DAVID Gallop will take over soccer underpinned by a broadcast deal worth close to $40 million a year if Ben Buckley's valedictory negotiations are successful in the next two months.

Buckley will exit Football Federation Australia in two months once the broadcast deal is complete, after six years at the helm of the game, and it's understood the FFA board is comfortable that a deal of that amount will be signed off, for at least four years.

Gallop will then take over as FFA CEO later in the year, having acceded to Frank Lowy's entreaties six years after he was first approached to run soccer.

Buckley's departure had been presumed for months once the TV deal was complete, and yesterday Lowy was confident enough to state a broadcast package for the A-League and Socceroos would be concluded in "about two months".

The Daily Telegraph understands that Fox Sports and SBS remain the most likely broadcast partners, notwithstanding Channel Ten's defeat in the NRL broadcast talks.

Getting close to $40 million per year would allow FFA to cover the salary cap of $2.6 million and also more of the game's central expenditure, though the players' union has already signalled that it will seek a greater share of an increased pot.

It would also give Buckley a legacy as answer to his critics in the game who have accumulated through the World Cup bid, the collapse of two A-League teams and the saga of Western Sydney.

Bizarrely none of the trio, Buckley, Lowy or Gallop, was available for comment yesterday, the news announced simply via a press release on the same day the NRL announced its $1 billion TV deal.

Gallop is on his way back to London as acting chair of the Australian Sports Commission, for the Paralympics, having spent time with Lowy in England during the Olympics when the offer was made.

But he succeeds a man who had become a lightening rod for dissent within the game, a fact acknowleged by senior FFA sources in talking of the need for fresh blood to drive the game forward.

Originally published as Soccer's $40 million transfer