Who exactly is running football these days? Beats me. Just days after Football Federation Australia squibs the chance to get on the front foot after being cleared of corruption in the World Cup bid, the same organisation bottles it over the no-brainer of making sure Brett Emerton and Harry Kewell are available to kick off the A-League season.

Leadership has been a problem for a while, but it's getting ridiculous. In the nine months since the disaster in Zurich, the FFA has been virtually invisible. Who's going to help the game if it won't help itself?

Leadership required ... Football Federation Australia CEO Ben Buckley. Credit:Getty Images

If good decisions are being made, no one knows about them. If bad decisions are being made, everybody gets a free hit at them. Frank Lowy's health issues have been a factor, and Ben Buckley seems incapable, or unwilling, to fill the breach. Why, in one of the world's most cutthroat sporting environments, the FFA consistently refuses to back itself beggars belief.

If getting the tick from Canberra over the way it spent $43 million on the World Cup bid was outside of the FFA's control, giving the A-League some of its mojo back wasn't. Which is why this latest episode is so maddening. All the FFA had to do was take the issue of Kewell and Emerton's availability out of Holger Osieck's hands. They pay his wages, after all.