Ideally, in my book 12 is the optimum amount. No more. Australia won’t be able to have more professional sides for another generation. It’ll be tight as it is.

Gold Coast and Townsville were mistakes, pure and simple. Gold Coast has lost every pro sports team ever there. When Claude Palmer gets bored with this new toy, who will keep it going? Townsville is only a township.

They should have gone to Wollongong, West Sydney and Melbourne or Geelong before these Queensland resort towns. Sometimes I wonder if the FFA really is that cluey. Bizarre.

Anyhow, stick to 12 and aim to get playing salaries up to 10 million per club within a decade. With full time professionalism and all the international games in Asia it will raise the standards enormously from the old NSL era.

It irritates me about the Euro-snob element. Outside the top 5 nations in Europe the interest in leagues and clubs drops away significantly even over there. It is all down to the almighty buck, who pays it gets all the talent. We need more money or just stay as a development league. It is actually a pretty realistic indication where Australia sits in the economic world too. Just like the Big Mac index with currencies.

Here is my manifesto.
Every large population centre to have a team (ideally a urban catchment of $250k+, can work smaller + large hinterland eg. Fury).
Every Major City to have a local rivalry.
Target areas where population growth is high and sustained.
Target areas underserviced by other codes.
BE PATIENT! Things take time to grow.
FIFA reckons that 16 teams is ideal (30 games/season home & away + cup/playoffs/finals as well as space for international breaks)- This is what we should aim for.

Based on the above:
Melbourne can support a second team (it will probably struggle for a while, but it should live)
Sydney can support another team.
Takes us to 12.

For the other 4- the largest cities without A-league representation & over 250k population base are Canberra, Sunshine Coast, Wollongong & Geelong. They should be the priority, but if a decent Tassie bid can get up at the expense of one of the others, then so be it. Sunshine Coast & Wollongong currently lack suitable stadia, but I understand one is on the cards for Sunshine Coast & Wollongong just needs some reinvestment.

Once we have our 16 team competition up- grant a 5 year exclusivity for A-league franchises (ie guaranteed “Golden Share”) and call for entrants into a second tier comp. Especially encourage former NSL clubs & second sides from major cities without dual A-league representation (eg. Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide). Maybe even some Kiwis? Again 16 teams (maybe start with 8 if finance isn’t there)
Grant the second tier a 5 year franchise as well so they have time to get established on a lower salary cap etc.
Have a cup competition running in parallel so that the tiers play each other.
Once both levels are up and running then we can look at promotion & relegation. 1 team up & one team down: A-league to second tier, second tier to State League. State league premiers to play off for right to
However, sides that are promoted must be able to meet the financial criteria for promotion, otherwise the lucky loser remains. Teams that go up and go into administration should also face sanction- we are trying to grow the game- if a club falls over there may not be a ready replacement.

There we have it, a fully developed pathway from grassroots to ACL.

It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.

And remember, patience grasshopper, patience!

The $5 surcharge is for free public transport to the game- it’s a payment to Translink and it is a good thing- alternative = traffic chaos {btw Palmer is a Tool!]. The stadium deals themselves are ridiculous- the Qld Govt is trying to recoup capital expenditure on the stadiums rather than sinking the cost against attracting major events. The Celtic game was a bit of an eye opener- 10,000 tourists in the city for the match. What rankles me is that the Bonkos get a sweetheart deal, as do the Reds, and the Roar have to pay full-freight when they are trying to build a team in a new competition. No wonder Bligh got roundly booed at the pre-match presentation for the Celtic game- Football fans know they are getting screwed!

They are all Australian footballers. It just happens that most of our elite players end up playing in Europe, but they are part of the big Australian football community.

You seem to conveniently forget that.

European is what most football supporters in this country connect with first. It’s where most of our players play too.

In fact, I was member no. 360 in the first season.

There is your irrefutable proof that I have never warmed to the team.

In fact you might even be one of them (if you deny it, I’ll take that as irrefutable proof).

But I honestly have no idea whether they will succeed or not – to be honest – no one knows anything about this mob.

“very popular & exciting “,

compared to what?

are you talking about MVFC vs CCM? or Brazil vs Italy?

I don’t know if Ex-NSL supporters will embrace Heart but you can see why for alot of them it was difficult to embrace a new entity like Victory.

Melbourne was only about 80,000 in size in the mid 1850s, and soon grew to 240K and outgrew Sydney – - with all this suburban growth, industrial growth and with the new local brand of football growing at the same time – - it WAS actually one of the few cases of REAL tribal allegiance right from the outset of BOTH club and suburb.

In a lot of respects, Melbourne was unique like that. That time frame of 1850-1890. Most cities around the world were too old, too well established before their football (soccer/rugby) clubs took off from about 1890 onwards. Sydney too – didn’t really get into football culture until after 1900. Whereas Melbourne had over 100 clubs when Sydney had but a dozen.

Even on the technicality that it was the VFA for the first 20 years and then by 1897 the VFL was established.

The suburban tribalism HAS been diluted over the years with demographic change. It used to be that each rail line would be super dominated by the followers of the local team.

re. the atmosphere – - I’ve seen/heard chanting and singing at games, seen fire works, seen cheer leaders, seen Mexican waves and the like – - there’s ‘fabricated atmosphere’ and then there’s what the game itself can generate. Be careful about overstating the ‘fabricated’ stuff. Are you suggesting a song book doth a Tribe make? or a choir?? Choirlism…..

Here on Earth, Australia, Melbourne??

Infact, why am I even writing this nonsense and responding to the nonsense that you write everyday.

Actually, I did not realise that you had a monopoly on being an agent provocatuer on this website.

“I AM A CITIZEN LET GO OF ME ” “WHATS YOUR NAME? I ONCE MET JOHN FAHEY YOU KNOW!”

Now I am off to google Polyglot.

Most of your writing on The Roar is regaling us with mainly Anglo-centric stories about this rivalry and that rivalry.

So, no I don’t want English rivalries replicated here.
I want Australian rivalries representing our unique polyglot culture.
Do you need to be reminded that we are are not all English here.

Question: If you live for football and love Everton so much why are you here then?

So we need to be careful about the way it is implemented.. This was basically the whole reason the NSL failed. Ethnic rivarly. We have been burnt in the past , so we must execute caution going into the future.

In say Townsville I think the idea of them ever having two professional teams in a competition that encompasses the rest of Australia won’t work.

So where not going to have the “your neighbour could be one of them rivals” but I am sure in time (a poached junior here a dubious referee decision there) local rivalries will develop in the same way they have in other codes. GCU vs Roar will be our local derbies not GC North vs Gold Coast South.

And hopefully never the menace of rivalries like Celtic vs Rangers. I would be really upset if we ever had to resort too segregating crowds.

If we had an SPL style comp where it was MV vs Hearts nearly every year people would switch off.

So we have to work out what is really good, and what would work here and take that. The same as when we look at the other codes. e.g. The AFL membership culture is fantastic lets try and replicate that. In rugby you can only watch the Super 14 on pay tv and it struggles for exposure, ok lets make sure theres some A league on FTA. The Bundisliga has relatively cheap tickets and gets huge crowds and that makes it look fantastic on TV, lets take that idea.