It is the Christmas season. Which means I have had to wish many happy returns to those I do not care about, buy people presents with money I don’t have, use an imagination I no longer possess, and pretend to enjoy visiting my family.

In between watching reruns of Seinfeld and eating too much Christmas cake, the Guardian kindly allowed me the indulgence of compiling a football-themed Festivus. Football would be far poorer without wild conspiracy theories and seething anger, so while it might be three days late, and there are no feats of strength or aluminium pole, Football Festivus begins, as Frank Costanza says, with an airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people. Now, you’re going to hear about them…

Players who walk off the field too slowly when they are substituted

If you’re being substituted, just get it over with and get off so the game can continue. I would, however, like to see an A-League player with the gumption to refuse his coach’s orders. To paraphrase the great W.G. Grace, who once refused to leave the field after an umpire gave an LBW decision against him – “they came to watch me play, not you coach”.

A-League All Stars

An awful, American concept which should die. Just let whoever wins the A-League season play the visiting European stars. Or nominate a team from whichever state is willing to put the money in for hosting rights.

Memphis Depay

For a moment, we thought the Socceroos might follow the instructions on the inside of their collars and “do the impossible”. They were passing the ball about with aplomb, Ange Postecoglou was expertly hiding his excitement on the sideline, and Tim Cahill even scored a goal with his foot rather than his head. For 54 minutes, we were beating the Netherlands, farken, and even when Robin van Persie scored an equaliser, we were more or less happy with the draw. But then up popped Memphis Depay – a bloke who by virtue of his “genuinely ready porn star name” is already cooler than the entire Australian squad put together – and broke Australia’s heart. It just didn’t seem fair.

Whoever cut the Pararoos’ funding

The cutting of the Pararoos’ funding was downright cruel for a team that costs so little, but does so much for the quality of life of its participants. As Pararoos coach Paul Brown told Leopold Method: “Sport is a wonderful vehicle for confidence … I’ve seen young kids, 15, 16 years of age that I brought into national camp just to have a look at them. Just to see their confidence grow over a period of time. There’s a young guy by the name of Connor Marsh – he’s not so young any more – he’s probably one of the better players in the Pararoos. And I actually found him playing in one of the Penrith teams out in the western suburbs.

“You know he was very shy, he had a slight limp, and he was a fairly good footballer playing able-bodied football at the time. I brought him into camp and he just grew and grew and grew, got better and better and better, and I think he’s got about five caps now. Just the confidence in seeing that young man going from that to what he is at the moment is just incredible.”

Slave names

In June, our dear leader Tony Abbott cast an eye over to wogball and called the captain of Team Australia, Mile Jedinak, “Mike”. It was held up as a sign of Abbott’s insularity, and the football community marinated in our imagined multicultural credentials. But soon after, FFA announced that Australian clubs would not be allowed to have names or slogans that might be considered ethnic or foreign. Well, look who’s racial now? The National Club Identity Policy isn’t to be applied retrospectively – which for most of the targeted clubs means nothing considering they’ve already had to de-ethnicise their names several times anyway – but it still caused plenty of anger and recriminations. What was the point of it all, we wondered? Why is it so wrong for new migrants to start clubs called Dandenong Sudan, or Chatswood China, or the Chennai Whatevers? The obvious answer, of course, is the Croatians and their pesky nationalism. But really, this is all a red herring. If anyone can’t see that Sydney United, for example, are a club followed by Croatian-Australians, they’ve got problems. Except for the loyal and dedicated fans who actually support these clubs, the names mean nothing to most of the population. So let them be.

Australian Ultras

Stop hitting each other. Stop watching re-runs of Football Factory. Stop playing dress-ups in your Adidas sneakers and Fred Perry polo shirts. This confected “ultra” silliness is not in our history, it’s not in our culture, and not only is it a waste of everybody’s time, it’s also embarrassing. Nobody thinks you’re cool.

David Villa

When David Villa was announced as a guest player for Melbourne City, we all expected him to stay for the promised 10-game stint. Perhaps we were gullible, perhaps we were star-struck, perhaps Villa just got sick of playing for a crap team at the arse-end of the earth. Whatever the case, he took off after four games for New York City FC. Not only was it a bad look for the A-League, it was a sign of where the club formerly known as Melbourne Heart sits in the pecking order with its sister clubs Manchester City and New York City FC.



The Wanderers’ new owners

When Julia Gillard tipped millions of taxpayers’ dollars into setting up a team in western Sydney in 2012, everybody was happy. Western Sydney is Australia’s sporting equivalent of mecca, and despite the fact the area has always been a heartland of football, we got a government-subsidised ride in. Against all the odds, and despite assembling a team of glorified panel-beaters, the Wanderers actually turned out to be quite a good side. So good, in fact, that in their first season they won the premiership and made the grand final.



Thousands of fans turned up, bought memberships, and before long people were saying the Wanderers were the best thing to happen to football in Australia since… well, forever. The next season, they reached the grand final again. What a story, we thought. Good thing the government gave us that start-up money, now FFA can sell it to private investors and everybody will be better off for it.

Then came the market valuation – somewhere between $15 million to $20 million, they said – not to mention the “worldwide search” for the right buyer. But what do you know, the “worldwide search” ended up settling on a consortium that included Frank Lowy’s old mate from Hakoah and one of his old business partners. And so, to get all Gerard Henderson for one moment, the taxpayer helped fund a $12 million gift to some ultra-wealthy spivs, $1 million of which went to the outgoing CEO Lyall Gorman.



The new CEO of the Wanderers is Lowy’s mate Paul Lederer, and soon he showed he would treat players much like his workers at Primo Smallgoods, which is to say, terribly. The Wanderers players were offered just 10% of the Club World Cup prize money, a paltry figure that was more than a little ridiculous from an ownership group that had already got its share of cut-price deals. Somehow, and despite the fact Lederer just bought potentially one of Australia’s fastest-growing sporting franchises for below market price, the players were cast as “greedy”. It is, as they say, all right for some.

The ongoing Fox Sports-SBS dispute

Let us pause for a moment while we are on the issue of the Wanderers’ protracted and rather ugly pay dispute. SBS football analyst Craig Foster unloaded on the Wanderers’ owners, as well as a few of his former Socceroos teammates. Now, Fozz is best when fired up, and he was right about the issue of the pay dispute. But the slanging match that ensued between SBS and Foxtel – essentially one side screaming “scab!” and the other retorting “not even!” – did nobody any favours. Whatever your opinion of who was right about the industrial dispute in 1997, it only distracted from the issue at hand, which was the Wanderers. Will Fox Sports and SBS ever truly get along? I doubt it.

Josep Gombau

For saying the same thing after every single press conference. Win, lose or draw, Gombau grins inanely at the cameras and says “for me, I am very satisfied”.

A-League auditors

A Fairfax Media investigation last week revealed Perth Glory have allegedly been fudging the figures for the past three seasons, and allegedly this season as well. As many have commented, Perth are probably not the only club with some creative accounting, but you have got to wonder about the auditing process at FFA. I mean, on two separate occasions, Ryo Nagai and Kearyn Baccus were listed as living in the club office, while Robbie Fowler and Steven McGarry were listed as flatmates (it is not alleged, by the way, that Fowler is a shit housemate). Their addresses are listed in the salary cap report, and even a cursory glance should have raised alarm bells. FFA… do you even audit?

That controversial bloke in Perth

While we are on the subject of Perth. After the horrific #SydneySiege incident, a president of a Western Australia club took to social media to announce his various gripes with Muslims. Peter Rowe, the president of Mandurah City and a former editor of the West Australian newspaper, said it was all a set-up and that he was “not making hatred comments”. Except, presumably, for the bit where he said he “would never trust Islam and its followers”, and labelling Islam a “medieval, totalitarian ideology”.

Graham Arnold

For whinging about everything all the time.

A-League referees

Inconsistent every week, A-League coaches, players and fans are just about at the end of their tethers when it comes to refereeing. Kenny Lowe put it best when he called for full-time referees: “They work 45 hours a week in their normal job, and they probably do 45 hours a week in this. I know a fighter pilot wouldn’t work 90 hours a week. His decision making would be a bit iffy.”

People who tweet about the Greek-Macedonian conflict

One of the rare pleasures of writing about Australian soccer is the weird and wonderful abuse you cop from people. Whether it is furious Al-Hilal fans assuming every Australian follows the Western Sydney Wanderers, Perth Glory fans afflicted with a severe case of separation anxiety (a friend of mine once remarked, “they hate people on the Eastern Seaboard because we are close to things, and those things are close to other things”), or bitter National Soccer League fans wanting promotion and relegation, the worst are surely the Greeks who do not accept the sovereignty of Macedonia. But please, I do not care about whether certain Australians or their clubs are Greek, Macedonian, Bulgar-Slavs, Skops, Bulgarian-speaking Yugoslavs, or whatever. Argue among yourselves.

Mike Charlesworth

Finally, the Mariners are the hot topic in the news. Perhaps this was Mike Charlesworth’s plan for the Central Coast Mariners all along? Any publicity is good publicity, and all that. Charlesworth is determined to take Mariners games to North Sydney, and while I believe there is good business sense in the plan, the way he has gone about it has been daft. He’s not been honest with the fans on the Central Coast, nor the council, and in the process has alienated his club’s core supporter base. There is a #StandUpForTheMariners march organised by former coach and mayor of Gosford Lawrie McKinna this Saturday. It will be interesting to see how the locals respond.

Les Murray

Longest. Farewell. Ever.

Saint Timmy

Nobody can touch Saint Timmy Cahill. As one of the most prolific and important Australian footballers, he is probably also one of Australia’s most popular sportsmen. That means fawning coverage of his various business and commercial interests, flirt pieces whenever he’s in town, and a full-on propaganda front about Timmy “giving back to the game”. And now the Asian Cup is looming, Timmy is talking about playing on for a fourth World Cup. As Ange Postecoglou said on Tuesday, if Cahill can keep scoring like he has, then that’s great. But really, Tim, we’re not going to forget about you. Promise.

The Abbott government

Screwed SBS. Screwed ABC. And as a result, screwed the W-League broadcast. Another grand achievement from Australia’s self-appointed “minister for women”.