FFA focus on World Cup at expense of local leagues
Columnist By Davidde Corran, 9 Apr 2010 Davidde Corran is a Roar Expert
Gold Coast United FC head coach and director of football, Miron Bleiberg (centre) celebrates with Football Federation Australia (FFA) CEO Ben Buckley (right) and Gold Coast United CEO Clive Mensink (left). AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Earlier this week, I opined about the lack of creativity in the A-League’s managerial and administrative ranks. Now, with the news that South Melbourne FC are on the verge of being included in this year’s Singapore FA Cup, I know where most of football’s most creative and brightest have ended up.
In the state leagues.
In an article running on the au.fourfourtwo website, Aidan Ormand reveals that: “the idea has the support of the Singapore FA and that the historic move could be signed off within days,” with Football Federation Australia backing set to follow on Monday.
First it was a player exodus from Australia to Asia and now it seems whole clubs are heading abroad in search of better opportunities.
South Melbourne Chairman Nick Galatas told Ormand that: “We believe this is a positive for Australian football as it strengthens our nation’s links within our own confederation the AFC.
“At the same time it gives clubs outside the A-League an opportunity to compete in a new competition – that’s exciting for the players and no doubt will be embraced by our fan-base.
“It will strengthen Australia’s second tier clubs and therefore strengthen our state leagues. What’s more, we don’t yet have an FA Cup style competition or a B-League here in Australia.”
South Melbourne’s “out of the box” thinking doesn’t stop there, either.
Currently the former NSL club are giving away double passes to their final game at Bob Jane Stadium for anyone who is interested.
Not only will this initiative increase one off attendance and potentially help to lift future crowd figures, it’s also a sign of a proud club acknowledging its past. Something our national governing body has regularly failed to do.
Add in South’s impressive online presence, including podcasts, social media activity and live game updates, and there’s some exciting and creative thinking going on behind the scenes at Bob Jane Stadium.
Let’s get back to the Singporean FA Cup idea, though.
While it might seem a little odd for a Victorian club to be seeking a higher level of football in South East Asia, with FFA more or less ignoring the desire of club’s like South Melbourne for better football opportunities, why shouldn’t they?
My only gripe is that our former NSL clubs have been so neglected by FFA that there’s become a need for them to head overseas in search of greener pastures.
Its becoming clear that FFA’s focus on all things “World Cup” is starting to come at the expense of the game’s health back home.
So as FFA puts aside its national cup competition concept to focus on World Cup bids and campaigns, and while football fans around the country continue to clamour for a knockout competition, South Melbourne have sourced their own alternative.
Brilliant.
Ben Buckley it’s over to you.
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April 9th 2010 @ 10:22am
keeper11 said | April 9th 2010 @ 10:22am | Report comment
Woh..so Lu has a scoop re the WC bid…?
read it on bigfooty.com i guess..
rather than ‘pissing’ ..its a great example of an australian football club looking to compliment its domestic position and broaden their horizons and embrace new opportunities in asia….
btw..’p*ssin’ pretty well sums up ‘embracing asia’ to the fellas from your brand of footy i’d say…
April 9th 2010 @ 10:51am
Lu said | April 9th 2010 @ 10:51am | Report comment
Mate, 5 year member of Victory, was shattered on Feb 14 when we lost the title (thats the $hit that really counts, none of this finals crap), was going to jump the fence and have my way with Archie Thompson when he scored in the second semi final at the SFS, will be checking out Heart when i have nothing to do, followed Man United since Cantona kicked the Palace fan in the head (pretty sure the kid and his mother deserved it), will sell the missus to see United kill Liverpool at OT, can’t get close enough to Graham Arnold to tell him how much he ruined my Asian Cup 07 trip, travelled to most of the Socceroos WC qualifying games in Australia (accept for Canberra, no one wants to go there), on the verge of prosituting myself to go to sth Africa, already booked my ticket to Brazil 2014 regardless if Australia makes it…
Don’t get me wrong, I love Australian Football (the round ball kind), but i just hate how it is full of self serving people who care only about their own ends than the bigger picture. Together, footabll can be massive, seperately, we’re just a laughing stock to the other codes..
April 9th 2010 @ 10:54am
AndyRoo said | April 9th 2010 @ 10:54am | Report comment
I heard you missed the first half of an away game in season two because your wife was having twins.
Face it Lu your plastic.
April 9th 2010 @ 11:00am
Lu said | April 9th 2010 @ 11:00am | Report comment
How many times do i have to tell you.. Botox is not plastic
April 9th 2010 @ 10:59am
Killer_Tomatoes said | April 9th 2010 @ 10:59am | Report comment
GCU and NQ situations are a shame, cos they took one club that, aside from a bad stadium deal, was working relatively well and in the process killed 3 clubs. It seems that now none of them will be viable in the long term. Whose genius idea was it to put 3 soccer clubs in a bogan state like QLD and leave a much more populated and football friendly state like Victoria with only one? Well done FFA, a little bit of ethnicity in football is not looking like such a bad thing right now, if NQ or GC actually had any, there clubs may not be dying.
April 9th 2010 @ 11:36am
whiskeymac said | April 9th 2010 @ 11:36am | Report comment
bogans arent ehtnics?
April 9th 2010 @ 12:21pm
Killer_Tomatoes said | April 9th 2010 @ 12:21pm | Report comment
Maybe in Melbourne or Sydney, where they’re a minority, not in QLD
April 9th 2010 @ 12:33pm
AndyRoo said | April 9th 2010 @ 12:33pm | Report comment
Nth Qld wouldn’t have effected Bne Roar. Sydney is closer to Brisbane than Townsville is.
GCU probably effected the Roar but it should have been in a positive way …. but then most teams wouldn’t respond to a new competitior entering the market by steeply increasing membership and ticket prices.
More people play Football in QLD than in Victoria and any second team in Victoria would have to be outside Melbourne (MV have a 5 year exclusivity on Melbourne). I don’t think Gippsland or Geelong would have done gangbusters either.
Edit: And yes I am a Bogan who lives in QLD….but I was raised in NSW so it’s not QLD’s fault.
April 9th 2010 @ 2:06pm
Axel V said | April 9th 2010 @ 2:06pm | Report comment
More people might play football in Queensland than in Victoria, but more people support sport in Victoria than in Queensland. For a club to be sustainable, you need support.
However i can see the Melbourne Hearts being a total flop (By Victorian standards),
Who are they appealing to? If you support Australian Football and you live in Victoria, you go for the Victory.
April 9th 2010 @ 2:32pm
Rellum said | April 9th 2010 @ 2:32pm | Report comment
“If you support Australian Football and you live in Victoria, you go for the Victory.”
I live in Melbourne and support Australian Football, but I am sure as hell not going to go for the Victory. Don’t you think a comment like that is just a tad arrogant?
April 9th 2010 @ 2:33pm
AndyRoo said | April 9th 2010 @ 2:33pm | Report comment
MV are the succes of the A league no denying it. Their the shining example of how to run and support an A league team. If not for Melbourne showing the potential of football in this country then I think investors and media would be death riding the A league.
Until this year when it all went to **** though Brisbane were always in the top 2 crowd average wise (beat Melbourne in season 1).
Not as big a difference as you and Killer are making out.
So yeh good work Melbourne but considering the difference in quality between the management of the Roar and MV it’s hardly an inditement on the level of support for Football in QLD.
Anyway I have to go and tend to my mullet as there is no way I’m letting Rob beat me two years in a row.
April 9th 2010 @ 3:29pm
Axel V said | April 9th 2010 @ 3:29pm | Report comment
Rellum, I don’t understand, how come you don’t go for the Victory?
and would you support the Hearts? If so, why?
April 9th 2010 @ 5:12pm
Rellum said | April 9th 2010 @ 5:12pm | Report comment
The following is cut and pasted from the Heart forum explaining why I following the Hearts.
“The Roar were supposed to be my team. But having to go through all the rubbish with a new club that seemed to do everything it could it alienate locals, names, ridiculous colours, no attempt to link with the local clubs who hated the Lions. Last year, when that had the chance to remake themselves into more of a Brisbane club, was their last chance with me, and when all they could do was change the name, that was the final straw. I have been living in in Melbourne for a few years now, and having no Brisbane team to support the Heart have come along at the right time and seem to be doing everything right.”
There are many people living in Melbourne with many varied reasons to support the Heart over the Victory.
April 9th 2010 @ 12:30pm
Rob Gremio said | April 9th 2010 @ 12:30pm | Report comment
Mate, Bogan state? I’ll have you know that my wife (my first cousin from my dad’s second marriage to his aunt May) drives an HSV when she’s going out. OK, she drives a Torana to the shops and we have to move the Kingswood with the custom-made redback spider laid in resin gearstick knob every time she wants to break it out, and my mullet has one awards at the local ute show.
Killer Tomatoes, this kind of prejudice against Queensland is based on mis-information, and a failure to identify the bogans in your own suburb. It really pisses me off when you southerners bang on about Queensland being full of bogans, when the actual term “bogan” comes from Victoria, which, I can assure you, is also full of inbred ball bags without a multicultural bone in their bodies.
FYI, Queenslanders love football, and there is a thriving population of football players and supporters here. The problem is harnessing it for the good of not just the A-League, but for the game in general.
April 9th 2010 @ 2:18pm
Axel V said | April 9th 2010 @ 2:18pm | Report comment
How can Victoria possibly be inbred? Inbreeding occurs in isolated area’s with a small population and lack of variation in the gene pool, often occured by geological barriers (long distance caused by desert or sea like in Queensland or Tasmania
).
Victoria is closley linked to most of Australia and has the biggest influx of new people (From Oversea’s and within Australia) coming in.
April 9th 2010 @ 2:29pm
Rob Gremio said | April 9th 2010 @ 2:29pm | Report comment
Southeast Queensland is growing at a rate of around 5-10 thousand people per week, so the influx of new people to Victoria is, I doubt, as great as that. Many of the migrants north are from Victoria and NSW – racing up here to get away from the miserable cold you guys endure for half the year.
Places like Townsville and Cairns have massive influxes of new residents each year, and with the mineral and gas boom occurring in more and more places in Queensland these days, new poeple are moving into Queensland every year. That redneck argument about Queensland is old and tired.
And as for your “geological barriers argument, is there any chance that, say, the good folk in the Malee region or in some of those little towns in Gippsland, have had a massive in-migration of “fresh” genes in the last few decades?
April 9th 2010 @ 3:24pm
Axel V said | April 9th 2010 @ 3:24pm | Report comment
Growing at 5,000-10,000 per week? That’s 260,000- 520,000 per year!
When I saw the figures a year or 2 ago, Queensland had by far the largest percentage of growth in Australia, but in actual numbers, Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales were all very close in terms of actual numbers. Wait… Why is this important?
As for the Mallee and Gippsland, lets not go there!
(double meaning!)
April 9th 2010 @ 11:17am
Original21 said | April 9th 2010 @ 11:17am | Report comment
This is great news for football in Australia.
If the FFA blocks this, it’ll be a slap in the face to the AFC, the very confederation that it needs support from regarding 2022.
GO SOUTH
April 9th 2010 @ 11:29am
Iron Chef said | April 9th 2010 @ 11:29am | Report comment
If Gold Coast United Football Club fold, it will be more good news long term than bad news short term.
Obviously the Football fans of SFQ have rejected GCUFC mostly due to Mr.Palmer. You either love him or really hate him and the A-League attendance speak for themselves. Both Brisbane Roar FC and Gold Coast FC need to re-branded from the name to the owners. Not point in throwing away good money after bad for something that will never eventuate because of past wrongs.
And to those victorian handball zealots that might take delight in the news. Remember if not for the alf 100% private ownership in the gold coast lifeguards and the greater western sydney white elephants those franchise’s would NEVER EVER be.
How much will the gc lifeguards pay to enter the league?……………………………..exactly.
April 9th 2010 @ 11:47am
Ben of Phnom Penh said | April 9th 2010 @ 11:47am | Report comment
The fact that a state league club can play in Singapore for a cup competition is positive. Last year a Cambodian and a Thai side were invited to play as well. The competition itself is good for that level though probably too lower standard for an A-League side. One down side, unless something has changed, is that all games are played in Singapore so the chance of wandering down to catch Geylang v South Melbourne won’t be on the cards for most supporters.
The question will be as to what follows should the venture prove to be a success. Will we see an increased push for a local cup competition or will state based clubs find themselves in competitions such as the Piala Cup or the ASEAN Club Championship? One thing is for sure and that is the fact that many people will be watching developments with interest.
April 9th 2010 @ 11:47am
limnos2 said | April 9th 2010 @ 11:47am | Report comment
with the world Cup coming in 8 weeks,Fairfax and Murdoch’s clowns are at it again trying in vain to drum up anti football hysteria…..sorry chaps…the Football Revolution is BIGGER than Fairfax and Murdoch…..but again this highlights the URGENT NEED for Australia to have a two-three new independent media organizations…..we are still living in the 1930′s….having Murdoch and Fairfax is like being told you can only eat Vietnamese or Mongolian for lunch each day….where is the choice corprate Australia!!!
April 9th 2010 @ 12:09pm
Dogz R Barkn said | April 9th 2010 @ 12:09pm | Report comment
Fairfax is very even handed in its reporting of soccer in this country.
Both Cockerill and Lynch are very much pro soccer, and The Age is a major sponsor of the Victory.
Something big has happened the last 24 hours, of course they should report it, to do otherwise would be lacking in their duty.
April 9th 2010 @ 11:59am
Dogz R Barkn said | April 9th 2010 @ 11:59am | Report comment
Why is everyone talking as if this is something new?
For a few years a Darwin team (yes, Darwin) played in an overseas comp, can’t remember which one, it was either the Singapore league or an Indonesian league.
April 9th 2010 @ 12:10pm
MV Dave said | April 9th 2010 @ 12:10pm | Report comment
There was a WA/Perth team based in one of the Asian leagues (Singapore?) in the 1990′s.
April 9th 2010 @ 12:32pm
Rob Gremio said | April 9th 2010 @ 12:32pm | Report comment
Darwin also recently hosted the Arafura games, with an all-indigenous team representing Australia. Don’t remember how they went, but it was a good sign.
April 9th 2010 @ 12:42pm
Rob Gremio said | April 9th 2010 @ 12:42pm | Report comment
TWG website carrying the following story:
http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/986522/Fraser-to-take-reins-at-Fury
Fraser is to become the guy tasked with revamping the Fury.:
“A-League boss Archie Fraser has quit his post and is set to parachute straight into a new role as North Queensland Fury’s acting chief executive.
After just 13 months in the job, former St Kilda AFL CEO Fraser will base himself in Queensland long-term after commuting between Sydney and his Gold Coast home since his appointment.”
April 9th 2010 @ 12:54pm
Football Person 2 said | April 9th 2010 @ 12:54pm | Report comment
Kinda lost on whether or not i like there not being a Gold Coast side.
The rivalry could have been great in ten years time, but I just can’t take seeing 4000 at skilled. ( tho 8000 at suncorp still hurts)
All this talk of Brisbane’s troubles are really starting to depress me….
I wonder what the GCU fans that took up Palmer’s offer of switching clubs are thinking now
April 9th 2010 @ 12:59pm
MV Dave said | April 9th 2010 @ 12:59pm | Report comment
FP2
It looks like the FFA have finally made a decent move putting in a ‘Special Envoy’ Archie Fraser to specifically look after the 3 Queensland teams…hopefully this means all 3 will have long term futures in HAL.
April 9th 2010 @ 1:23pm
Lu said | April 9th 2010 @ 1:23pm | Report comment
Memo to Melbourne Heart, get Jason Culina on the phone now!!!! He’d be more of a Marquee player than a returning Skoko..
April 9th 2010 @ 1:34pm
whiskeymac said | April 9th 2010 @ 1:34pm | Report comment
ifit wasnt salary capped a culina-hernandez pairing in midfield wld be interesting too.
April 9th 2010 @ 2:14pm
Lu said | April 9th 2010 @ 2:14pm | Report comment
Archies the Marquee player.. and he’d be out for most of the season.. Injury replacement Marquee?
Just need a quality finisher that’s not Robbie Kruse and it could be very very interesting..
Shane Smeltz isn’t doing anything.. lol