I would say tthat if you went around the traps and counted the attenance numbers in Premier Leagues and a grade below around the country , you would find all the fans that have disappeared and will not come back to to the A-league.

People are not fooled-saying something is great and believing it are two different things. How do you get the ethnic based teams and therefore the bulk of the fan base back????

1983..it was the NSWRL..only Sydney clubs, not a national competition with every game on tv (yeh pay tv for aleague)

Big difference

The last Olyroos were dreadful, and if you saw the Young Socceroos game against the Czechs, you filled with premonitions of doom.

2.5 million, to be precise. The consortium still didn’t have the required cash, according to media reports.

mabye if you go along and support the league and football in australia in general, the standard will improve. Just like it has for the last five seasons. Also mabye because you cant go the the la liga, EPL, or budesliga live how about going to an a league game and then you cant watch those games when ever u want on TV. I would personally much rather be at a live game than tv.

The difference between MLS and the A-league is that every game of the A-league is Nationally broadcast if you have Foxsports. That means the games are all played at different times throughout friday night to sunday afternoon

One weird but smart thing that MLS did in the US was to actually pay ESPN to broadcast the games in the early days. which at least ensured that the games were widely seen. The relationship has evolved and now ESPN pays MLS for the broadcast rights.

If Australian sporting culture is generally more sedate, perhaps football fans in Aus should try to follow that. Maybe people are put off because they can see that it’s an obvious and weird attempt to import something alien.

Over here, sports fan occasionally get upset when they see those big foam hands. Where did the big foam hands come from ?

NO FOAM HANDS AT ENGLISH SPORT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have mixed feelings about it – some of it’s not too bad – but there is a part of me that views it as a bit of me-tooism – especially the whole ultra bull shit that you occasionally come across.

If some of these kids were dropped off in some of the back blocks around the world where ultras really do rule – they’d absolutely shit their pants.

I think I’m right in saying that that stuff is less common at NRL or AFL. Doesn’t this show that Aus football is caught somewhere between two cultures ?

If people really are trying to recreate European football, it’s no wonder that people are disiillusioned: the A League will never be anything close to AC Milan v Inter at the San Siro. That’s not an insult to Australian football. It’s just a fact.

In English rugby league, they tried to do something called “County of Origin” which was obviously a State of Origin rip-off. It wasn’t a success. If you seek to copy something, it will probably fail in the end.

Up in the far northern suburbs some areas can be up to 50 to 60% UK and Saffa dominated so aussie rules needs to keep up the hard work and being involved at the junior level i must say there is some really dedictaed young guys who really have a passion and drive for the game.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that it’s very tough making it every four years, I’m sure we’ll make it most times – but don’t be surprised if we fail about once in every three attempts – also, no one can guarantee what the progress of other countries in our confederation will be.

That is the crucial point, Adrian.
In England the sport is truly tribal, and supporters will follow their clubs through thick and thin. Results, ticket prices, the weather, player misbehaviour away from the pitch, the level of skill, whether the games are exciting or tedious – none of it seems to matter when you have developed that tribal loyalty. People turn up to games because it is part of their culture to do so.
In Australia we see that in the AFL and, to a growing extent, in the NRL.
But it’s very hard for other sports to develop the same degree of intense support.
The only other key factor that determines attendance at sports events is fashion.
Formula One has this, for example, as do matches involving the Wallabies and Socceroos. In this case people will turn up because they want to experience the “event”, rather than the sport itself.
The HAL had that for the first couple of years – it was something new, and it was well sold. Top line soccer was a new kid on the block that attracted the young and the trendy.
That feeling has now faded, particularly in NSW and Queensland, and it now looks like a long slog by the A-League in those states to try to win over spectators from rugby league, which, to judge by most posters on The Roar, is still the most under-estimated sport in Australia.

Before the start of this season, with GCU and FNQ all locked in, for the FFA, 2nd teams in Melbourne and Sydney would have looked like the obvious path, and it all would have looked pretty straightforward aiming for the next season.

Also – there were bids coming out of their ears – everything looked pretty rosey.

Hearts would have been given the nod on the presumption that getting a 2nd team in Sydney was in the bag.

So the real problem here is that Hearts was given the nod prematurely, and now that the 2nd Sydney team hit a snag, for whatever reason, it’s the earlier decision to let in Hearts that looks a bit off – they could easily have come in the following season together without a problem.

The biggest problem with 11 teams is not just the bye – it’s having an extra mouth to feed without too much of a rise in revenues, because there are still only five games on per round.

Two new clubs, after just admitting two other new clubs!

The governing body are already running three of the established clubs aren’t they because the owners have handed back the licences and no other owner can be found?

The crowd figures mean a vast majority of the clubs would be losing money each game, correct?

All of this during the biggest economic downturn since WWII, which despite what we are being told is far from over.

Can any of you soccer fans see the forest for the trees?

The FFA either have unlimited funds, have a white knight riding to the rescue or this house of cards that they have just stacked two more stories on, will coming crashing down some time in the future.

I should add – I’m not saying the other codes didn’t exist during this period (1880 to 1918), they did, but I am saying that by about 1870, Australian Football was well established, well organised and extremely popular.

For example, I’ve already mentioned Footscray a working class club with much British influence.

In the early part of the 1900s, one of the most successful soccer clubs in Victoria was a team called Footscray Imperial – won a stack of Vic titles and clearly its name too harks back to a British connection.

By the start of the post-war immigration boom, this club had pretty much disappeared off the scene – much later, another club called Footscray JUST had emerged that was predominantly Serbian.

I suspect that same pattern is repeated all over Australia.

The game and clubs have always existed to varying degrees, but in no part of Australia has soccer ever managed to become the dominant code.

In relation to your confusion about America. It’s clearly no coincidence that countries like the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and to a lesser extent, South Africa, didn’t take completely to Association Football.

The reason? I don’t know – greater prosperity, greater independence, just timing – I’m not sure – but there must be something that explains why the Anglo countries – those closest to the mother country in terms of language and culture, were precisely the ones that shunned the game that England would give to the rest of the world.

It’s quite amazing when you think of it that way.