Forget the A-League bashing, competition needs to expand

Roar Rookie

By Football Person, 9 Dec 2009 Football Person is a Roar Rookie

Tagged:: A-League, football, Four Four Two magazine

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Most A-league articles this year have been quite positive. Although, every now and then we hear from someone who thinks otherwise.

I write this article now because a few days ago, I read a letter sent in to Four Four Two magazine by Dario Trevisi of Tarrawanna. In this letter, Dario states that: “The general standard this year has been low as there is not enough quality players on display“.

He goes on to say that having to many clubs severely hurt the NSL, and that we should never go beyond twelve teams.

Now, I know we will never have 80 professional clubs playing across 4 divisions, and that 28 will probably be the most we’ll ever have.

But this doesn’t bode well for me.

I want to know where Dario, and the rest of these people, get their ideas from.

I’ve never seen an NSL game in full, but from what I am told, and what I can see in videos, the NSL had a standard very similar to the A-League.

I don’t know about the rest of you Roarers, but to me, this A-league season has been the pick of the lot, as highlighted by Tony Tannous’ article, “Five Reasons I’m loving A-league Season 5”.

And finally, he states we should never go past twelve teams.

But how can we expect to be taken seriously internationally with only one 12 team competition? I struggle even to take the SPL seriously, even though they have 3 or 4 ten team divisions underneath.

Of course, this is also due to the complete domination of two teams.

Now we tackle the question of why this is happening. Is it because of the lack of media coverage? Are there double agents sent from other sports to make us lose support?

Or are they making assumptions on what should happen when we add new teams, without even watching a game?

Whatever the answer is, we need to be able to stop it.

The only way I can see putting an end to this madness would be a game a week, and a highlights package on FTA
(NOT SBS!)

So non-A-league people, don’t believe what you here about the standard this year. Watch and then decide for yourself.

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The Crowd Says (8) | Page 1 of Comments

Freud of Football said | December 9th 2009 @ 2:31am | Report comment

“But how can we expect to be taken seriously internationally with only one 12 team competition?” How can Australia with all it’s 21 Million people, with its 7 cities of more than 500,000 people, with it’s own football code and two rugby codes which are by far the more dominant sports, how can we possibly support a seriously competitive international competition 12 team comp?

Where is the money going to come from to produce seriously good football? Where is the infrastructure going to come from? I think the worry should be about how teams will survive in the long term rather than “how can we get a couple of eastern european internationals to come and play in Aus”?

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AndyRoo said | December 9th 2009 @ 9:08am | Report comment

I have never compared a poor game in the NSL to a poor game of the HAL but am guessing the HAL standard is better.

When people talk about the old NSL they only remember the good teams, their were plenty of poor ones.

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pete said | December 9th 2009 @ 1:45pm | Report comment

People forget the A-League has a salary cap and the SPL amongst others does not. Look at this year’s expansion into 2 regional areas of Qld (Gold Coast, Townsville) hasn’t worked out how the FFA would have hoped. Fair enough they haven’t had a team playing at the top level ever but it will take years for the A-League to establish itself up there. Until most clubs are turning a profit I’m all for staying at 12 teams.

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- Nick F said | December 13th 2009 @ 8:02pm | Report comment
  
  Hasn’t worked out?
  
  GCU have been good this season, save for their blip a few weeks ago.
  
  But yes, lets keep the comp at a sustainable level before we start adding teams.
  
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Football said | December 9th 2009 @ 2:08pm | Report comment

The quality of the A league this year has improved dramatically in comparison to previous years.
I have not seen one touch football in previous years & the game seems to be getting faster.
In regards to there not being enough players I think a number of people should look at what is going on in the state leagues before commenting.
I am involved with a NSW Premier League club & can advise that the competition for places is massive & continues all the way through to the U20′s level.
Until we start to tap into this resource no-one can serously suggest we dont have the players.

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Mxjosh said | December 9th 2009 @ 7:40pm | Report comment

I agree we need to expand the league beyond the expected 12 teams. However it must be done carefully and cautiously, we cant just start throwing teams in there for the sake of having a larger league. It may seem slow going but that will be better than quickly expanding the league and having it got bust in 5 years

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M1tch said | December 13th 2009 @ 8:39pm | Report comment

Sports administrators think like the great pioneers of history..expand or we die.
All the FFA did was expand into the Gold Coast and North Queensland without testing the water. The Roar should have taken a home game to Skilled or Dairy Farmers over the last few years, and other teams taking low drawing games on the road.
The expanded blindly and its back fired.
Also, how a club markets itself has shown to really be the top priority, Clive Palmer for all the money he brought, distanced the club away from the fans, Sydney Rovers especially need to see what Palmer did and do the opposite.

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- AndyRoo said | December 14th 2009 @ 8:31am | Report comment
  
  There are only so many things the FFA can do. Both clubs are privately owned and I actually think Nth Qld Fury have done a good job considering their base but unfortunately the GFC wiped out one of their investors (he owned a recruitment company).
  
  Nth QLD is one of those places where it could work, their are two NBL teams in the area but takes time to become part of the community. Their crowd numbers look poor but when you watch the games you can see that 5k watching Nth QLD seems very different than 5k watching GCU. There a lot of Green and White jerseys around.
  
  Palmer went tits up and I find it strange that the pressence of Clive Mesnik didn’t set of alarm bells early.
  
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