromises and extensions of faith and trust.

While a measure of this attitude is inevitably down to my being an introvert, a large part of it is because by associating myself so strongly with South Melbourne, I have been made smaller and more insular by the circumstances of our decline, and my reaction towards those whom I hold responsible. Thus as South has been marginalised culturally, so have I, and I can imagine that at times this is a feeling that many South fans have felt over the last ten years or so.

And while I'm a doom and gloom merchant by trade, the fact is that I don't like partaking in defeatism for the sake of defeatism. A former friend, from back in the days when I was involved with left-wing student politics at Melbourne University, who had me pegged as a hopeless pessimist, later told me that she'd been mistaken; that rather than being an outright pessimist, I was a foolhardy optimist, who when my expectations weren't met, descended into cynicism and irony as a coping mechanism. Amateur psychology it may have been, but the fact that she took the time to think about it resonated with me as much as the content of the message itself.

I resolved then to lower my expectations, to be more cautious. But no matter how much you try to do that, we as human beings inevitably see and come to understand these things through our own prism. In that way, South fans see this plan as hostile to our interests. Outside of us, an acquiescent and largely apathetic soccer public just goes along with it. All the pride, the incapacitating anger, the depression that we experience is at best for those outside of our sphere seen as a regrettable and ultimately forgettable novelty.

Having by and large conformed to the new regime, outsiders do not understand the pressure that exists to conform to or engage with this regime - and that by not doing so it means that you become smaller, narrower, and seen as selfish almost by default, when all you as a dedicated South fan see is your loyalty to the cause. I know this, because having been briefly on the other side of this schism, I've learned the arguments from both sides.

We have collectively been made smaller by the experience. There are people who have lost their passion for the game entirely, while others have given up the ghost on the national team. On the latter point, despite my diminished passion for the Socceroos, I never thought that I'd get to the point where I felt my relationship to the national team would have felt like it had been poisoned by South's predicament, but that's where I am now. It takes a certain level of intestinal fortitude to resist, which at times becomes too much to bear - when seen from the outside, it seems as if all sense of perspective is lost

There were many times when I was writing this post where I had to stop because I was so angry and despondent. That we care that much should be seen as a strength, not a weakness; but how do we convince not only others but ourselves, too, of that fact?

Pragmatic fatalism
So what do we do now? The same thing we always do. Support the club, try our best to make it bigger and better despite all the obstacles that we face. In that way we not only honour the work being put in now, but the history of the club as a whole.