This item is osurced from Football NSW website:
http://www.footballnsw.com/index.php?id=17&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=3573&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=6&cHash=1f76cd93e3
Have a read of this interesting article. Then ask yourself - why is it so expensive to have child placed in a High Performance Program, is it really "high performance" or simply community development and why is the FFA intending to spend lots of money propping up A League financial disasters rather than underwriting game development all the way down to your child. You get to choose whether you spend your disposable income and if you should engage a private provider for football development, no problem. But the FFA and State Federations exist to service the game and are they doing their job? This article sparked more questions for me than it answered and the FFA (and by extension CF) are well and truly on the hook.
And what a retrograde step it is to have the U12's move to 11v11 and full field, when we in the ACT had the answer in small sided games. Talk about curriculum!!!
FFA National Curriculum in commercial academies, development programs and clinics
08.04.10 12:19
“It has come to the attention of Football Federation Australia that several Member Federations and Hyundai A-League Clubs are conducting a number of elite academies, development programs and coaching clinics.
Some of these academies, programs and clinics mention that the content will follow the FFA National Curriculum. ..."
FFA National Curriculum in commercial academies, development programs and clinics
08.04.10 12:19
Football Federation of Australia has advised A-League clubs and Member Federations of its policy in relation to academies and reference to the national curriculum.
Football Federation Australia’s National Technical Director Han Berger issued this following statement.
“It has come to the attention of Football Federation Australia that several Member Federations and Hyundai A-League Clubs are conducting a number of elite academies, development programs and coaching clinics.
“Some of these academies, programs and clinics mention that the content will follow the FFA National Curriculum.
“We would like to bring to your attention that you can only refer to the Curriculum if the content of the programs as well as the coaching staff involved have been approved by the FFA technical department.
“Furthermore it's the intention of the FFA (as mentioned in the Curriculum) to ensure that programs are accessible to all players and cost is not a barrier to children receiving coaching.
“Therefore FFA wants any reference to the FFA National Curriculum to be removed or not included in announcements and/or advertisements of commercial academies, development programs and coaching clinics.
“For any elite academies, development programs and coaching clinics that are conducted free of charge for the participant and of which the technical content as well as the coaching staff have been approved by the FFA technical department, you may promote that you do follow the FFA National Curriculum.
“I would appreciate if you could forward this to your relevant Football Development staff for action immediately,” Berger ended.
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Well Mr Berger, most of us would appreciate a reduction in the cost of being involved in anything to do with football, the FFA and its State Federations. Ifound myself getting a bit hot under the collar at this little foot stamp by the FFA Technical Director.
My first thought to a collegue of mine (Sir Eamonn of Celtic) were these:
So its OK for “follow” the curriculum if you don’t charge, but not if you charge! Capital Football charges and so does every other State Federation. I spoke to a lot of parents during the U13 Nationals and they all were lamenting how much the program and add on costs to families had proved to be. And a lot of them had kids at the Futsal Nationals as well and that wasn’t cheap. The FFA didn’t offer to pay for the teams to attend the football Nationals or pay for their gear – cheaper than an A League club and more productive. Cheapskates! And they talk about wanting to approve development programs?? Hmmmhp!
This is commercial hypocrisy at its best. What does the FFA want, a cut of the action?
I would have thought that the FFA would want to have the commercial operations in line with the FFA national curriculum. They had a chance to do exactly that when they imposed the requirements for a Youth League.
I think the real problem here is that while the FFA have published a booklet called the FFA National Curriculum (I'm looking at it now) and while it was a wondeful first step, that’s where the exercise has stopped. No where is there one scrap of teaching resource available to coaches for use in developing players at any age / gender. This is a mojor strategic shortfall on their part and hamstrings the acceleration of learning by coaches and subsequently their individual / collective ability(s) to effect change in the direction the curriculum intends. The CF staff simply can't cover this ground - its too big a job. The S2S system was to be the underpinning resource but it has taken too long, uptake at club level or anywhere is slow / disjointed, we have no "exemplars to study", costs too much (they talk about charging? HA bloody Ha!) and it doesn’t work at the moment.
As to our HPP. They have never come close as yet to distributing coaching resources across the coaches and squads. Its a big step but a critical one - in terms of organisation and quality control and execution at coach / particpant level. Its the sort of thing parents would like to see in advance. As it stands it may take years and the first cylce is yet to be completed. We have been way laid by tiresome diversions by the CF Board on the HPP - a hindrance rather than a help at a very critical time. That’s one reason why is not “high performance”! Not yet anyway.
I've heard it said that some (CF Board ?) want to review the HPP - well pardon me if I wonder whether this is just another example of "football terrorism" or its intended to help give direction, to be constructive. So what the FFA does or does not do is directly linked to our little football pond here in the ACT.
The A league Academies were always going to be a massive problem with regard to player development. How could the FFA have been so short sighted on this one, when they are the authors of the curriculum. If they were to be the saviour in the ages 17 - 20 then think again. What control does the FFA have over their activities – activities they don’t pay for - answer is none and now they tell them not to refer to the curriculum (the one tenuous link standing) and hope this will be enough to get them to put their programs to the FFA for approval and “use of the royal seal”. Who would bother. The A League academies are incubators for the A League team concerned and a money spinner when they sell what they don’t want to keep. That’s the overseas model and it’s a model that works. I’ll bet their structured to turn a profit before they give a thought to development the FFA way.
And now the FFA has to bail out more A league Clubs that should never have got a run in the first place - financed on the basis of a bloke and pocket full of sheckles. No incentive their to get smart in these arrangements and when it haemorrhages dosh as it must, the bloke looses interest (well who wouldn’t anyway) and walks away, while the FFA spends precious funds that might otherwise have developed the teaching / coaching resources to underpin the curriculum.
Football of all codes all over the world are littered with clubs gone bad this way - too often bought by some other person or consortium with more money than sense. And now the FFA is an "owner" and it can;t get a curriculum roll out properly resoruced and implemented. Strewth!
So think local again. Why doesn’t Capital Football’s Board find a way to restructure its finances to make the HPP no charge for tuition. That would be a productive effort, unlike their more recent efforts around the HPP. Why not underwrite the cost of coaching courses by 50% as a start.And that’s before we get to the cost of getting coaching licences, particularly the higher level ones needed to coach representative teams (eg ACT U13 is a B licence). Wouldn't it be good of the FFA finacned particpation in the HPPs around the nationa and made all coach education free? Now that would be putting your money where your mouth should be and likely to get a return.
And then we factor in the deep financial well called the World Cup bid. Well forget about teh World Cup in Australia - pursue teh development of the game. We'll simply play where ever they have it. What's more important - running a world cup or having a nation playing real good football? If industry wants it then they can start to underwrite player/ game development. There's something for the CF Board to focus on.
The game can’t develop if the FFA and member federations don’t get back to grass roots expenditure – making it financially painless to be as good as you can be when you are young. Glossy booklets with good titles just don't take you there! Why are we in this game?
What a bloody farce.
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Then I had a cup of tea, returned and found I felt no better for it. My ind went back to what I have seen in the ACT in the last month - the Nara Ichijo High School team and teh U13 Girls and Boys Nationals. And before that, the remarkable efforst fo the ACTAS team at the NTC Challenge and the ACT teams at the Futsal Nationals. We ask a lot, in fact too much of our limitted young talent pool - and their parents. We are a long way from getting it right. On the sidelines it seem plenty of ordinary people like me seen to know it by watching - then putting your hand in your pocket to see what left in change to psy for the next thing.
Look, we need a HPP in the ACT that makes it dead simple to join and participate and at no cost for tuition. But it needs to be a geniune "high performance" activity, just as the name implies. We need to manage our talented players all the time, recruit the one who emerge as they grow, get Clubs deeply involved - part of the development process, we need coahes who are trained - Ok not news - but where do the coaches get the teaching resources from to develop their training becuase it's not there yet, no coah should have to pay to do a course - that's the FFA's investment in the game development and so on. Are we there yet - No! Don't get me wrong, CF staff are hard at it, but its an enormous job of work and the FFA just don;t seem to have sunk enough resources into the development of the underpinning resourses you would ordinarily associated with the roll out of a new curriculum - in anything. Does the FFA have an "education officer praciticed in curriculum development" (that came from a thirty year on the job teacher who coaches). What we have in the ACT is just a start. As a matter of urgency we need a highly competent working group put together to review and create the Player / game development structure that will bring life to the FFA National Curriculum in the ACT - not Holland, not NSW! The CF Board needs to get busy to find the funds to launch and sustain the way ahead - other than simply transferring the next cost to parents. They need to be activists with the FFA and demand the FFA does more than leave the job a third done - which is where it will stay if the FFA continues to amuse itself with two bob A league debacles. So many things and all connected. no wonder we wind up back at teh start again admiring the problems!!
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