Dick Advocaat Apologises to Aussies, Sort of

Dick Advocaat has finally almost said sorry to Australia for the dramatic flip-flop that saw Tricky Dick sign up as the Socceroos new coach in August and then pull a u-turn to stay at Zenit St Petersburg in November. What he actually said was “I feel very sorry for them” because Australia still have no manager and World Cup qualifying begins in a couple of months. We can credit Advocaat with some honesty though. The Dutchman explained his change of plans very simply: “I couldn’t refuse this offer. It was quite a lot of money, to be honest. It was not double, it was more. Much more.”

At least that’s refreshing. How many times have managers and players claimed to be moving for footballing reasons when it’s clear they’re just chasing a bigger paycheck? I’m looking at you Mr. Lucas Neill. But despite Advocaat’s admission, the Football Federation of Australia are not impressed.

They intend to go to FIFA and get something done, which is a little optimistic. The FFA’s Ben Buckley said:

We’ve now prepared our case, we intend to go to FIFA, and I think this goes beyond the issue of just compensation. This is an issue which needs to be looked at by FIFA in terms of a coach putting a member association under some duress by not honouring a contract. There’s a principle at stake that needs to be looked at.

Certainly there should be penalties for failing to honor a contract. You should see what the World Cup Blog and The Offside team do to me if I don’t post often enough. It’s brutal. But would the FFA want to force Advocaat to honour his contract when his heart (or at least his wallet) is in St. Petersburg? Surely a bit of financial recompense from Zenit should be enough to put this sorry mess behind us all. And shouldn’t the FFA be concentrating their efforts on actually finding a new manager before World Cup 2010 qualifying starts?

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