Immediately after Steven Lowy left the Football Federation Australia boardroom for the last time, the roof caved in. Literally. The panel that collapsed from the ceiling and shattered on the floor was perhaps symbolic of how Lowy envisages the future of the game in his absence.
Unfortunately for him, all the major stakeholders who voted the next board and his replacement saw only blue sky instead of a broken ceiling. As a more autocratic chair stepped down, an assuaging listener assumed the top job of Australian football. Lowy's former board member Chris Nikou was appointed as chair of the FFA in a move that in many ways a polar opposite of the past regime, even if he was a part of it.
New broom: Chris Nikou (third from left) will lead the FFA board.Credit:Dominic Bossi
Despite sitting on the Lowy board that stood against reform, internally Nikou played the role of the peacekeeper between warring factions throughout the Congress crisis and governance reforms. Fairfax Media sources suggest he was very much the diplomat behind the scenes.
“Those who were closest to the process know that I actually spent a lot of time to get the parties together to deal with reform,” Nikou said after his appointment as chair. “I was someone willing to come to the table and deal with them in good faith.”
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His appointment ended a day where a broad spectrum of stakeholders made their final statement for change. It came after a fire-and-brimstone speech from Lowy, one littered with gallows humour. The outgoing chairman went out swinging, taking pot shots at his opponents and taking particular aim at his detractors' call for the need for a board with more football intellect rather than corporate acumen.
"It is a nonsense argument which is hopelessly superficial and naive," Lowy said. "It is typically advocated by people who have had no board or management experience at this level or the heavy responsibility that goes with it."
As it happened, the game disagreed in the strongest manner possible on Monday. Nikou, a former state league player and secretary of Melbourne Victory, was elected to the board with 75 per cent support from the stakeholders.
However, in the most democratic election in Australian football history, the loudest calls came for the remaining candidate whose skin in the game runs the deepest. With a 90 per cent support in the vote, the most popular candidate for the board was a "football person", Heather Reid.
Not just any "football person" either, but the person of women's football. A pioneer for the women's game who played at the highest level open to her, became chief executive of the old Australian Women's Soccer body, was the first female chair of a state member and lobbied for the introduction of the Women's World Cup. It was no surprise to see where her first nomination for the board came from, the players themselves via their union, the PFA. In a landslide vote, the stakeholders wanted her football intellect on the board and that board named her deputy chair.
The public, too, wanted a "football person". Their support overwhelmingly fell towards candidate Craig Foster, who withdrew late in his campaign. However Monday wasn't about fans but the first flexing of the game's new democratic muscle.
Following Reid and Nikou on to the board was former Northern Spirit, Marconi and Soccer Australia chairman Remo Nogarotto. Joining him was the highly rated PwC partner and GWS Giants board member Joseph Carrozzi. In his first comments since joining the board, he made clear his first priority lies with the players.
"The focus shifts to our athletes, to the fantastic people who play the game and the opportunity that they have," he said.
The quartet, combined with the existing two members of Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and Crispin Murray, form the new board. Two new directors will be appointed to join them before decisions made on A-League expansion, a new league operation model and reducing grassroots registration costs.
None, however, will be achieved without healing a wounded game. Restoring the fractures that stemmed deep in the weeks leading up to the election will be the priority, and it wasn't lost on the newest man in the game.
"I'm hoping from today unity is what the name of the game is," Carrozzi said.
Dominic Bossi is a football reporter with The Sydney Morning Herald.
