Triple Somersaults With Pike
Football Tasmania Facebook photo shoot. Four men. Eight photos. One football. Tasmanian football once again being told to smile politely and be grateful
There is a particular tone in football governance that football people recognise immediately.
The staged optimism.
The carefully managed announcements.
The endless photos of men in jackets holding footballs while everyone is expected to smile gratefully for the cameras.
Tasmanian football knows this tone very well.
And perhaps that is why Football Tasmania’s latest strategic pivot has landed so awkwardly.
Because football people are increasingly tired of being treated like an audience rather than participants in their own game.
Yesterday we were effectively told the Tasmanian A-League dream is no longer the immediate priority.
Interesting.
Because many people distinctly remember being told the exact opposite for years.
In fact, Tasmanian football has spent the last few years performing enough strategic backflips to qualify for the Olympics.
One minute it is:
A-League franchise
Home of Football
regional hubs
transformational infrastructure
national pathways
Then another pivot.
Then another launch.
Then another carefully staged announcement cycle complete with smiling photos and strategic buzzwords.
Here we go again.
The Football Photo Shoot
Perhaps the funniest part of all this is the presentation.
Eight photos of four men standing around holding a football as though Tasmanian football has just cured a disease.
Look everybody.
A round ball.
Smile for the cameras.
Meanwhile football people across Tasmania are sitting there trying to work out whether they are supposed to celebrate the latest pivot or simply pretend they never heard the previous one.
Because this cycle is not new.
We have seen it before.
The Showgrounds project.
The Cambridge project.
Soccer precinct announcements.
Big promises.
Big language.
Big visions.
Then eventually the direction shifts again and everyone is expected to quietly move along to the next announcement cycle.
Football people are not stupid.
They are just exhausted.
Most clubs are too busy trying to find volunteers, pay electricity bills and get teams on the park to spend their lives decoding strategic language.
Please Clap Politely
That is probably the most frustrating part of modern football governance.
The paternal tone.
The feeling that football people should simply be grateful whenever somebody in a suit appears beside a football announcing another comparatively modest funding package.
Yesterday it was another announcement and another media opportunity.
Wonderful.
Fantastic.
Everybody clap politely.
Meanwhile football, the most played team sport in Tasmania, continues to operate in a constant state of scraping, fundraising, volunteering and patchwork survival while other sports discuss sums so large they barely feel real anymore.
Hundreds of millions.
Potentially billions.
And yet football is still somehow expected to behave like the grateful child at the table happy to receive whatever is handed down.
At some point people stop hearing leadership and start hearing political choreography.
The CEO Question
And perhaps this is partly why the latest backflip feels so jarring.
When Tony Pignata was appointed CEO, Football Tasmania publicly spoke about the need to elevate the sport in Tasmania, develop infrastructure and pursue future A-League men’s and women’s teams.
That was part of the pitch.
A highly experienced football administrator with deep A-League credentials arriving to help drive Tasmanian football toward a bigger future.
Now suddenly the A-League is “no longer an immediate priority”.
Football people are entitled to feel a little dizzy.
Because from the outside, the strategic direction increasingly resembles a series of triple somersaults with pike performed in mid-air while everybody else is left trying to work out where the landing spot is actually supposed to be.
Football People Can Feel It
This is the thing administrators sometimes misunderstand.
Football people can feel when they are being managed.
They can feel when language is carefully constructed to soften strategic reversals.
They can feel when announcements are more about optics than substance.
And they can certainly feel when priorities appear to change every couple of years while everybody pretends this was always the plan.
That is why frustration around the latest Football Tasmania comments has spread so quickly.
Not simply because people disagree.
But because the football community is increasingly tired of feeling like it is constantly being spun.
Clubs Are The Game
And underneath all of this sits a fairly basic point.
Football Tasmania is a member organisation.
Its members are the clubs.
The clubs are not external stakeholders.
They are not customers.
They are the game itself.
Which means football people are entitled to ask questions when strategic directions keep shifting.
They are entitled to expect honesty.
Consistency.
Transparency.
And perhaps most importantly, a little less political theatre.
Because eventually football communities stop believing the announcements.
And start recognising the choreography.