Wouldn’t it just be great if Perth managed to get themselves back on track both on the pitch and financially? Just the sort of positive story the game needs. Adelaide’s fans deserve credit as well for turning up in decent numbers despite some of the tosh their side has been churning out.

A while back, I foresaw a possible route to a 2nd divvie was to gradually grow to 14 teams, and on the eve of introducing a 2nd divvie, relegate two of those teams, meaning that only 6 new teams have to be introduced (which is still a very big ask).

Either way you look at it – introducing the 2nd divvie will be one of the biggest risks and challenges the FFA will ever face.

As for current problems, the early planning of the FFA was that clubs would take about 5 years to become stable and start breaking even, and up to that point, they hoped to average a crowd of 10,000 per game.

Here we are in the 5th season, and the average crowds have been achieved, and at least two clubs were turning a profit very early in the piece.

That’s the good news – the bad news is that a few clubs have probably gone backwards finanically in the last 18 months.

I also have to agree with md, who said that it’s surprising Perth have managed to retain any support after four woeful seasons – they could be on the verge of getting back to the original glory days.

So there’s a bit of good news amongst the gloom (about evenly split, it has to be admitted).

There’s nothing contradictory about stating that further expansion right now is a mistake but when it does continue it should be with a second division not a 13th and 14th team.

Relegation and promotion isn’t just relevant to the amount of ACL places we could potentially be given. The competition regulations clearly state that if you don’t comply with all the criteria you wont be included at all. Some leeway has been given for the time being to everyone besides Japan (because they are the only country who comply with all the criteria) but slowly they’ll tighten the reins. In the future Australia could miss out entirely.

Adding a 10 team second division of poorly supported clubs would be huge financial drain and only worth 1 ACL place at most. Looking at how the other spots have been allocated it would be easy to make an argument that we wouldn’t need a second division at all.

If we had a 16 team comp of J league quality and our fans traveled to ACL away games and attended the ACL home games in big numbers we would get 4 spots.

“The league is beginning to fail as it is”

Such positivity Davidde!

One one hand it states that the A-League shouldn’t expand. But then chides the FFA for not including Canberra,and then suggests a second division which to be honest would attract even lower crowds and would drain the resources even further.

Quality can only possibly improve if they play a longer season and more games. 12 is the way to go and then look at either a cup competition to. We should stay at 12 because if teams do fold then they could relocate clubs to either Canberra, South Coast, Tasmania etc. We don’t want anymore New Zealand Knights examples.

We’ve seen quality players in the game (Yorke, Qu, Culina), we’ve seen quality games (Melbourne – Brisbane, Newcastle – Sydney), quality off-season signings (Perth Glory, Gold Coast United), we’ve seen quality tacticians (Culina, Lavicka, Littbarski), and we’ve seen quality goals (Miura, Fowler, Smeltz).
At least one of each has been seen in this season, so far.

Not a single league or club in the world can produce the same quality with every game. There are no highlights shows in the world that go for five hours, just to fit in all the goodness that the week has provided.

There are, indeed, some aspects that could be improved. A lot of that, however, is about the money flowing into the clubs, than anything else. The same money is required to make signings, to have elite training, and to develop better community interaction.
There aren’t enough people coming through the gates, because there isn’t enough quality. There isn’t enough quality, because there aren’t enough people coming through the gates. It’s a two-way street, and one can’t improve, without the other.

The main clubs in financial trouble (Brisbane, Adeladie, North Queensland) all need to work on this. The FFA will do the best they can – and are moving ahead with Adelaide, by creating a new board, and are currently in talks with potential local and overseas investors – and the people need to work hard to convince players, clubs, and investors that it’s worth building the best team possible.

Finding that balance should be the main objective.

Melbourne v Adelaide is the week before, so most people are preparing away trips to Melbourne, rather than Canberra, because they won’t necessarily have money for both. Probably not the best organisation from the FFA, in reality.

I also think its dubious that such a system would increase ‘quality’. It certainly wouldn’t do much for equality as the yoyo teams would find it hard to compete with the stronger teams that manage to stay in the top flight for long periods.

But I agree that the FFA’s actions are a giant insult to the South Coast and particularly the Canberra bids.

Agree that A2 is the next phase of expansion … but limited to regional areas and emerging markets… ie not stacked out with Sydney or Melbourne league sides.

A promotion battle among areas like Tassie, Geelong, Sth Coast NSW, Canberra (potentially more NZ sides if they are staying long term) would mean sides actually have to earn their place on the pitch. This would increase the prestige of the A-League as a whole and be much fairer. Then there’s the relegation fight that would add extra drama to the bottom of the table.

While A2 could realistically come in within a few seasons, the promotion/relegation component of it is still five years away at least imo.