President Capital Football Talks About Some Big Issues

Captial Football has a new President - Rachel Harrigan.

Rachel is not new to Football in the ACt and certainly not new to the Capital Football Board. She has served on the Board for eight years, the last four years as Vice President. So we may reasonably conclude that Rachel Harrigan is sufficiently informed to have a good sense for where Football needs to be headed in the next few years.

The President of the Capital Football Board is an important person in Football in the ACT. That person is the real face of Football in our region. Together with the other Board members, Rachel Harrigan must drive this game forward.

Three things (among others) stood out in Rachel's address to the AGM as part of her pitch for re-election:

1. The need for a first class Strategic Plan to be prepared and implemented for the years ahead, and
2. Communication (a much higher standard of communication with Clubs and others in the Football constituency than we have experienced in recent times)
3. Governance - implementing all aspects of the current CF policy in a fashion that enhances the devlopment of the game and effective communication, and the transition to a different business entity (company limited by guarantee). The latter element is a huge step forward and depends on so much else being done well.

Three very good objectives -  that will occupy Harrigan's time as President and demand a lot more of all the Board members. The Capital Football Board can't carry people. If re-election had been based on attendance records in the preceeding year, perhaps  there would be a couple more members who would have been replaced or stood down. As it is, that is not the criteria - but there is no reason for the new President to accept the presence of "passengers". There is too much work to be done. I wonder how the current attendance records are looking?

A further observation made by Rachel Harrigan is a very good one - Rachel links "strategy and structure". Absolutely correct. There is a good deal of work to be done on the organistional structure of Capital Football, for there is evidence aplenty that it is not well place to handle what is happening today, let alone the future implict in a new strategic plan.

Its a time of change for Capital Football, like it or not. Rachel quiet rightly points out that the FFA are running a strategic direction which is heavily biased to fortifying and securing the A League, and connecting with the FFA strategic intentions will not be easy. The development plight of our Mens Under17 to 20 years is a blight on our game in the ACT and required some serious effort to resolve.

The A League  is in a parlace state, thanks largely to the FFA's serial mismanagement.  Football in the ACT region has been damaged by the lies, misdirection and obfuscation by the FFA that surrounded efforts to raise an A League team in Canberra. A lot of goodwill has been lost and with it, sponsors. The lack of an A League Youth team which would ordinarily accompany an A league Licence Club in the ACT, has shut the door on critical development pathways for our Under 17 to 20 men. We have little to thank the FFA for in recent times, but working with the FFA as a member federation is mandatory, as is solving the development opportunities for the 17-20 Men and in a coherent fashion..

Getting productive outcomes from the FFA and Football NSW is very much the sort of strategic boundary riding that a Board President and capable Board members must be tasked to do. This goes way past "operational" interpretations within the current CF governance policy. The Board leads, the CEO and staff follow on this matter. There is some good expereicne on the Board now to make it happen.

Rachel Harrigan is well placed to take Capital Football forward. The President and Board must be the face of Football in the ACT.

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