FFA’s new Head of Communications and Corporate Affairs Kyle Patterson spoke exclusively with au.fourfourtwo.com at Wednesday night’s ACL clash between Victory and Gamba Osaka in Melbourne.

With FFA CEO Ben Buckley once again being booed by the fans after the game  – he was given a similar frosty reception at the post A-League grand final ceremony in Brisbane in March – clearly many supporters feel a sense of frustration with head office over the running of the game.

This view was borne out by the survey's results. And while Patterson accepts the dissatisfaction, he pointed out that there were good news stories out there.

“The reality is it’s a democracy and the fans have a voice and you guys (FourFourTwo) have given them a forum to express that," he said.

"And they’ve probably done that at maybe the low (part of the) cycle for Australian football in the post-World Cup bid era and after an A-League season where the crowds slipped off significantly.

“So it’s a snapshot of where the game was whenever you did that survey – and we’re not going to argue with it. And you know what? The facts are the facts and that’s what people think.

“Our job is to, at least through your forum and other forums, be a bit more open and transparent about telling the story of the game.

“There’s lots of great stuff happening but with the A-League and World Cup it became the barometer of the game. And that’s fine. We live in an entertainment industry where you are judged by the amount of ratings, audience and sales. We accept that."

Patterson also pointed out the game's recent history.

"In 2004 there was no national league after the old NSL was disbanded, the national body was insolvent, were still stuck in the Oceania Confederation and the Socceroos had not qualified for a World Cup since 1974," he said. 

“The story is, we’ve had this spectacular seven years of two World Cups, and we started the A-League and moved into Asia.And now we have a national curriculum and a national coach who answers to a national technical director, something Johnny Warren - God rest his soul – wanted. Not to a CEO or a board who can sack him on a whim but now the structure is Holger Osieck and the other national coaches answer to Han Berger.

“All this progress has happened.

"And the grassroots is a great story which we’ll be telling more. For example, this year approximately 200,000 kids will register on a platform called MyFootballClub – it’s a tool provided by FFA to grassroots clubs to make it easier. It’s like a club management tool.”

Patterson said the online portal aims to reduce administration workloads on grassroots clubs and makes it easier for players to register online.

“It brings the game into the real world and everyone communicates digitally these days," he added.

He said that the FFA estimates the known football community in Australia is some 1.7 million people – from TV watchers, players, volunteers, referees to fans.

“There is some strength in that," he said. "From talking to government, for instance. Why should the government support the game? Because lots of Australians care about it and they need your support. And unashamedly our sponsors want to know we are a big footprint in the community.

“We can say 1.7 million but as we become more of a digital community linked through websites and social media and this registration, we then have what we call this critical mass to actually represent all these people.”

He added: “I suspect the snapshot that FourFourTwo has picked up is that the World Cup bid was this massive project that almost blocked out the sun, so to speak.

"For a while it was all about the Bid and no apologies for that, we had to go for it.  It was a once in a generation opportunity.

“So now it has to be back to the basics and the readers of FourFourTwo have registered their discontent. That’s fine and we listen to that. And we’ll come to respond to that but there are so many good things in the game and the future is fundamentally bright.

“We’ve just got to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater in getting too down on the game and because of the World Cup bid and one scratchy A-League season in a pretty good history of the league.”

The full results from FourFourTwo's fans' survey can be found in the current issue of the magazine.