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Sunday 2 August 2009

FFA: High Performance blocked in Canberra?

Sign-ups for Capital Football High Performance Talent Ientification Program in Canberra have been taken down.

Which either means:

They are full...unlikely.
The Board has put a stop to it. Embarassing for them to be in direct opposition to the FFA. Better have a good reason if this is the case, not to me, to the FFA.
Capital Football has been unable to get enough Coaches.
We have no Talent in Canberra so it's not needed.

or some other explanation that I haven't thought of yet. What have you heard? Someone must know.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

The word is that the Board met and were not happy that they were not consulted properly with the new prograqm posted on the web site.
Reid,Shaw and co held an information night announcing the changes without Board consultation.

The board met and has canned the idea for now.

ACT Football a joke.
CEO and company resign or be sacked
Not a way to run an orgainstion

Anonymous said...

If thats true it would be the fault of the board not the CEO?

Anonymous said...

Sounds very sad. Looked like a ripper of a program. Another example of stuffing up football in Canberra.

jj said...

It was turned for a few reasons. 1. They didn’t consult the board 2. They didn’t seek the opinions of the coaches or other significant stakeholders who the changes would affect most 3. The current Academy program has been successful. It has produced Joeys, Young Socceroos, Young Matildas and AIS players at an unprecedented level. It fits the new curriculum in most ways, the main place it doesn't is that it doesn’t cater to the youngest age groups – 8 to 10 year olds.

Why would they want to make such drastic changes to a program that has worked so successfully in producing more young Canberra talent? If they had kept the majority of the current program that has been a success and tweaked some of the areas that have not been - adequately preparing the 13 Boys, 14 Girls, 17 Girls for nationals, providing opportunities after ACTAS (NYL or NSWPL team) - then it would have been a great initiative. Instead they jumped the gun, announced ill-advised grand plans without talking to the people that matter most (board and coaches). It also doesn’t help that they are never down at Kambah to see the academy squads and see first hand what is working and what isn’t so their reputations amongst the players, parents and coaches isn’t good.

Anonymous said...

Once again back to the dark ages "old Australian Soccer" vs "new football"!!! Why is a board with no specific expertise in developing players interfering at all????Just what we need Public servants and accountants making football decisions all over again! Isn't this what used to happen and screwed australian football for years. The board should be standing down. This is a disgrace, embarrassing for Capital again and worst of all who misses out....? the players of course. Great Job CF board. Capital should follow FFAs lead get real board members...people who can raise money, people with political will and pull to back it up, people who can build more Hawker Football Centres, people who can drive football from a corporate level not this bunch of micro-managing fumbling idiots who have no vision, no money and worst of all no idea about football. WTF

Anonymous said...

Whose on this board anyway?

Anonymous said...

Would be interesting how many on the board have kids in this program. This smells bad. Conflict of interest anyone?

Anonymous said...

I bet the FFA board would never dare dream tell Han Berger what to do? Who are these people?

Anonymous said...

I bet the raiders, brumbies, ACT cricket and ACT AFL, ACT Netball boards have nothing to do with technical decisions in their respective sports! Football is screwed!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

So what next. what will academy look like this year. why cant the people in the academy just talk to capital football about whats happening. what is wrong about making it bigger and opening up to more players

EH said...

Capital Football conducted a review in 2007. A Strategic Plan for 2008 to 2011 called Going for Goals was subsequently developed. In this plan under strategic priority 3 High Performance there was mention of a High Performacne Advisory Committee meeting regularly. This committee should be the vehicle to discuss and consider plans such as those initially promoted by CF but subsequently removed - because not enough consultation had taken place in developing the plan in the first place. Unfortunately it appears that the HPAC is not being used and/or respected by CF. It is very disapointing also that CF did not talk with the two most senior high performance development coaches, Robbie Hooker and Milan Milovanovic about their plans. In fact it appears that neither coach was even invited to or was aware of any high performance meeting. Given that both coaches are part of FFA's National Training Centre program and are both involved in the national team programs it is ludicrous that CF did not seek to engage either of them in developing their plans.

Capital Football is unlikely to move forward or keep pace with other parts of Australia whilever their current business practices continue

Anonymous said...

We are forgetting this is directive from FFA and I would think that the path set by FFA would be the best for path for all.

This seems to me to be about some individual egos.

Is football Canberra willing to go it alone?? I don't think so, at whose expense?

I say to all involved in rejecting this process pull your fingers out and think of kids.

This should be decided by the people of Canberra and not some backward bureaucrats.

Canberra has had enough of the miss management and lack of foresight. It is time or change.

Anonymous said...

I've heard the information on the new direction for the high performance program is that the Board considered a draft paper on this topic in May and asked for more consultation which was done including the meeting last month. Seems a couple of board members didn't like the idea that the boys teams wouldnt be playing squads next year. These board members have or have had kids involved in the academy - isn't this a conflict of interest? Also from the 2XX interview last week with Shaw and Reid, the new plan fits FFA technical direction and includes under 9s plus it looked like giving more kids easier and cheaper access to development squads. It also fits the new national curriculum and the Capital football strategic plan. Why would individual board members drill down to the technical and management responsibilities, especially if Han Berger has been consulted, if there wasnt a conflict of interest. At least one of these members is also the president of a large junior club! We need to follow the national leadership - and from what I saw the new program followed this path?
People have lost sight that the new program incorporated futsal and that can only be good for the sport?
The Directors should focus on more important policy issues that impact on the other 97% of players and let Shaw and management get on with their jobs?

Anonymous said...

Wasnt going to comment but that last post by anonymous got me.
"Leave it to SHAW and management to get on with their jobs".
OH mY GOD
Did you check with the parents of Mr Shaw's Academy team how they thought he went. He should go back to Carpentry because while he is our Technical Director our kids have no future. Out of 40 players picked for Australian Under 13 we had Zero.
Message to Board directors get some professionals in. FROM CEO TO TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
Because the focus of Ms Reid is Womens 10 weeks a year National League.
Open your eyes everyone, while we have a CEO that spends 52 weeks of the year working on soley to run a womens comp for 10 weeks we are doomed.

Anonymous said...

here here

Anonymous said...

Te last two posts were right over the top and very wrong.

I was at the meeting run by Capital Football, where some parents of the U14 Boys Academy team made complete fools of themsleves. They did their level best to high jack the meeting and were obviously far too impressive with their own noise to notice that many, many present were impressed only by their mindless selfishness.

These parents were not carrying the flag for those young players who would wish to be development in the future. Their single obssession was their desire to have their children continue as a team under the Capital Football banner. No room for anyone else. everyone else didn;t matter. Their purile arguements were proof positive that the current Academy system had to be scrapped.Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

The personal attacks on the CEO and Technical Director are unwarranted and unacceptable. So very cowardly and so completely without honour! These parents were given very complete corporate and technical answers, answers that made sense to a lot of other people. But of course, this meant nothing to them because it did not preserve the elite little football island they had created for their sons alone.

Imagine having to deal with these meandacious types for a living?

As to the U13 boys at this years Nationals, the simple truth is they were neither the best of all the U13 boys in the ACT nor were they anywhere near the technical or skill levels of say a team like the WA team. And if you were at tehse games, you could not have missed the whinging and complaining by some of these parents, in the face of some pretty impressive young boys among the other teams.

The Academy system that is so prized by the U13 boys parents had clearly failed to adequately prepare a group of boys who were not the best in the ACT at age. And that is why the Academy system has been consigned to the dustbin. Nut please remeber, we have a very limited pool of talent to recruit from, as anyone who has coached rep sides in football or futsal are well aware, particularly when playing NSW teams.

If you want further proof, just consider the very recent results which have accrues to our U18 PSSA boys team. They were smashed and they inlcuded a hiogh proportion of players who have had Academy training, Coerver development and presntly play in the ACT Premier League.

There are a few things about football in the ACT that are a joke, as you say. A lot of it exists at club level. There are a lot serious problems to solve and who wants to keep tripping over selfish parents who live vicariously through their children. We don't more elitism in sport and certainly not at Under 14 or 13 age levels.


The new High Performance Program is the way ahead. It will change and adjust as the FFA give more direction and Capital Football work their way through the miriad of resource and co-orindation problems that have in so many respects gone unresolved in previous years. We have a new national curriculum which Capital Football is obliged to implment - not negotiable!

Playing the person is mugs game. Contemplate and commentate on real football isues and above all - make some constructive suggestions. That's a lot harder than gormless shoptgun blasts at people who are working hard to make things better for our children and doing the greatest good for the greatest number - not just a precious few.