The failed bid: Frank Lowy (centre) with then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull and PM Kevin Rudd in 2009. Credit:Andrew Meares Many believe that the son is merely a proxy for the father – a man dubbed by his former colleague and board member Jack Reilly as an "autocratic ruler" who would brook no argument or allow any deviation from the direction he wanted the game to follow. Steven has always insisted, since taking over some 18 months ago, that he is his own man. He is not implicated in the Garcia Report, and he was not part of the FFA board at the time that the disastrous World Cup bid was being prosecuted. He did, however, figure in the footage of a documentary film about the bid that was screened on the ABC after it had failed, sitting in a hotel room in Zurich alongside his father and other FFA officials as the lobbying intensified in the days and hours leading up to the vote, in which Australia was eliminated early with a single vote of support.

FFA chairman Steven Lowy succeeded his father Frank as the head of soccer in Australia. Credit:Getty Images Given the links between the two, and the reputational damage brought to the game by Frank Lowy through the revelations of the Garcia Report, it is fair to ask whether to repair the image of the Australian game all ties with the Lowy family should now be severed. Some would see it as a drastic response; others would argue that Steven Lowy should not be punished for the sins of his father. But it is also fair to suggest that Steven Lowy is only in the position he is in because he is Frank's son. A dynastic succession has never been the way the game has operated in the past. Some have wondered whether part of Steven Lowy's modus operandi while he has been in the job is to protect the legacy of his father, who provided a circuit breaker to change the way the game was run and structured in this country during the early 2000s.

Steven Lowy is no stranger to dealing with FIFA himself as problems concerning the running of the game have mounted during his tenure, with FIFA threatening to take action against FFA for its lack of representation of all groups involved in the Australian game. Some of these complaints are sheeted back to issues relating to the governance structures that Frank Lowy put in place when he assumed control of Australian soccer following the publication of the Crawford Report in 2003. That was the catalyst for wholesale reform of the game, including the abolition of Soccer Australia and the creation of the A-League in 2005-06. Steven Lowy's critics have accused him of trying to run Australian soccer as a family business as he looks to deal with the increasingly angry responses of frustrated A-League clubs. They are fed up at the level of financial distributions they receive from broadcast deals and their inability to completely control their own destinies and that of the competition, which is the local game's biggest revenue generator. He is also facing a revolt over the make up of the FFA Congress, the game's decision-making body. The clubs and the players' union, along with a key state federation, are determined that the new Congress features a much wider franchise to facilitate greater debate and more opinions than the narrow cadre of voices allowed under Lowy's current regime. Loading

There are many who believe that the time has come to make a break with the past given the issues Steven Lowy is currently facing. The call to wipe the slate clean and re-boot the entire management of the Australian game and change its culture will almost certainly grow louder in the wake of the findings of the Garcia Report, and the fallout which it will inevitably bring.