Sort it out:FFA boss James Johnson says the governing body will intervene if clubs and the players' union don't come to a wage agreement.Credit:Sam Mooy
Talks have dragged on for several weeks after a band-aid agreement was put in place to enable the A-League to resume and finish its season in a NSW hub,with the players taking significant pay cuts to do so.
Now the players are demanding that their wages are not slashed while the clubs are crying poor in an environment where COVID-19 has laid waste to the economics of all sport.
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Under the yet-to-be-enacted plan for the A-League and the FFA to decouple - an agreement that was reached two years ago when Steven Lowy was forced out as chairman of the FFA - the club bosses have taken control of negotiations.
This round of collective bargaining agreement talks is the first major test of their partial sovereignty,but the coronavirus crisis and the various other issues the game is facing means that things are hardly going according to plan.
Johnson says he is hopeful that both parties can bury the hatchet and come up with a deal - but warns that the governing body,which has an overall responsibility to safeguard the wider and long term interests of the sport,will take action if it has to.
"Our role as the governing body - as it would be in Germany,France,China or Japan - becomes one of a government that oversees football at all levels and has a right to intervene if the employer and employee representatives cannot find an agreement,"he said.