This will go down as the year of the failed administrator. Across Australia’s professional codes and taxpayer-funded Olympic sports, the boss has had a shocker.
Most of our high-profile sports are in a diabolic and shambolic state, with soccer and the AFL the only shining lights on an Australian sporting landscape otherwise dogged by blazer-wearing egotists.
I will get to the rugby union and league shortly. First, let’s start with the well-funded Olympic sports that have gone asunder in 2014.
Eric Hollingsworth was sent home from the Commonwealth Games after his fall-out with Sally Pearson.
The disaster of the Commonwealth Games for the Australian track and field team was humiliating for a sport whose fine traditions have now disintegrated to the point that those few athletes who do compete on an international level are ill-served by pathetic team “leaders”.
So paranoid did these alleged bosses become about their own positions that they managed to fall out with one of their last supporters, Olympic champion Sally Pearson. Even she couldn’t sit back and watch as head coach Eric Hollingsworth bit the hand that fed him by bagging Australia’s most successful athlete.
He was sent home and eventually sacked but the damage was done. It is a long way back for this over-funded sport (they receive about $10 million a year of our money), which has allowed itself to collapse into mediocrity.
The controversy didn’t stop Pearson winning the Women's 100m Hurdles in Glasgow.
With less than two years to the Rio Olympics, cycling, rowing and swimming (with combined funding of nearly $30 million) have a lot to fix.
Rowing recently replaced its chairman and has advertised for a new chief executive.
The prediction at present is that Australian rowing faces the very real chance of failing to win a single gold medal in Rio.
If that prediction is right, the $9 million handed to the sport each year will be cut by a Sports Commission impatient with poor administration and limited success.
ARU boss Bill Pulver and chairman Michael Hawker have overseen a bad year for rugby.
The big disasters were reserved for the biggest sports.
Rugby union is dogged by an inexperienced chief executive in Bill Pulver, who made a meal of the Di Patston saga and continues to be hamstrung by his best mate, chairman Michael Hawker, who refuses to see just how bad things are at the ARU.
The apologists will tell you that Kurtley Beale caused the grief. The truth is that the Beale text messaging drama underlined just how badly rugby is haemorrhaging at every level of the game.
The sport is on its financial knees, dogged by a new competition called the National Rugby Championship that costs an obscene amount of money and is watched by next to nobody.
A ridiculous plan to charge every single young rugby player in the country a registration fee could see entire clubs close their doors.
A rebellion among the junior clubs is afoot which threatens Pulver’s tenuous hold on the job.
When Australian rugby players receive $14,000 in bonuses every time they wear the jersey, while eight-year-olds are forced to fork out for extra money for registration to pay the salaries, you have the makings of a sporting scandal.
Rebecca Wilson remains unimpressed by NRL CEO Dave Smith’s performance.
I have saved the worst for last. Rugby league, led by Dave Smith, will once again be saved by the sport itself.
It always is. This does not in any way excuse Smith. He has run out of friends in the media and, more ominously, the clubs have turned against him.
For 18 months Smith has promised exactly the same stuff each time — a slickly run league competition with more governance at clubs, a blockbuster media contract and the possibility of expansion.
The spin doctors at headquarters spruik this stuff with a straight face while those who watch what is really going on see a bloke with very little idea on how to actually deliver on the hype.
Smith’s building at Moore Park is overflowing with consultants on six-figure salaries, and most staff have limited experience in the game.
NRL 2015 draw - Winners & losers
The NRL Commission must take responsibility for head office’s woes.
Commissioner John Grant has gone from smiling trophy bearer to Mr Absent since the blowtorch has been applied, failing to address the trouble-laden administration.
The two commendations for 2014 are reserved for soccer’s David Gallop and the AFL’s Gillon McLachlan.
They have sport streaming through their veins and appear to understand what they’re doing.
We will offer Cricket Australia a pass after they handled the Phillip Hughes tragedy with class and compassion.
In a country that is so well served by wonderful athletes, it is shameful that those who make the decisions which determine their success are mostly inept, inexperienced
or both.
Here’s to a 2015 when some of them are dropped from Team Australia.
The Mariners attempts to expand their fan base by playing at North Sydney Oval drew a mixed reaction.
MARINERS ALL AT SEA
The one thing David Gallop could do for all A-League fans is put an end to the Central Coast Mariners’ desire to expand their footprint to Sydney.
This lot have gone from being a very successful local club with many loyal fans to a franchise which has lost its way.
The big egos in Gosford believe games played in Manly and North Sydney will fill a void for soccer fans north of the bridge. The two existing clubs, Sydney FC and the Western Sydney Wanderers, together form a perfect mix for Sydney, consistently filling stadiums and always growing their fan bases. Both draw on the northern suburbs for their fans very successfully.
The Mariners should concentrate on their own vast catchment area on the Central Coast and understand that when they were a winning soccer team, the stands were full and the fans were signing up in their droves.
Concentrate on winning, boys, and the rest falls into place.
Steve Smith scores century on captaincy debut
BORN TO LEAD
The best Christmas present for any cricket lover is the appointment of Steve Smith as Australian captain. If ever anyone was born to a job it is this young man. While the absence of Michael Clarke is disappointing, Smith fills the void and promises to become one of the greats both as a leader and with the bat. His folks are rightly very, very proud.
IF IT AIN’T BROKE ...
Memo to Channel Ten: Heed some advice and leave the Twenty20 Big Bash exactly as it was. Mel McLaughlin is a brilliant anchor who should be left to do her job instead of being placed in the middle of screaming children at the breaks. Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting make good commentators but they are not hosts. The new set is dreadful, a classic example of television producers fiddling with a simple, winning product only to stuff it up.
