Even if his campaign to be the face of Australian soccer by succeeding Steven Lowy and becoming chairman of the board of the FFA was doomed, surely there could be a place on the board for a champion of the game who enjoyed such profile and general support. But that is not the case. On Friday evening, just 72 hours before the critical vote, he bowed to the realpolitik he was facing and withdrew from the race, conceding that he simply did not have enough support in the critical corridors of power. Foster had displayed his rhetorical, tub-thumping skills to perfect effect at a hustings-style gathering in Melbourne early in the week where he made a far more vivid impression than the six other candidates for a place on the FFA board seated alongside him. Unfortunately for him being the ''people's choice'' in an election where the people have no direct say is not enough. Popularity may not be enough for Craig Foster.

The franchise for the election to the new board in the wake of the revolution which swept away the regime of the Lowy family is limited, with the 10 A-League clubs, representatives of the state federations, the players' union (PFA) and the women's council having the final say. Their contribution is weighted, but it will add up to 100 votes. They are under no obligation to take into account popular opinion, a reality that Foster acknowledged when he withdrew his candidacy on Friday. As so often happens with political upheaval, it is those who contrive to remain close to the seat of power, irrespective of regime change, who will have the final say. The hard heads who want to control the game don't deal in dreams. With his talk of promotion, relegation, a second division, and a proper football pyramid which will allow those at all levels to hope that they can progress to the upper echelons of the game, there is no doubt that Foster and his agenda does represent a threat to the existing order. And that in all likelihood is what has cost him dearly.

The hard heads who want to control the game don't deal in dreams. They might say they do, but the reality is that the A-League clubs who want to break away and control their own future by managing their own competition were not comfortable with a candidate whose central tenet was that they might have to forfeit a spot at the highest national level of the game. The A-League teams have every right to want to control their own destiny. Their owners have sunk hundreds of millions of dollars in investment into their clubs, with many piling up unsustainable losses. It is understandable they want to recoup those losses and protect their investment. But Foster, and many others have been asking whether that is in the best long term – interests of the game? Should the A-League, even an expanded competition with 14, 16 or even perhaps 20 clubs, become a hermetically-sealed organism which denies any of the hundreds of existing and yet-to-be-formed state and community clubs a shot at the top table?

It's likely that the A-League clubs will all endorse, as a concept, promotion and relegation and agree that incentivisation is vital for those investing in clubs outside the top tier. They might even agree that ''punishment'' for failure at the highest level by relegation is justified: after all, it happens all over the world. But agreeing in principle is one thing, activating a principle is another. They are likely to want to stave off the introduction of a second division and promotion and relegation until some distant time. Foster's view - that any delay will only make it harder and exacerbate the financial and technical gulf between the clubs in the A-League and those outside - has plenty of supporters within the grassroots football community. Sadly, they don't have a vote in this particular contest. He argued that if the introduction of a pyramid was left too long then the gap will become too wide and the vast difference in standards will then be used as a reason why promotion and relegation will be deemed both technically and financially unsustainable. The ''mail'' seems to suggest that Remo Nogarotto (a candidate who has broad appeal from both traditional and new supporters of the game) will secure a board position, alongside Chris Nikou (a Lowy-era board member), politician and football fan Stephen Conroy and PricewaterhouseCoopers managing partner Joseph Carrozzi.

That quartet may be the compromise that will satisfy the deal-makers. Quite how the activists who are demanding fundamental change in the sport will react is another matter, especially now that Foster has been forced out. Nikou will be regarded as being compromised by his position a a member of the Lowy era board – even though he is also characterised as an honest broker who can bring several parties together – Conroy because he is a politician with no prior administrative involvement in the game and Carrozzi because he is a former AFL club board member who has not been cited in a soccer context until the past month or so. Revolutions often have two cycles: the first, when the old guard is summarily dismissed, and then a second, when the new ''establishment'' is itself unseated and replaced by those who want a complete overthrow of the existing order. It will be fascinating to see how soccer's plays out.