midfielder
Well-Known Member
Below is and email I sent today to Craig Foster & Jessie Fink (HTO Blogger) today. I am also thinking of sending Frank Lowy a copy.
I would be interested in any comments, it's quite long, maybe mods could have a sticky for a week to get some feedback. Also in advance Midfielder's day time job is not in writing articles so if erros of grammer occur I am sorry, hopefully the message will still get through.
Anyway to my email(left off this copy my personal details)
Craig & Jes
RE The FFA, package for the running of junior football in Australia.
Before I start let me say the concept of touch on the ball, smaller size fields, smaller teams, no competition until under 13 I applaud.
My owe experience as a committee member of a 600 player club in Sydneys north west, as a parent of three boys who have all played, as a regular attendee of A-League & NSL games, a coach, and as a midfield player for two many years to remember, and someone who supports all the goals and aspirations aspired for in the plan.
However after a lot of consideration, my belief is . With the best of intentions a disastrous strategic error may have occurred, and in the interest of football I need to explain my reasoning.
Craig via your commentary during the world cup and regular article in the herald & SBS, you are the football commenter with IMO the most respect in the boarder community, & Jes again IMO you are the bloggers choice via HTO with respect and crid so it to you two I turn with my fears.
As a background to my thoughts, in a generic sense there are three kinds of management decision making models, first top down, basically the board / senior management say do this and it must be done, second bottom up, where low level employees say collectively this is a good idea management look at it and say either OK or not OK, thirdly there is an in between with both sides coming together and agreeing on the best way forward.
Both the most successful and the most disastrous are top down. If management get it right then things happen very fast. But history say that top down management very often goes wrong and by the time it is seen as the wrong approach, it is often too late.
Another management problem is Group Think, this is a group of expert managers, in position of power decide on a course of action. But given they all think like each other, its creates a group answer which often ignores other ideas as a whole group has made a decision. Problem the group all think to muck alike, the most famous case is when Bill Gates offered IBM, DOS for under a million dollars and IBM said personal computers they will never work.
When combined top down and group think create, great success or dismal failure
If I leave the management theory classes; for a bit and talk about some practical life unarguable business knowns. First when developing models you must compare apples with apples. Second a lost and dissatisfied customers rarely comes back
Past history needs also to be put into a factual context. In 1955 a group of well meaning people formed a break away competition from the associations. Simply the associations were run by well meaning ANGLOs of their time periods and value systems of that time. The associations were compared to the new breakaway groups lacking in knowledge, ability, and any angle you care to name to the newcomers.
So in frustration the newcomers formed a break away competition which worked well for about two years but then went steadily down hill, this new competition had Australia banned from FIFA for a number of years and lead to the mono ethnic clubs which in turn lead to 50 odd years of poor (struggling for the right word) media, often corrupt and hopeless management. Eventually collapsing under its owe incompetence. I guess not the outcome the newcomers had planned for.
Enough of the management and history lessons get to the point I hear you say, I will but it was important to put what I about to say in a context..
The FFA model is a top down model, with the FFA, saying this is how it is to be done. The team that put this together are all very technical football people so group think. At this point understand group think, all of the panel members are in favor and support the touch idea.
So if every management model that has proceeded in history is correct, this will either work so well it will exceed even the grandest targets set, or fail in a way that could do SERIOUS DAMAGE TO FOOTBALL, nay MAYBE UNREPAIRABLE DAMAGE.
At this point I feel I need to restate my full support of the objectives of the report.
The history of 1955 needs to be mentioned here, why you ask, Craig you very much support and want this type of system or at least that is my read of your comments over the last two years and the new model reflects very closely a American online media link you posted last year. Therefore Craig you need to unlike Les Murry who cannot see the tragic strategic error of 1955, and who to this day still glowing talks about the great plan, that should have worked but .crashed and allowed AFL, League and to a lesser extent union to grab footholds in the sporting physic.
Have the planners ever spoken to me. Not me in the persona, but me as a representative of the local clubs.
If the planners had said to me this is our plan what do you think, I would have said great great just a couple of minor points.
Who do you want to do this extra work, as my two biggest problems are 1) finding people at junior level to be a coach and a manager teams unless you assume parents can just show up. 2) Dont create any more work for existing workers in park teams as they are very time challenged and to keep people we can not keep creating extra work.
The effect on my club is we need now in our junior teams an additional 12 coaches and 12 managers or maybe talk someone into doing both jobs. With teams of four that is 50% of parents.
Whats that you say 50% of parents. Man you must be joking, parent support across all sports is getting harder and the reason some leagues clubs dont run junior teams. So the trend line (over 25 years) of parent helping is steadily heading south and the FFA requirement despite these trends are increase from 2 parents in 9, to 2 parents in 4. Guess what FAT CHANCE.
Second where are the fields in our association to support the plan, by the start of next year maybe two fields will have been converted by councils to the new format. So most parents will drive over half an hour often more to take Johnny to sport.
So get a 50% parent involvement, and these parents being prepared to drive for often over half an hour. So I hope at this stage there is something starting to stir. Perhaps you think I am over reacting or this is not important, .. think about complying with OH&S regulations pertaining to running a sports team on to a playing field, complying with child protection laws.
My second request was not to create any more work for existing people at local park level. Given the already, increased work load of people on committees to create more work would be the straw that breaks the camels back for some, and a turn off for others considering joining a committee.
Our association realizing parents will not wish to travel as much asked clubs to consider laying out three games on a normal sized field starting at 9:00 and finishing at 12:00. One club worked out 250 cones needed laying out at say 8:00 with little nets and collected at 12:00. Of course ignoring the need to find space in all ready over crowded storage areas.
My question is who is going to dress the fields every Saturday morning. Our clubs current policy is the team is nominated to dress our fields on weekend mornings and the committee needs to send members so if the nominated team does no show up, the committee will. Who is going to lay out and collect the mini fields.
The association I am with in its attempts to follow the DIRECTION of the FFA look like in time allocating to clubs with a number of fields, the junior games, as their may be enough people to share the work load. Problem with this is the CANTEEN, who spends the most at the canteens, its the little kids, the all age sides bring their own beer to have after the match, so by directing some of the 10, 11 & 12s away from home clubs, the association is shifting canteen income and the smaller clubs will have even more financial pressure placed on them.
I should remind you I am in full support of the touch the ball philosophy.
My understanding is the model is essentially modeled on a Brazilian & Germanic junior football. I need to point out in these countries football has no real competition, no AFL with 50 million per year over five years to spend attempting to develop AFL juniors in Sydney & Brisbane.
Think about this at the same time football is asking councils to spend ever decreasing funding in re developing their fields to comply to a new football model, AFL is offering to pay councils money to develop parks.
At this point I need to remind all those in the media and running football, today, that it was not them who developed football in Australia, nor was it the old NSL people, nor the break away group back in 1955.
It was the associations; in fact the associations in spite of football management built the junior game to where it is today. What is interesting in all the reading I could find on the new youth development touch philosophy I saw little input from the associations, I did find plenty of football people with similar mind sets like Robert Baan, Ange Postecoglou, etc. All very good but also all starting from a similar position.
Another point is by far the most popular sports competition in Australia for primary schools is the NSW primary schools football knock out comp. It has well over 1, 000 football teams, developed again by football people at the grassroots often the same people at the local clubs. Rugby league has 120 teams, union 110 teams, and interestingly (remember its NSW) AFL has 80.
The almost constant view by those running this knock out competition is to take away the competition out of this would reduce the football teams to fewer than 500 with players moving to the AFL & Rugby League teams. This is because Aussie kids like competition and if no competition would move to sports that did.
So this brings me to the point who owns the juniors, FFA, States, Associations, Local Clubs. For me football in Australia has been let down badly by all forms of management apart from the Frank Lowys after Crawford. More importantly who knows how to run and manage local park sides.
I feel once again a group of well meaning people with vast amounts of football knowledge are imposing their will however this time it will effect how the associations run football.
LET ME MAKE IT QUITE CLEAR THE ASSOCIATIONS SAVED FOOTBALL FROM ITSELF, ITS MEDIA, ITS POOR MANAGEMENT. IT IS THE ASSOCIATIONS WHO DEVELOPED THE JUNIORS, THE VARIOUS COMPETITIONS THAT WE HAVE TODAY.
From where I stand I see the decisions made by FFA on the rules applying to juniors to be a wish list for the best possible system to develop players. It is a top down approach by a group of like minded people all wishing before they started for more touches no competitive system, based on countries were there is no real competition to football. Like any top down approach combined with group think it will either fly faster than the speed of sound or crash and burn. Given the extra hours of time (in a time starved world) needed by parents for their children to play football, the extra parents needed to coach and manage which goes against every trend line in the western world, the unforeseen I guess increased expenditure required by councils, the extra work needing to be undertaken by club committee people, the re-allocating of funds in between clubs, and the warning from the primary school teachers about two thirds of students switching codes, the ever real danger of league, AFL & union associations looking for our players, my feeling are it will crash and burn and has the potential to undermine the one asset football has over every other code and that is its juniors and the management of the juniors.
In closing the associations can offer over sixty the most played and best managed sport in Australia, with local knowledge, of the various communities they come from, and continual growth. The associations as indicated before achieved this against a background of the worst of the worst management and media. I ASK YOU WHAT EXPERTISE DOES THE FFA BRINGS TO THE TABLE OF JUNIOR FOOTBALL MANAGEMENT.
My fear is by attempting to create the perfect training model to prepare people for national team aspirations FFA potentially will undermine the associations, who collectively are the only real success story football has, and who have the knowledge to run the game locally.
This plan does not as Ben Buckley said on SBS need to be looked at in a few years it needs to be looked at now, as the only constant reliable well managed part of football has been the associations and their development of football. To change this system needs a lot of explaining to me.
If you think I am right please bring it up and feel free to contact me if you wish.
Kind Regards
Midfielder
I would be interested in any comments, it's quite long, maybe mods could have a sticky for a week to get some feedback. Also in advance Midfielder's day time job is not in writing articles so if erros of grammer occur I am sorry, hopefully the message will still get through.
Anyway to my email(left off this copy my personal details)
Craig & Jes
RE The FFA, package for the running of junior football in Australia.
Before I start let me say the concept of touch on the ball, smaller size fields, smaller teams, no competition until under 13 I applaud.
My owe experience as a committee member of a 600 player club in Sydneys north west, as a parent of three boys who have all played, as a regular attendee of A-League & NSL games, a coach, and as a midfield player for two many years to remember, and someone who supports all the goals and aspirations aspired for in the plan.
However after a lot of consideration, my belief is . With the best of intentions a disastrous strategic error may have occurred, and in the interest of football I need to explain my reasoning.
Craig via your commentary during the world cup and regular article in the herald & SBS, you are the football commenter with IMO the most respect in the boarder community, & Jes again IMO you are the bloggers choice via HTO with respect and crid so it to you two I turn with my fears.
As a background to my thoughts, in a generic sense there are three kinds of management decision making models, first top down, basically the board / senior management say do this and it must be done, second bottom up, where low level employees say collectively this is a good idea management look at it and say either OK or not OK, thirdly there is an in between with both sides coming together and agreeing on the best way forward.
Both the most successful and the most disastrous are top down. If management get it right then things happen very fast. But history say that top down management very often goes wrong and by the time it is seen as the wrong approach, it is often too late.
Another management problem is Group Think, this is a group of expert managers, in position of power decide on a course of action. But given they all think like each other, its creates a group answer which often ignores other ideas as a whole group has made a decision. Problem the group all think to muck alike, the most famous case is when Bill Gates offered IBM, DOS for under a million dollars and IBM said personal computers they will never work.
When combined top down and group think create, great success or dismal failure
If I leave the management theory classes; for a bit and talk about some practical life unarguable business knowns. First when developing models you must compare apples with apples. Second a lost and dissatisfied customers rarely comes back
Past history needs also to be put into a factual context. In 1955 a group of well meaning people formed a break away competition from the associations. Simply the associations were run by well meaning ANGLOs of their time periods and value systems of that time. The associations were compared to the new breakaway groups lacking in knowledge, ability, and any angle you care to name to the newcomers.
So in frustration the newcomers formed a break away competition which worked well for about two years but then went steadily down hill, this new competition had Australia banned from FIFA for a number of years and lead to the mono ethnic clubs which in turn lead to 50 odd years of poor (struggling for the right word) media, often corrupt and hopeless management. Eventually collapsing under its owe incompetence. I guess not the outcome the newcomers had planned for.
Enough of the management and history lessons get to the point I hear you say, I will but it was important to put what I about to say in a context..
The FFA model is a top down model, with the FFA, saying this is how it is to be done. The team that put this together are all very technical football people so group think. At this point understand group think, all of the panel members are in favor and support the touch idea.
So if every management model that has proceeded in history is correct, this will either work so well it will exceed even the grandest targets set, or fail in a way that could do SERIOUS DAMAGE TO FOOTBALL, nay MAYBE UNREPAIRABLE DAMAGE.
At this point I feel I need to restate my full support of the objectives of the report.
The history of 1955 needs to be mentioned here, why you ask, Craig you very much support and want this type of system or at least that is my read of your comments over the last two years and the new model reflects very closely a American online media link you posted last year. Therefore Craig you need to unlike Les Murry who cannot see the tragic strategic error of 1955, and who to this day still glowing talks about the great plan, that should have worked but .crashed and allowed AFL, League and to a lesser extent union to grab footholds in the sporting physic.
Have the planners ever spoken to me. Not me in the persona, but me as a representative of the local clubs.
If the planners had said to me this is our plan what do you think, I would have said great great just a couple of minor points.
Who do you want to do this extra work, as my two biggest problems are 1) finding people at junior level to be a coach and a manager teams unless you assume parents can just show up. 2) Dont create any more work for existing workers in park teams as they are very time challenged and to keep people we can not keep creating extra work.
The effect on my club is we need now in our junior teams an additional 12 coaches and 12 managers or maybe talk someone into doing both jobs. With teams of four that is 50% of parents.
Whats that you say 50% of parents. Man you must be joking, parent support across all sports is getting harder and the reason some leagues clubs dont run junior teams. So the trend line (over 25 years) of parent helping is steadily heading south and the FFA requirement despite these trends are increase from 2 parents in 9, to 2 parents in 4. Guess what FAT CHANCE.
Second where are the fields in our association to support the plan, by the start of next year maybe two fields will have been converted by councils to the new format. So most parents will drive over half an hour often more to take Johnny to sport.
So get a 50% parent involvement, and these parents being prepared to drive for often over half an hour. So I hope at this stage there is something starting to stir. Perhaps you think I am over reacting or this is not important, .. think about complying with OH&S regulations pertaining to running a sports team on to a playing field, complying with child protection laws.
My second request was not to create any more work for existing people at local park level. Given the already, increased work load of people on committees to create more work would be the straw that breaks the camels back for some, and a turn off for others considering joining a committee.
Our association realizing parents will not wish to travel as much asked clubs to consider laying out three games on a normal sized field starting at 9:00 and finishing at 12:00. One club worked out 250 cones needed laying out at say 8:00 with little nets and collected at 12:00. Of course ignoring the need to find space in all ready over crowded storage areas.
My question is who is going to dress the fields every Saturday morning. Our clubs current policy is the team is nominated to dress our fields on weekend mornings and the committee needs to send members so if the nominated team does no show up, the committee will. Who is going to lay out and collect the mini fields.
The association I am with in its attempts to follow the DIRECTION of the FFA look like in time allocating to clubs with a number of fields, the junior games, as their may be enough people to share the work load. Problem with this is the CANTEEN, who spends the most at the canteens, its the little kids, the all age sides bring their own beer to have after the match, so by directing some of the 10, 11 & 12s away from home clubs, the association is shifting canteen income and the smaller clubs will have even more financial pressure placed on them.
I should remind you I am in full support of the touch the ball philosophy.
My understanding is the model is essentially modeled on a Brazilian & Germanic junior football. I need to point out in these countries football has no real competition, no AFL with 50 million per year over five years to spend attempting to develop AFL juniors in Sydney & Brisbane.
Think about this at the same time football is asking councils to spend ever decreasing funding in re developing their fields to comply to a new football model, AFL is offering to pay councils money to develop parks.
At this point I need to remind all those in the media and running football, today, that it was not them who developed football in Australia, nor was it the old NSL people, nor the break away group back in 1955.
It was the associations; in fact the associations in spite of football management built the junior game to where it is today. What is interesting in all the reading I could find on the new youth development touch philosophy I saw little input from the associations, I did find plenty of football people with similar mind sets like Robert Baan, Ange Postecoglou, etc. All very good but also all starting from a similar position.
Another point is by far the most popular sports competition in Australia for primary schools is the NSW primary schools football knock out comp. It has well over 1, 000 football teams, developed again by football people at the grassroots often the same people at the local clubs. Rugby league has 120 teams, union 110 teams, and interestingly (remember its NSW) AFL has 80.
The almost constant view by those running this knock out competition is to take away the competition out of this would reduce the football teams to fewer than 500 with players moving to the AFL & Rugby League teams. This is because Aussie kids like competition and if no competition would move to sports that did.
So this brings me to the point who owns the juniors, FFA, States, Associations, Local Clubs. For me football in Australia has been let down badly by all forms of management apart from the Frank Lowys after Crawford. More importantly who knows how to run and manage local park sides.
I feel once again a group of well meaning people with vast amounts of football knowledge are imposing their will however this time it will effect how the associations run football.
LET ME MAKE IT QUITE CLEAR THE ASSOCIATIONS SAVED FOOTBALL FROM ITSELF, ITS MEDIA, ITS POOR MANAGEMENT. IT IS THE ASSOCIATIONS WHO DEVELOPED THE JUNIORS, THE VARIOUS COMPETITIONS THAT WE HAVE TODAY.
From where I stand I see the decisions made by FFA on the rules applying to juniors to be a wish list for the best possible system to develop players. It is a top down approach by a group of like minded people all wishing before they started for more touches no competitive system, based on countries were there is no real competition to football. Like any top down approach combined with group think it will either fly faster than the speed of sound or crash and burn. Given the extra hours of time (in a time starved world) needed by parents for their children to play football, the extra parents needed to coach and manage which goes against every trend line in the western world, the unforeseen I guess increased expenditure required by councils, the extra work needing to be undertaken by club committee people, the re-allocating of funds in between clubs, and the warning from the primary school teachers about two thirds of students switching codes, the ever real danger of league, AFL & union associations looking for our players, my feeling are it will crash and burn and has the potential to undermine the one asset football has over every other code and that is its juniors and the management of the juniors.
In closing the associations can offer over sixty the most played and best managed sport in Australia, with local knowledge, of the various communities they come from, and continual growth. The associations as indicated before achieved this against a background of the worst of the worst management and media. I ASK YOU WHAT EXPERTISE DOES THE FFA BRINGS TO THE TABLE OF JUNIOR FOOTBALL MANAGEMENT.
My fear is by attempting to create the perfect training model to prepare people for national team aspirations FFA potentially will undermine the associations, who collectively are the only real success story football has, and who have the knowledge to run the game locally.
This plan does not as Ben Buckley said on SBS need to be looked at in a few years it needs to be looked at now, as the only constant reliable well managed part of football has been the associations and their development of football. To change this system needs a lot of explaining to me.
If you think I am right please bring it up and feel free to contact me if you wish.
Kind Regards
Midfielder
