Football Federation Australia boss Ben Buckley said declining attendances in this season’s expanded A-League competition was something he always expected.

Buckley was again forced to defend the league’s falling crowds as his organisation on Tuesday deferred the introduction of a western Sydney franchise by one year to the 2011-12 season.

Most clubs have experienced a drop in attendances this season, particularly in some of the major markets, with Brisbane especially hard hit.

The five games last weekend drew a combined tally of 30,992 spectators, an average of only around 6,200 per game.

Asked if he had any reservations about expanding the competition given the lower attendances, Buckley launched a vigorous defence of the figures and put a positive spin on the modest numbers.

While he couldn’t deny the average attendance per game he had declined this season, Buckley emphasised total numbers were up, a reference to the two extra teams in the competition.

“If you look at the crowd numbers overall they are up 12 per cent, we’ve got 12 per cent more people going to A-League matches than we did last year,” Buckley told reporters in Sydney.

“Yes, our average is down, but that was always to be expected based on the fact that we had two teams from relatively smaller cities coming into the competition.

“That’s not outside of our expectation. But part of our strategy in expansion is to broaden the reach of the game and we are certainly achieving that.”

Buckley said he was confident that fledgling club North Queensland had a plan to ensure the team was successful despite recently losing a major sponsorship.

He said the FFA had not been approached by the Fury to step in and assist the club financially.

Buckley said his organisation were in discussions with the Asian Football Confederation and the sport’s world governing body FIFA about the continued participation in the A-League of the competition’s only New Zealand-based club Wellington Phoenix.

“We need to work through some approval processes with both organisations, but all of that is in hand and we committed that to the club,” Buckley said.

© AAP 2012

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