Manly Warringah Football Association Chief Executive Officer David Mason highlighted six key factors that he views as fundamental for the relaunch of grassroots football in Australia over the coming months in a recent FFA Webinar.
Last week, Mason, who is also the CEO of Manly United FC in the top tier of New South Wales’ National Premier Leagues, joined FFA’s General Manager of Member Federation Relations, Robbie Middleby, for a discussion on how to keep Australia’s football family connected, engaged, and ready for relaunch post COVID-19.
The 45-minute conversation, which included a presentation from Mason that delved into Manly Warringah Football Association’s plan to keep connected with its constituents throughout the pandemic, provided attendees from the grassroots community insights into Mason’s past experience, and current approach.
Mason identified unity, communication, empathy, relationships, trust, and education as key factors to consider and apply throughout this time and highlighted each as areas that the game broadly should look to value at all times.
“These were things that we identified pretty quickly as key factors in us being able to navigate our way through this period,” Mason explained.
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“I think unity is the most important thing. We always talk about how great football would be if we were completely unified from the bottom to the top, and that’s a discussion for another day, but I think in this situation we were pretty firm in that all of the clubs and the referees in the association needed to be unified. We came up with a strategy and now we are all standing behind it.
“Communication, critical. I guess I was lucky in that that’s my background in terms of when I was a journalist but a lot of my sports administration career especially in the early stages was based around the communication. In times of uncertainty, and when people are not really sure and they are anxious, and they are uncertain about what is happening, keeping them informed so that they don’t have to go searching for news and they don’t have to be second guessing and becoming anxious about what’s happening, I think that has a real important settling effect, so we have been pretty strong and regular with our communication.
“The next one is empathy. I think it is important for us to realise that there are a lot of people out there who are doing it tough. When you are having conversations about how we are going to handle this the first question should always be ‘how are you going?’. Because you never know exactly what is going on behind someone’s door. Are they someone who has lost a job? They may be someone who is thriving, because there are those people as well. So, we thought it was really important to show a lot of empathy, not just in our actions but also in our plans for restarting the competition.
“I am massive on relationships. I don’t think it hurts anyone to say hello, have a conversation and form strong relationships, because it is in times like this that relationships really help, and I think transparency is a big part of that too. With your relationships you need to be as transparent as possible with each other.
“Trust, we did need to trust each other. Whether that be clubs to referees, players to coaches, we all needed to trust that we were all doing the right thing and we were all making decisions based on what was best for the sport. We have all made mistakes, I have made mistakes. I think the trust part is really important and that is something you build up beforehand, you can’t just all of a sudden expect people to trust you. Which is why earlier Robbie and I were reflecting on our joint experiences over the years, you build trust with people over time.
“And the last one is education. I needed to educate myself very early on about what was going on because no of us have been through this before. I think at the start half of the people thought the world is going to end and the other half thought this is only the flu. I thought it was important to educate myself, so then when I was communicating and making decisions, I could educate the people that I am working with and for to make sure that we were making the right steps going forward,” he said.
To view David Mason’s webinar ‘Keeping Australia’s Football Family Connected, Engaged, & Ready for Relaunch’ in full, please watch the video at the top of the page!
