By Ben Somerford
October 14th 2009 @ 12:25am
Related coverage
33 or 22 Rounds in A-League Version 6?
Melbourne Victory's Sebastian Ryall out runs Wellington Phoenix's Leo Bertos during the A-League pre-season final at Westpac Stadium in Wellington, New Zealand, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008. AAP Image/NZPA, Ross Setford
We’ve all heard the argument against A-League fixtures clashing with FIFA dates and this weekend is a case in point. The FFA admits they’ll review the situation at season’s end, but with a congested fixture list next season, it’ll be a tough decision.
The 2010-2011 Hyundai A-League campaign will see eleven teams compete for the ‘silver toilet seat’, with a decision not yet made on the format for the next season.
Many expect the FFA to go with a 33-round season but that hasn’t been decided yet, with 22 rounds still an option.
Creating all the drama is the fact the FFA remain reluctant about seeing the A-League overlap with the AFL and NRL competitions, which both kick off in early-to-mid March.
And considering the A-League’s attendance figure woes during those rival codes’ respective finals series, it is understandable.
But with the introduction of Melbourne Heart next season, under a 33-round system, there will be an extra 6 rounds of football to be played.
That will be hard to fit into the FFA’s preferred A-League window from August to early-March.
Alternately, the A-League could simply run for 22 rounds, with every team playing each other twice, before the top six finals.
It would easily fit into the calendar, but perhaps 20 games wouldn’t suffice for the clubs and the fans, who will get either 13 or 14 home games this season compared to a meager 10 under that format.
Confusing the matter more is the fact the 2011 AFC Asian Cup in Qatar (which Australia should compete in) will be played during the A-League season, during the Middle East winter from January 7-29.
As this weekend’s international fixtures showed, the A-League is affected by FIFA dates, and such a clash in 2011 would be detrimental to the competition.
For example, Sunday’s South-East Queensland derby between Brisbane Roar and Gold Coast United was without three of its main drawcards, in Socceroos pair Jason Culina and Craig Moore along with All-Whites international Shane Smeltz.
It’s easy to argue those who attended the match at Suncorp may have felt a bit short-changed without those quality players on display.
And you could argue the discrepancy of the derby crowds from Round 1’s figure of 19,902 compared to this weekend’s 8,882, could in some ways be attributed to the absence of the big names.
Indeed, when the Asian Cup rolls around in January 2011, if the A-League loses a whole host of stars for 3-4 weeks, fans will feel short-changed, as well as those clubs who may subsequently drop results due to the loss of their best players.
And it is quite realistic to believe there will be a large A-League contingent in the Socceroos squad in 2011, considering the potential retirement of several European-based veteran Socceroos after the 2010 World Cup.
Add to that the fact that the Asian Cup won’t run during a FIFA break and there could be club-versus-country problems with some European-based players, which may force Australia to look at A-League options.
That’s not to say it will happen, but as the African Cup of Nations shows sometimes there’s the odd problem or two if injury clouds come into it.
Also the problem won’t be the Asian Cup alone, with five FIFA international breaks set to interrupt the 2010-2011 A-League season.
And there are plenty of international players floating around the A-League these days, as the re-scheduling of Wellington-Newcastle this weekend showed with the Phoenix minus six All-Whites players plus Malta’s Manny Muscat.
And as the A-League grows, we should be hoping it gets more capable of attracting international stars, rather than hoping they don’t get selected like Melbourne’s Costa Rican midfielder Carlos Hernandez this week.
The simple solution is to postpone and re-schedule matches when those situations arise, like the FFA did with Wellington this weekend. But how often can that happen before it totally disrupts the league, especially considering the 3-week Asian Cup and the 5 FIFA breaks scheduled during next season?
The Phoenix will now face the Jets on the first Wednesday of November and more midweek matches aren’t out of the question looking ahead.
Buckley said a few months back, “We think there’s an opportunity for it (midweek football), we haven’t determined that’s the direction we’ll go but it’s certainly on the drawing board.
“I think television would welcome it – if you look at any TV sports schedule during the course of the week, there’s not a lot of genuine competition during the summer months.”
During December and January this season there will be a number of Wednesday matches which will give the FFA a rough idea on the concept’s viability.
But the FFA showed by not re-scheduling the Brisbane-Gold Coast match this weekend that they are not willing to change too many fixtures, as unfair as that was on the fans.
Fundamentally, though, the whole problem lay with the FFA’s reluctance to schedule the A-League alongside the AFL and NRL, and as this season’s crowd figures show, there’s reason to be cautious.
Next season will offer up an increasingly congested fixture list for the FFA and how they handle it will take plenty of consideration.
And they must not forget those who hand over their money to watch the A-League every week, because denying them the opportunity to witness the best players because of international clashes is far from ideal.
But there are clearly no easy solutions here, so you’d think something’s got to give.
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(29)
thinker said | October 14th 2009 @ 7:28am | Report comment
26/27 rounds like this years comp, The league is structured to take in 14 teams
Brian said | October 14th 2009 @ 8:41am | Report comment
The HAL should be on break for FIFA dates and the Asia Cup. This is not only for the players but also supporters who are following the international action. Play a 22 round season with all players available and then introduce a cup competition that may be played on FIFA dates etc. Playing midweek should not be a problem especially around the christmas new year period when many are on holidays.
Simone` said | October 14th 2009 @ 8:41am | Report comment
Think the best, though it most likely won’t happen, would be a 33 rounds season, and no finals series… Or a top 4 at best, having over 50% of clubs able to make finals is ludicrous… Looking foward you’d really want FFA to incoporate FIFA International dates into the fixture list. Hopefully it’ll help in increasing the amount of quality international players coming here, and possibly even with the ACL, where our teams are a year behind.
whiskeymac said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:03am | Report comment
interesting article. dont rightly agree with some of the arguments – for example that HAL players will make up any significant part of the 2011 team when the retiree’s (an article in itself) will most likely be replaced by euro players (Kisnorbo, Ruky, Vidosic, Spiranovic etc) bu the main point i concur with – that it’s hard to schedule a growing season when you are bracketed in by more dominant sports – would the HAL finals get reasonable crowds when the NRL and AFL (and s14) are a few rounds in? i dont think FFA can compete with their finals but the start might be the lesser fo the two evils (and even then congested for media space, fan$ etc)
Redb said | October 14th 2009 @ 10:10am | Report comment
I think it is smarter to start with clean air (post AFL/NRL finals) as you suggest and finish at whatever month even if it overlaps at the start of the AFL/NRL.
If a local Melb, Syd, Bris, Adel team ,etc is doing well in the HAL that should still carry excitement/momentum in the local scene even if the AFL/NRL has begun.
Just dont expect a Melb or Sdyney market to retain crowds if those teams are not in the HAL finals.
Some smarter scheduling to avoid direct clashes would also help in the latter part of the season.
The only downside perhaps is that in Melbourne’s case, Etihad availability might cause some fixturing clashes should either of the Melb HAL teams make the finals as I’d imagine the new bubble stadium wont have the capacity required for a Grand Final. That would be avoided if the FFA are happy to play all finals incl the GF at the new bubble though or Sat night is free at Etihad.
Overall, clean air is best at the start with some pre marketing not diluted by the big football finals of the AFL and NRL.
Redb
Griffo said | October 14th 2009 @ 5:45pm | Report comment
If Australia makes the 2011 Asian Cup, I can see some postponement of retirement just to play in that tournamnet. At the very least, announcements of retirements after 2011 Asia Cup for the 2014 World Cup rather than after South Africa. Perhaps Craig Moore might the only retiree?
whiskeymac said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:04am | Report comment
…how wld they fit in the proposed FFA cup?
Alex said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:07am | Report comment
33 rounds!!! I think we are at risk of boring the casual viewer.
David said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:13am | Report comment
I think the season should start when AFL n NRL finishes and go into the early rounds of the ther codes. i think 33 rounds sounds good plus a All AUstralian cup were Premier league teams and A-leagues have a knock out competition. It would give out yonger players a chance to show what they got helping out national team
AndyRoo said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:19am | Report comment
The maths is off
If it’s 11 teams I think 30 games is more likely than 33. Everyone plays each other 3 times, same as this year.
11 teams playing each other twice is 20 rounds not 22
Ben Somerford said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:35am | Report comment
AndyRoo,
I’ll just correct this, because I knew this would come up. It would be 33 rounds, because each team would play each other 3 times equalling 30 games and each team would have 3 byes. Therefore 33 rounds of football are required to be scheduled. Same thing applies if it was 22 rounds.
AndyRoo said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:37am | Report comment
Sorry Ben, looks like I failed basic fixturing 101
33 Rounds sounds like a lot but if it’s only 30 matches the players have to pay I guess like you say in the article the mid week experiment this season during the summer school holidays will be crucial. If it works then no problem, if it doesn’t then they are going to have to look at each team playing each other twice and then 4 or 5 teams a third time.
Brian said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:40am | Report comment
The bye problem could easily be overcome by having a Tuesday or Wednesday night fixture with one of the teams from the Friday night game playing the team that had the bye. That makes 20 or 30 rounds. I think Fox Sports generally struggle for mid-week entertainment so it would be good to have a weekly mid-week fixture
AndyRoo said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:44am | Report comment
I remember MV would have been dissapointed with their Thursday Night crowds but then I think generally even their weekend games while the AFL was on didn’t hit any heights so it’s hard to judge the effect on Crowds.
I think Wednesday Night in Brisbane would be more succesful than day time games so I see potential there.
Could solve the problem of Fox wanting all the games on different times so at least two or three daytime games but a few teams wanting night games (Bne, Adelaide, Fury all prefer night time games)
Brian said | October 14th 2009 @ 1:33pm | Report comment
I know crowds wern’t great on Thurs night but there is a big difference between a Janaury night and an August night in Melbourne. Both the cricket and Aus Open get great mid-week crowds that they would not get in August. I think MVFC could particularly benefit from playing more home games between the first week of November and the Australian Open. This is currently the queitest period in Melbourne sports wise.
Ben Somerford said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:41am | Report comment
Ha no worries Andy!
Also, thinker your suggestion of 26/27 rounds. Are you suggesting the A-League go AFL-style and have some teams play each other 3 times and some twice? Would that work with football?
AndyRoo said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:48am | Report comment
We allready play finals so it’s not like the traditionalists aren’t allready upset.
I don’t think playing teams 3 times (what we have now) is very fair anyway because one of the teams gets 2 home games and the other 1.
The only really fair way is home and away once each and I think 20 games is probably too low. Works for me though but perhaps they would need to bring in some sort of cup to make up extra games.
I think I read somewhere that the magic number the AFC want a competition to have is 33 games, I wonder if 33 rounds but only 30 games satisfies that?
agga78 said | October 14th 2009 @ 10:07am | Report comment
Ben have a look at the criteria for competing in Asian Champions league for 2009,2010 and then onto 2011 for your answer to the questions you pose.
Number of teams in the top division :2009 8, 2010 10, 2011 12 teams
・ Number of league matches per team in the top division 2009 21 matches, 2010 27 matches, 2011 33 matches
・ Duration of entire football season (including league, cup
tournament and pre-season matches)
― 8 months 10 months by 2011
It’s all here in the minimum criteria for participation in ACL for 2009, 2010 and 201.
FFA are obliged to meet this new criteria if they want Australian clubs to compete in the ACL beyond this season, FFA are aware of the other codes, but the real carot for FFA is to have 4 A league teams competing in the ACL in the future and if FFA were to go back to 22 rounds Australian clubs would be out of a competition which is increasing in profile around Asia and with a much larger prize pool as well $US1.5 million for this years winner and $40k for each win in the group stages Australian teams may take the pain of having to compete against AFL and NRL during their final systems but the lure of big money on the continent may ease the pain for over 1/3 of the league by 2011.
Here is the criteria in full.
http://www.the-afc.com/uploads/afc/docs/acl2011criteria.pdf
whiskeymac said | October 14th 2009 @ 10:53am | Report comment
“Duration of entire football season (including league, cup tournament and pre-season matches)
― 8 months 10 months by 2011″
well that’s easier to get around i guess. Pre season cups and FFA cups cld easily be run to extend the period bya few onths either end of the “real season”, it’s just whether anyone wld notice.
Kman said | October 14th 2009 @ 11:09am | Report comment
They should just have the FIFA Breaks like every other league in the world and have more midweek games, especially during December & January (holdiays). I think the Australian market would love midweek games, and could give us an edge over other football codes.
AndyRoo said | October 14th 2009 @ 11:48am | Report comment
I certainly appretiate the Socceroos playing on Wednesday night. Much less competition for my time than on a Saturday.
Brian said | October 14th 2009 @ 1:41pm | Report comment
I dont know where they get 10 months from since England (Mid Aug-Mid May 9 months) Italy Sep-May (9 months)…
I think a Cup competetion would help by catering to the demands of the AFC, die-hard supporters etc whilst keeping the HAL sacrescent. I would play a 22 Round + FInals HAL and then extend the season as required using the Cup Competition. With finals have 26 weeks where all players are available for the HAL. Than add another 12 weeks of pre-season Cup & FA Cup style comp which can be played whilst accomodating for FIFA dates, Asian Cups and playing in less popular times etc.
Aug – Pre-Season Cup
Sep-Apr – 22 rounds + finals HAL with Cup games on International calender dates.
Thats a 9 months comp like in England or Italy.
gazz said | October 14th 2009 @ 4:46pm | Report comment
agga,
Just had a look at that theafc link and I wonder if ‘the league matches’ could include finals, because any team who qualifies for the ACL from the A-League would have to play in at least 3 finals.
Midfielder said | October 14th 2009 @ 4:54pm | Report comment
IMO a 33 round competition … but the extra games to be played mid week over summer school holidays ….. we can not compete with either the AFL or NRL in the late rounds and finals … I think 8 mid week games meaning all the new games plus two of this years rounds would be played over summer … this also helps the introduction of the FA cup in the future…
gazz said | October 14th 2009 @ 5:18pm | Report comment
Midfielder, its interesting u say “we can not compete with either the AFL or NRL in the late rounds and finals”
Perhaps the A-League season should kickoff in early October after the AFL and NRL have finished up. Then the A-League finals would be when the new AFL & NRL seasons are just beginning. Is that viable?
Midfielder said | October 14th 2009 @ 5:23pm | Report comment
gazz
I don’t think so … the media companies each have so much money invested in the NRL & AFL that once it starts … boom bang thank you all the sports media starts up in lifting the ratings … Until the baby can walk or have our own FTA media deal we must play as much as possible not head to head and have our finals without competition..
Ben Somerford said | October 14th 2009 @ 6:19pm | Report comment
Agga, interesting mate, thanks for pointing out that link.
I guess if we’re talking 33-rounds, a point I didn’t make in the article is the difficulty to introduce midweek matches into the A-League due to our geography. Midweek games would be very cruel on the likes of Wellington, NQF and Perth who need to travel alot. It would be a major disadvantage for them in terms of preparation time, recovery time etc..
danny said | October 14th 2009 @ 9:43pm | Report comment
i would agree with shortening the season next time round if it was any old year. but the fact it’s following on from the world cup, i think the ffa will stick with the long season, start early and try to maximise the post-wc interest spike. and after next season, we’re up to 12 teams, no bye, and trying to get the extra champions league spots.
also agree on the fixturing, playing a midweek game with one team from friday and the team that had the bye to avoid extended breaks.
con said | October 15th 2009 @ 12:26am | Report comment
In no way should we shorten the season. Do not dare look at afl or nrl and decide to cut a season shorter. the longer the season the more game hardened our youth and potential national team players become. a shorter season will see us fall miles behind european, african, asian and latin youth sides in terms of development. the national curriculum specifically mentioned that our youngster lack ‘game hardness’ due to the fact they play much less than their global equivalents. a shorter season will shoot the national side in the foot. we long a longer much longer season and to stop looking at other sports