IT’S a Saturday night in south-west Sydney, and in every sense there are black clouds circling around Greg O’Rourke’s head.
Literally and metaphorically, the lightning-spangled storm that has swept towards Campbelltown Stadium is threatening to drench the Leagues Commissioner – adding another layer to the complexities of running a football competition in the time of coronavirus.
Almost five years since he was lured from a senior operational role at Pepsi Co with the promise of weekly doses of ire from fans and club bosses alike, O’Rourke reckons the love of football that actually made him take the job remains undiminished.
As the man who figuratively is charged with keeping the trains running for the League, O’Rourke knows he will be anonymous when things go well but a lightning rod when issues arise – almost literally so last Saturday when Macarthur and Sydney FC’s derby was delayed by freak weather.
O’Rourke knew the exact time and passage of the storm that threatened to engulf Campbelltown Stadium, because his phone was beeping in the early evening with alerts from the A-League’s weather monitor of increasing severity. As it hit code red, O’Rourke was pitchside and activating safety protocols as the players came off for halftime.
Freak storms aren’t an everyday challenge, but much else is. From the never-ending attempts to make VAR as palatable as possible or engaging with fans and police to make them nice to each other, through to addressing player welfare amid the heat of summer and salary cap compliance from clubs…managing the competition, the venue challenges and relationships with all the club CEOs makes it the broadest of portfolios, at the head of a team that paradoxically couldn’t be much leaner.
O’Rourke himself finally gave up playing a couple of years ago, some 50 years since his six year old self first kicked a ball at a club in Heathcote. What started with coaching his daughter’s team, he went on to become president of that club at Barden Ridge, then President of the Sutherland Shire Football Association, elected as a board member of Football NSW and finally became its chairman.
That background starts to explain the phone call he received at his desk at Pepsi, from a recruiter asking if he would be interested in discussing the role of Head of the A-League and W-League. The timing of his acceptance was interesting, coming as the game entered a period of upheaval and change at the very top – but it’s telling that the club owners asked him to stay in place once they assumed control of the Leagues at the end of last year.
Newly badged as the Leagues Commissioner, O’Rourke works in tandem with his deputy, Tracey Scott, directing an operational staff of less than 20 who themselves have faced unique challenges in the past 12 months – first to complete last season, in a locked-down hub, and then to stage this campaign amid border closures and changing restrictions.
Wellington have had to be given a home-from-home in Wollongong, the draw for both competitions has had to be reworked myriad times, Perth have had to be sent on mini road trips to skirt quarantine requirements… and still the normal tribulations of a football season pile up regardless.
O’Rourke watches all the games and many back late in the evening even when operationally everything has gone to plan, despite knowing his phone is likely to ring early the next morning. (Last Sunday the first text from a journalist came at 8am, enquiring about a coach’s post-match comments, and the phone barely left his hand from then on.)
It’s a job like painting the Eiffel Tower, in that it never really finishes, especially not in a competition with ambitious plans for growth.
Even when one storm passes, O’Rourke knows there’ll be another one along in a minute.
