Mystery surrounds the future of national coach Ange Postecoglou, who has kept mute, neither confirming nor denying the shock revelation that he planned to stand down later this year.

The Socceroos scraped into the final World Cup play-off against Honduras by the skin of their teeth, Tim Cahill's header two minutes from the end of extra-time on Tuesday giving them a 3-2 aggregate victory.

Almost as an afterthought, Football Federation Australia's board further fanned the flames of enmity with just about everyone else in the game by flagging an emergency general meeting so it can push through proposals for a reform of the voting process for its congress.

That action alone would have generated headlines and debate for days as it would appear to make FIFA intervention in Australia inevitable.

Should that happen all the signs from other examples of FIFA involvement elsewhere in the world are that it would not end well for chairman Steven Lowy and his colleagues, who have now been threatened with legal action by clubs who believe that the FFA board's proposals for widening the electoral franchise simply do not go far enough.

The clubs, the players' union (PFA) and other critics believe Lowy's move is a naked attempt to legitimise what they claim is an existing gerrymander in the voting process whereby the state federations - widely regarded as proxies for the FFA board and leadership - would confer majority power on the board and its chairman irrespective of the wishes of other significant stakeholders in the game.

The argument over the rights and wrongs of this one - whether it is a power grab by Lowy and his colleagues, the spark that will guarantee their downfall, or a move by clubs to form a breakaway A-League - will rumble on until or when FIFA gets involved or the matters end up in court.

But it is the intrigue and surprise over Postecoglou's plans that has generated so much hysteria, as Melbourne Victory coach Kevin Muscat termed it on Friday.

That is not surprising given the roller-coaster ride the Socceroos have endured since the moment of their greatest triumph in Sydney nearly three years ago, when Postecoglou led them to an extra-time win over South Korea in the final of the Asian Cup in January 2015.

At that point the coach had the keys to the castle.

He wasted few opportunities to articulate his vision, even publishing a book outlining why the game had such an important social and cultural role to play and how it should be developed in coming decades. Many of his comments won widespread support from soccer fans steeped in the history of the local game but would have hardly been welcomed by his FFA paymasters.

Postecoglou had an enormous stack of credits in the bank after the Asian Cup, but he has been steadily drawing down on them since. Results have not gone to plan, the Socceroos have struggled for goals and the critics have circled, with condemnation of his selections, tactics and approach to the job intensifying.

He stuck to his guns throughout, but clearly there was a growing sense of dissatisfaction under the surface and, perhaps more importantly, with the way the game was being run and the power games that were taking place.

Postecoglou has never been a man to suffer fools and has always been confident of his own ability. I have known him for 20 odd years and always found him an articulate, polite and thoughtful student of the game, one who would always make time for debate not just about the on-field aspects but also its place in society.

But in recent months he has grown more prickly and withdrawn, at least in public.

His press conferences have become terse and on one occasion he simply got up and walked out, although he was clearly in an emotional state following the narrow win over Thailand and may have left so as not to say something he might later regret.

It beggars belief that the leak to News Limited journalist David Davutovic about his intention to step down was not made without his knowledge and any journalist given such a scoop would want to make sure that the information was nailed on, given its explosive nature and the potential for career-defining ignominy if it was wrong.

But suggestions that Postecoglou was having a hissy fit and quitting because of media pressure are surely wide of the mark.

A confidant of Postecoglou's confirmed the thrust of the story, saying that his friend wanted to move back into clubland and prove himself in Europe, but scoffed at suggestions that any decision would have been motivated by criticism from former Socceroos like Robbie Slater or Mark Bosnich.

"Ange is too thick skinned for that," he said.

The fact that FFA issued a press release on Wednesday, quoting the coach looking forward to the final play-off against Honduras, was significant not for what it said but what it didn't say.

FFA chief executive David Gallop was as taken aback by the story when it broke as anyone else, but surely, after subsequently talking to his coach, the organisation would have issued a statement along with Postecoglou rubbishing the rumours if he was not going to quit.

All this may have an unsettling effect on the players, but their determination and desperation to get to the World Cup should ensure that it doesn't matter who coaches them in that final game, whether that be Postecoglou, Graham Arnold (widely tipped as the preferred local successor) or any other stand in coach.

As is the way of things, some players will be sad to see him go, others won't. Postecoglou never made a point of being friends with his players and always wanted to ensure they took nothing for granted. He wasn't seeking approval, he was seeking performances and results.

For Australian soccer, nothing else now is more important than a win over Honduras next month.

Whatever else it is, the game here is never dull - at least off the field.