The growing criticism and noise surrounding the issue of banned fans, has prompted the FFA leadership to call a second press conference in three days.
Amidst calls from active supporter groups to boycott A-League matches this round and criticisms from the Media and A-League clubs directed at the FFA for not taking a stronger stand in defending supporters from attacks by some media, FFA Chairman Steven Lowy and FFA CEO David Gallop held a joint press conference early Thursday afternoon.

To accusations that the FFA leadership is not sticking up for the fans, Lowy said, “Nothing could be further from reality. I genuinely believe that somewhere in the debate of the last eleven days, we have lost sight of the facts, and the issue of crowd safety has been conflated with other issues and agendas. So let me be absolutely clear. FFA is resolute on issue of crowd behavior. Zero tolerance is our policy. Nothing will change that.”

Lowy announced that the FFA will conduct a review of the banning system over the next couple of months and expect to finalize it by February. The system has come under heavy criticism from active fan groups who claim it lacks procedural fairness.

Lowy said, “It is already a sound, robust system but the system is not perfect.”

Gallop said that the appeals issue will be part of the review and that a critical part of the review process will be to listen to the active supporter groups, fans and other stakeholders.

Gallop said of the system. “It’s a difficult system. The fundamentals of it are complex. It does involve protecting certain confidential information and that’s something we have to be careful of…There are issues around how much evidence can be disclosed because it’s given to us on the basis that it stays confidential. It’s certainly occasionally comes from fans themselves. They give it on the basis that it doesn’t become disclosed. They want to protect their identity. We’ve got to be careful with that because that’s an important part of the system. On the one side you want to have complete transparency. On the other you want to protect the ability to get that information.”

“We need to look really carefully at it through the review. Because obviously we recognise the competing interests here. We recognise that people want to know what evidence is being used against them. We also recognise people will only give us the evidence if it is confidential.”

Lowy said that with the benefit of hindsight, it feels like it would’ve been better to deal with [the issues] earlier and show leadership earlier. He said,

“These issues clearly have been fueled in the community in a manner the FFA didn’t expect.”

We recognise that and we hope we can get a better understanding of the issues, frame the agenda. It’s very difficult to show leadership in areas that have great complexity to them. Where there are vastly different views out there. There are very different views in the media out there. There are parts of the media that don’t appreciate the game and are very critical. And we’ve got to defend that. But we should also be open to listen to fair criticism.”

It remains to be seen how active supporter groups react to the FFA’s announcement of a review.