Football Federation Australia is facing further headaches after reportedly admitting mistakes that led to a kit clash during Wellington Phoenix’s shock defeat of Melbourne Victory in Auckland and complaints about the state of the pitch.
Following a fortnight of turmoil in the game that has included mass fan boycotts of matches and an admission from the governing body that it had not responded quickly enough to defend supporters, FFA on Sunday again sought to quell unrest after accepting the blame for the incidents at North Harbour Stadium.
Kevin Muscat, the Victory coach, had pointed the finger at the head of the A-League, Damien de Bohun, for overruling the match referee at the last minute, forcing Victory to wear white shirts that clashed with the one-off silver strip Wellington were sporting.
Victory wear a white kit when playing away from home for commercial reasons – they have a different sponsor on the front of their shirts when on the road. Phoenix were wearing a third kit designed to appeal to a broader national market on their trip away from Wellington on Saturday.
FFA responded by promising an investigation into how the clash came about.
“The approval process for the strips used in Auckland will be subject to an operational review. The end result was not ideal, especially for TV viewers,” an FFA spokesman told The Sydney Morning Herald. “In this match, having an away strip and third strip used has created issues that we will ensure are not repeated.”
Muscat had told the Herald Sun that the directive came from De Bohun just minutes before the game was due to kick off. Victory went on to take the field in the white shirts, paired with blue shorts, creating confusion among players, according to Muscat, as well as fans at the stadium and watching on television.
“The referee made the decision that our white shirts were too much in conflict with Wellington’s silver, so we were told to wear blue,” Muscat said.
“Then later on we were told to put our white shirts back on because the FFA had made a call overruling the decision of the referee. It was last minute, it was in the warm up. Obviously the footballing contest is not their priority.”
The state of the pitch in Auckland was also a bone of contention for Victory, who lost the match 2-0, and left Muscat fuming.
“The last time I checked, grass is a pretty vital ingredient for a football game and unfortunately there was none there today,” the Victory coach said after the game.
Muscat’s opposite number Ernie Merrick said he thought the pitch was “fine” but FFA later conceded it failed to meet A-League requirements.
“The North Harbour Stadium pitch was out of sync with the otherwise high standard of pitches across the competition at present,” an FFA statement read.
“The pitch was deemed to have met the minimum standard in the mid-week inspection and again on match day, but given that this was an important, high-profile fixture in New Zealand we expected something more than the minimum standard.”
The latest controversies come at the worst possible time for the A-League and Football Federation Australia, who have faced a backlash from fans over the past two weeks, following the publication of a list of banned supporters by a Sydney newspaper a fortnight ago.
