Football Federation Australia, like so many sports organisations, cops plenty of flak from soccer fans.

They are often accused of heavy-handed responses to minor offences or criticisms, or of adapting marketing and engagement strategies that traditional soccer supporters feel often insult them (the Star Wars promotion, anyone) and don't suit the sport.

There is a feeling in some quarters that too many executives at head office are blow-ins from other sports attracted by the money and prestige of being involved with the world game but lacking the empathy and devotion to the game itself that should go and in hand with such a responsibility.

Whether that's the case is hard to say. But many of the FFA's senior management team in the decade and a half that the Lowys - Frank senior and his son Steven - have been in charge of the game have been recruited from other sports and have had little connection to the game.

The ugly imbroglio between the professional game and the beleaguered chairman, Steven Lowy, continues, and it still has the potential to rip the game asunder if FIFA wade in and impose a normalisation committee in a bid to exert their own control over the warring factions and find a peaceful solution to the governance issue.