Why is a short-term contract or termination provision a negative trend? Firstly, it trivialises the importance of the profession and diminishes the responsibility on the club to undertake a diligent process of appointment. It can, and will, lead to short-term appointments, with the consequent deleterious effect on long-term football planning, squad make-up and recruitment policy, as well as youth development. Every time a coach changes, a club enters a period of upheaval, and this can be financially and strategically damaging. Newcastle Jets and the Mariners are recent examples. When the coach goes, so do the assistants, much of the support staff, players and often the entire strategy. It is a cycle repeated endlessly with infinitesimal success in Europe, and one we need to avoid here.

We don't have the resources to change direction constantly; hence the need to encourage focus on a club's long-term plan and brand as expressed through their football. Secondly, it places one of our most important professions at risk of not being able to attract and retain the best talent. We will lose talented coaches, who may not have been able to succeed in the short term, but might have done so over longer periods. The arrival of Peter Storrie at the Mariners is potentially problematic – in England, the approach is to spend extraordinary amounts of money and import almost all Premier League head coaches, producing very few of their own. Our goal is the exact opposite – to invest in the education and production of our own coaches and to eventually export. The intervening first few stages of national teams and A-League require importation to challenge and force improvement, most of which is now behind us. The closest analogy are the players. Without the protection of the Professional Footballers' Association, there is no question the turnover would be far greater, short-term thinking would prevail to a larger extent, and the consequent effect on the competition would be extremely negative.

The protection of playing contracts, as happened at the Jets where players could simply not be thrown away, has undoubtedly placed a greater burden of diligence on recruitment processes. The same effect can happen in coaching, but only when coaches themselves develop professional responsibility. This is not as simple as it sounds because, in an industry with few roles, the coaching culture can be poisonous. Each can eat only when the others starve, and this hardly encourages fellowship and cooperation. It is high time the FFA took up its responsibility. Sadly, it has been content to allow clubs to drag coaches through the court process in attempts to mitigate financial responsibility. No one can argue that the standard of coaching is a core factor in the excellent level of the A-League today, which is reinforced by the Wanderers' struggles domestically and success in Asia, the Roar's excellent performance against Urawa Red Diamonds this week, the performance of last year's All Stars against Juventus and various A-League clubs against international opposition.

Not to mention the A-League players who participated in the recent Asian Cup triumph. This must continue, and this is not possible if coaches are treated as short-term assets, capable of being contracted and sacked on an ever shortening cycle we see elsewhere in the world. The profession needs representation to find common principles in a standard contract and to regulate the coaches' own professional conduct. They will need an agreed minimum contract term and provisions for standard contract terminations that provide security to both clubs and the coaching profession but alleviate multi-year payouts that are common overseas. It may well be that a 12-month minimum compensation clause allows adequate security for both coaches and clubs, giving the coach time to deal with an intensely difficult period and to re-enter the workforce again without huge financial concerns.

Whatever the outcome, three-month coaching careers are clearly contrary to the best interests of the game.