Long-time football administrator and Football Australia Hall of Fame member Brendan Schwab has called on the game’s current leadership to stand up, administer loudly and advocate proudly – or get out of the way.
As the sport again finds itself mired in introspective crisis over identity, finance and direction – accelerated by the PFA’s declaration this week that over 75% of A-League Men’s players are ‘dissatisfied’ or worse with the APL – Schwab has written that to avoid another cycle of devastation and regrowth, lessons of history must be heeded immediately.
Speaking with Box2Box following his recent opinion piece for Football360, Schwab has called on the present leadership to champion the game’s history and on-field narratives, end the cyclical administrative politicking, and drive forward into the future – and if unable or unwilling, step aside for those who are.
‘We’re in the Australian sports and entertainment market, arguably the most competitive in the world, and in the game which we know is the most competitive in the world. So everyone involved has to put their hands up to sit on that board or role, only if they’ve got the acumen, passion, values and expertise to make the game thrive’, he said.
‘And the people who don’t have the acumen should have the ability to put their hand up and say ‘I’m going to act in the best interests of the game – so no, this isn’t for me.’
“We’ve got to get people who are willing to spend a long time doing this, people that have the will as well as the humility. This is a big rebuild for Australian football. It’s a 20-25 year vision and we need people who are willing to dedicate that period of their lives to making sure our game finally realises its potential.’
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Is Australian football headed for yet another revolution? It feels like it could, if change acts as the natural response to discontent. The foundation of its present dynamic came in December 2020, as the running of the A-Leagues was ‘unbundled’ from Football Australia control to the clubs themselves – managed by a newly formed body, the Australian Professional Leagues.
Almost five years on, very few still argue this was the right thing to do. Turnover in key APL positions has been consistent; their sale of the Grand Final to Destination NSW in December 2022 caused a literal riot, ruined the momentum the Socceroos had built at the Qatar World Cup, and left many fans disenfranchised for good.
The APL, now led by former Labour Senator Stephen Conroy, have received recent kicks in the teeth via the PFA’s annual reports, which detailed high levels of personal distress among women’s players, and Men’s players advocating for the dissolution of the APL as a concept in favour of an independent commission. Conroy, ironically for a former communications minister, has fronted to the press once since he was appointed in September 2023.
At Football Australia, 2025 has also seen significant turnover on its executive headlined by the departures of chief executive James Johnson, chief financial officer Caroline Veitch, and media, marketing and communications manager Peter Filopolous. Esteemed former Matilda Heather Garriock has been Johnson’s replacement on an interim basis since May.
The Socceroos and Matildas (and the underage programmes that feed them) are thriving, but engagement and sentiment around the week-to-week, professional game again feels on the back foot. The A-Leagues’ broadcast rights are up for negotiation at seasons’ end; before then, the PFA and APL are due to renew their collective bargaining agreement, but head into their late-December negotiations on far spikier terms than normal.
All this only 20 years on from the dawn of the A-League, a genuinely fresh start that has already turned sour unless you really know where to look. For every heaving Sydney & New Zealand Derby, there’s a dull 0-0 before under 3,000 people at Campbelltown; a club just five years old in ‘hibernation’ in Western United; enduring financial issues at legacy clubs in Brisbane and Perth. Conroy stays schtum, save for statements pressing the need to continue to trim salary caps. How has the game found itself here again?
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Schwab likens Australian Football’s cyclical pattern of changing governance as akin to elected party politics, in contrast to the AFL & NRL’s more consistent, steady-state landscapes. That’s not to say those sports didn’t endure their share of turbulence in organising themselves, but that once they did, they consolidated their history into enduring lessons to live by.
He points to the Frank Lowy era as Chairman of Football Australia (2003-15) as the strongest attempt to embed ongoing, generational leadership at the head of the game; despite all that was reaped from that period, it, too, ultimately saw its grip on the leadership of the game loosen entirely, and the A-Leagues – founded and nurtured under Lowy’s care – ultimately move to a different governance model by 2021.
‘When we look at the Lowy era and what brought it into existence, it needs to be remembered that there was a very strong effort to embed best practice governance into Australian Football that culminated in the Crawford Report in 2003. But it wasn’t fully implemented’, said Schwab.
‘Therefore, when Frank made the decision, inevitably, as he did to step down, he lacked the legacy element of his leadership and tried to emanate that through his son, Stephen (Chairman 2015-18), but Stephen just couldn’t carry the numbers like Frank could.
‘If we compare that with the AFL, it went through those governance reforms in the 1980s with its own version of the Crawford Report, and that embedded the AFL Commission as the independent governing body. That’s still the case today.
‘There are still debates as to the accountability of [their] commission… but in the AFL, the very notion that an independent commission is making long-term strategic decisions in the best interest of the game is something that that sport is not revisiting. There’s not a constant revolution, reinvention of the game, just because management’s changed.
‘Soccer’s a bit like politics. A new government comes in and they try to wipe out what the predecessor had done. I don’t think [global] football works that way – I don’t think any great institution works that way. We have to build on the achievements of the past, not be threatened by them.’
In step with this tendency of its governance, Australian Football broadly seems always to want to churn and burn and start afresh. Never truly comfortable with what it’s built, driven by an insecurity that outweighs pride, it looks to start again. This has been to the great detriment of what really matters; clubs, players and stories, and the ability to pass down history and memories from one generation to the next.
The greatest example is the scorched earth approach taken to the National Soccer League and its great clubs in South Melbourne Hellas, Marconi Stallions et al in 2004. That’s not to say that specifically was not the right decision but as Schwab points out, given the cycle of destruction the game lapses into, who’s to guarantee the history written by Sydney FC & Melbourne Victory today will have any oxygen in 25 years?
‘One of the most significant lessons, as we look through our game, is that some of the greatest institutions in our history have not survived from one era to the next. Look at Sydney Hakoah, a dominant club in the early part of the National Soccer League.
‘Look at the Australian Soccer Federation itself – which became Football Australia – the governing body itself did not survive the transfer from one era to the next. None of us can rest assured as to our position in this game.
‘I really can’t see our A-League working if we don’t understand that we’re trying to build 10, 12, 14 iconic football brands in this country. The Socceroos, the Matildas, A-League Men’s & Women’s clubs. Think of great football countries and one of the first things that come to mind are the clubs. When we think of Spain we think of Barcelona, Real Madrid and many other great clubs. We could do that for nearly every major football country in the world.
‘When we think of Australia we’re not quite there yet, but we’re in a much stronger position than we were 25 years ago when we embarked on that reform. A lot has been achieved in the last 25 years. We haven’t missed a World Cup, Men’s or Women’s, in that time- let’s not understate that achievement.’
Schwab believes it’s high time to instead overstate our achievements. Not every club member, grassroots participant, or general punter can have the chance to influence the political direction of the game, but they can all influence its discourse.
Only a small portion of AFL, NRL or cricket fans engage with, and truly understand, the politics of their respective sports, for they largely don’t have to. They can enjoy the game, learn its history, and celebrate its successes. For Australian Football fans the reverse is true and its politics are usually a discussion’s first point of reference, to the detriment of what happens on the pitch.
‘Unless we focus on the way we champion and market and promote our game, we’re going to miss out. We have to talk about the game. We have to. Talk about what it is. Our game should not be about who the CEO or president is. It should be about the best player, who’s going to win, whether Melbourne Victory is going to overcome the disappointments of the last few years.
‘There’s incredible history that we’ve built in a short period of time and we need leadership that talks about it. I’ve been around football people at the top of our administration for a long time and sometimes, we all come together in a room… and I do wonder how much they love the game – our game.
‘Do we talk about Erik Paartalu’s equaliser in the Grand Final? No – we still argue whether we should even have a Grand Final. Some people actually suggest that, and we’ve got 40 years of history now in the Grand Final. I remember watching South Melbourne beat Melbourne Knights on penalties at the old Olympic Park (1991), one of the great football experiences. Do we talk about those things? That’s our history.
‘Sam Kerr’s (2023 World Cup) goal against England is arguably the greatest live football experience I’ve had. Still, saying it now, makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. That’s the stuff we need, people that love it. Talk about it.
‘The politics will look after itself, but the (sporting) narrative has to be the predominant narrative – and ours is an extraordinary one. It’s a great platform for us to build on, but it’s not going to give us our future.
‘Part of the point of my article is there are people saying ‘we’re struggling now, we should go backwards.’ I’m saying no – we should respect our past and build on it. Our past goes way back and I fully appreciate that – I grew up going to watch Footscray JUST every second weekend. But we can’t go backwards. There’s no future in that for us.’