Football Australia was a rebel organisation for the sport of

Soccer in Australia Soccer, also known as football, is the most played outdoor club sport in Australia, and ranked in the top ten for television audience as of 2015. The national governing body of the sport is Football Australia (FA), which until 2019, organised ...

and operated without any international affiliates. It was founded in 2012 by

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n business man

Clive Palmer Clive Frederick Palmer (born 26 March 1954) is an Australian businessman and politician. He has iron ore, nickel, and coal holdings. Palmer owns many businesses such as Mineralogy, Waratah Coal, Queensland Nickel at Townsville, the Palmer C ...

after having his

Gold Coast United Gold Coast United Football Club is an Australian soccer club based in Gold Coast, Queensland. The earliest incarnation of the club formed in 1966 and its home ground was at Nikiforides Family Park in Broadbeach. The first era of Gold Coast Unit ...

A-League A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

licence revoked by the FFA. Archie Fraser was the most recent Chairman of Football Australia and

was President. Football Australia's last public activity was in June 2012 and the organisation is presumed to be defunct.

History

On 1 March 2012 Football Australia was launched by

n mining magnate

with the slogan "We Kick Harder". It was originally announced that it was intended that the new federation would form a breakaway league and eventually replace the FFA and oversee football at a grassroots level and senior level. However, Palmer and FA's newly appointed chief executive, former

chief Archie Fraser, said the organisation was not necessarily out to topple the FFA but would act as watchdog and forum for ideas in the sport. It planned to publish papers, hold press conferences, seek opinions, lobby the government, lobby the FFA for a better outcome for Australians and the game in Australia. Soon after the announcement many

club published statements rubbishing Palmer's new venture.

Melbourne Heart Melbourne City Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in the south–eastern Melbourne suburb of Cranbourne East, that plays in the A-League, the top level of Australian soccer, under licence from Australian Profession ...

CEO Scott Munn stated "Our position is clear - we've signed a clubs participation agreement to enter the

run and operated by

Football Federation Australia Football Australia is the governing body of soccer, futsal, and beach soccer within Australia, headquartered in Sydney. Although the first governing body of the sport was founded in 1911, Football Australia in its current form was only esta ...

" while

Perth Glory Perth Glory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Perth, Western Australia. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues. Founded in 19 ...

owner

Tony Sage Antony William Paul Sage, known as Tony Sage (born 26 June 1960), is a Western Australian businessman who is also notable for owning A-League football club Perth Glory. Biography Born in Gloucester, England, on 26 June 1960, Sage moved with h ...

declined to comment after previously supporting Clive Palmer. Sources from

Sydney FC Sydney Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Sydney, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The club was fo ...

and

Brisbane Roar Brisbane Roar Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Brisbane, Queensland and has won the domestic title on three occasions, as well as holding the longest unbeaten record of 36 league matches without defeat. Brisba ...

also confirmed their intention of staying with the FFA. It was also reported that Palmer tried to persuade a number of young

players to defect and sign contracts with a proposed rebel competition; however, a number of senior players intervened. On 2 March 2012 both the AFC and

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

publicly released a statement supporting

saying that FIFA will only recognise one governing body in each FIFA affiliated nation and went on to say that "FIFA will continue its close cooperation with the FFA, however, we will also continue to monitor the situation". On 13 March 2012 the federation launched a national commission of inquiry designed to hear submissions on ways to improve the sport’s administration and development. It was announced that the federation will hold hearings in Townsville, Newcastle, Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide and Perth. The hearings are to be conducted by former president of FFSA Gary Collis with former

footballer

Steve Fitzsimmons Steve Fitzsimmons (born 7 September 1976) is a former Australian football (soccer) player and coach. Club career Steve started his NSL career with Parramatta Power under coach & former Socceroo David Mitchell and his assistant coach Lawrie M ...

appointed secretary to the commission. A limited release of the inquiry occurred on 2 June 2012 but since then Football Australia has become inactive. The organisation's

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account was last active in June 2012 and the group's website domain name has not been re-registered.

References

{{Reflist Soccer governing bodies in Australia Sports organizations established in 2012 2012 establishments in Australia

History

See also

References