Football Federation Australia (FFA) CEO David Gallop has stuck to the federation’s harsh line on teams with an ethnic affiliation.

Neos Kosmos voiced the community’s concern over the new policy that forbids new and existing clubs to include any ethnic, national, political, racial or religious connotations in their name or branding.

The ruling, passed in July, was made to reflect on the future of football in Australia Mr Gallop says.

“We recognise the rich history of those [Greek] clubs, but a decision was taken quite a long time ago to move Australian football to a phase where it’s inclusive on all cultural heritages and all backgrounds and so while we recognise that history, the future is to be multicultural and not allow branding that’s about one background,” he told Neos Kosmos.

The Greek Australian community, who were a major part of the National Soccer League for decades, saw both the good and the bad of having ethnically charged play, but feel like the new rulings force long running clubs to wipe their history.

One reader, Nick Mangafas, told Neos Kosmos he feels the ruling is a slippery slope.

“The FFA will be telling the players to change their names to ones that indicate no ethnic, national, racial or religious connotations,” he says.

“No history allowed. No wogs allowed.”

The new policy was also approved by the member federations who also identified a need for a holistic national policy.

Only new clubs or clubs hoping to revise their logos or names will be affected by the policy.

For existing Greek clubs, many took the hint a while back and changed their clubs’ names, foreseeing the change in tone.

At least history wont forget that South Melbourne was once called South Melbourne Hellas or Heidelberg United was once Heidelberg Alexander.