Few figures in Australian football can point to a lifetime of service quite like Tony Labozzetta. With close to 60 years of involvement in the game, his journey spans the formative years of the National Soccer League, leadership at national level and representation on the global stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first joined Club Marconi in 1969 \u2026 the club gave me the opportunity to enhance further my commitment and wish to continue to develop the game as best I could,\u201d he recalled to Michele Viscione during an interview on Rete Italia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was one of the founders of the national league in 1977 and that gave me the opportunity to become the Chairman of the National League for close to about 12 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
After three years on the board, Labozzetta ultimately became the chairman of Soccer Australia in 2000.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, I had the opportunity of being recognised by FIFA to be involved in the World Club Championship board in 2001,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He remains grateful of where his journey started.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been very privileged that I had a base, a base called Marconi Club, which being the club that obviously is synonymous with the Italian community \u2026 which is second to none in Australia and I think it\u2019s well recognised worldwide also.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labozzetta spoke at length about the role of the Italian community in building football in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, there have been a great many contributors. I was lucky to be one of them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I suppose you could say Sydney and Melbourne were the dominant people that were involved in the Italian community in particular. In Adelaide we had \u2026 the old Juventus. So, the Italians were fairly prominent in the development of the game and still are.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked what he is most proud of, Tony turned his attention to unfinished business\u2014the structure of the game itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I\u2019m currently looking at … re-evaluating the promotion and relegation issue, which is something which is very, very sad that we have been unable to resolve thus far,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n
During the interview, Labozzetta didn\u2019t shy away from criticism of the current state of Australian football.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, there\u2019s a difference \u2026 you\u2019re looking at the passion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clubs like APIA, you look at the tradition, the values and the commitment that they\u2019ve put over the many years\u2014Club Marconi, similarly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of clubs that are not really passionate in the A-League\u2014it\u2019s fairly stagnant.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the biggest problem that we have, unfortunately, is promotion and relegation. You can\u2019t sort of see a flow of players that are coming through…<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re looking at something like the American commitment, where money comes in first and you promote the clubs at that level.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhereas the game should be about promotion, relegation, incentive\u2014and it should be achieved on the park, not just with money.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there are a number of issues which are fundamental and that comes down to passion.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Australian talent, Labozzetta offered an optimistic view.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are still emerging youngsters that are coming through, but perhaps not as many as there were in the earlier days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe potential is there. There\u2019s no question about it. And we have always had this potential\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of those opportunities are still there available today, but they don\u2019t get the exposure that perhaps they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if Italian identity in clubs is fading, Labozzetta was equally positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that we are integrating, and I suppose that ultimately is the way to go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of positives emerging, but somehow we need to realise that the community base that was is now more integrated into the vaster, broader community, rather than the isolated Italian or Greek [communities] or so forth\u2014which is a good sign at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
After nearly six decades in the game, Tony Labozzetta remains as passionate as ever, committed not only to football\u2019s past, but to ensuring its long-term future in Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few figures in Australian football can point to a lifetime of service quite like Tony Labozzetta. With close…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,241886,596,13198,85,241885],"class_list":["post-474485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-club-marconi","tag-football","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-tony-labozzetta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}