Football Australia face redundancies as finances bite
Anna Harrington |
Cash-strapped Football Australia (FA) is set to cut more than 20 per cent of its staff in response to a looming second-straight record financial loss.
But chief executive Martin Kugeler is adamant the serious belt-tightening won’t impact the Socceroos or Matildas, who are preparing for their respective World Cups.
Kugeler on Tuesday confirmed FA would undergo a “significant reset and restructure” to allow it to work within its financial means, in response to a loss that would exceed last year’s record $8.5 million deficit.
“Two significant losses, and increasing losses year-on-year, is obviously not a situation that is sustainable or acceptable,” Kugeler said.
FA held an all-staff meeting on Tuesday morning regarding the financial news and separate meetings were held with affected staff throughout the day.
The exact figure and details will be released at the organisation’s AGM next Thursday.
Kugeler said some of the losses related to one-off hits like a freshly-announced deal with the Australian Professional Leagues that resolves historic debts from the process to unbundle the A-Leagues from FA.
“Ultimately what we will deliver about it is an organisational restructure that resizes the organisation and will enable us for greater innovation, sustainable growth, and investment into our game,” Kugeler said.
“This is to set up the organisation to deliver financial resilience, to deliver room for investment and growth in the future and to invest in the right areas of the business that ultimately will future-proof and will grow our sport.
“What that means is I had to make obviously very difficult decisions around roles and make a significant number of roles redundant, so we will ultimately reduce the people here working at Football Australia.”
Kugeler said that in the wake of a consultation process, although some new roles would be created FA anticipated “a net reduction of over 20 per cent” of staff.
FA’s woes come despite Australia hosting the Women’s World Cup in 2023 and the Women’s Asian Cup in 2026 and the Socceroos qualifying for a sixth straight World Cup.
Kugeler, who was appointed in January, was unwilling to criticise previous administrations but conceded FA had not “capitalised” on the legacies of those tournaments.
He said: “I only can look forward, right, and say, ‘Well, we are where we are: great on the football side, delivering success, qualifying for the World Cup; we’re not where we need to be on the financial side, and that’s what we have to address’.”
Kugeler was adamant the financial woes would not interfere with senior and junior national teams, nor FA’s negotiations with Tony Popovic’s agent regarding a contract extension for the Socceroos boss after the World Cup.
“Around the football side, preparations and the national teams are not impacted by what we’re doing,” he said.
“We would like Tony Popovic to continue as our Socceroos coach. I’ve got the impression that he would like to continue as our Socceroos coach, and those are ongoing discussions.”
Kugeler also didn’t anticipate any impact on FA-run competitions the Australia Cup, Australian Championship, or Emerging Championships.
AAP