33 or 22 Rounds in A-League Version 6?
Columnist
By Ben Somerford, 14 Oct 2009 Ben Somerford is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- A-League, FIFA, football, Wellington Phoenix
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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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.