The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Don't give the A-League grand final to Sydney

Roar Guru
31st October, 2013
Advertisement
Roar players celebrate following the A-League season 7 grand final between the Brisbane Roar and Perth Glory (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Roar Guru
31st October, 2013
54
1424 Reads

Various news articles in the past few days have spoken about moving the Western Sydney Wanderers versus Sydney FC derby game to ANZ stadium.

Not living in Sydney, and not being a fan of either club, it is a debate I have no particular thoughts on, one way or the other.

Buried away in those articles though is this quote from A-League Boss Damien de Bohun:

“ANZ Stadium is being considered as a grand final venue across the board this season.”

It is this that causes me outrage.

Every couple of years, parts of the Sydney-based football fraternity suggest the idea of the grand final being permanently hosted in Sydney.

I could not be more opposed to that view.

The AFL has grown from a Melbourne based competition, half of its teams still come from Melbourne, and the grand final has always been played in Melbourne. It is a similar story for the Sydney-based NRL.

Advertisement

I don’t find these to be compelling reasons to always host those finals in their respective cities.

Not coming from either Melbourne or Sydney, it is incredibly arrogant of those other two sports to keep the grand final in their towns.

It sounds like ‘we will take publicity, money, and support for our code from other places but we will not give suitable reward in return, should you be successfull.’

Not so the A-League.

The A-League, like the NSL before it, is a national competition, equally spread across the entire country.

It is not grown from some local competition, and dominated by one city, nor does it have a history of the event being held in one place.

It claims to be truly representative of the entire Australian community in a way the other two codes are not, and the best way to prove that is for the grand final to go to the city of highest-ranked team to reach the game, even should that happen to be Wellington.

Advertisement

This is one of the major points of difference between the A-League and those other two codes, and one thing that will turn code-jumpers into long-term fans.

How could you possibly have a better advertisement for the sport across the country than to have the chance for every fan to have the biggest day of the year in their home town?

The FFA has already devalued the Premiership by discarding the double chance to reach the grand final for the top two.

I see this as another attack on the worth of that achievement.

Finally, I must ask, will Sydneysiders even turn out to watch two non-Sydney teams at ANZ stadium?

Is the league really that strong yet that hosting the grand final at a neutral venue would have any chance of drawing a large crowd?

The sold out NSL grand final games – in Brisbane in 1997, with 40,000, and the 2000 game in Perth, with 43,000 – were the two highest attended finals in Australian history until the 2007 final in Melbourne.

Advertisement

Throw in the two 50,000 attendance A-League finals in Brisbane and any number of games in Melbourne, and you’ve got to wonder if only two Sydney crowds of above 40,000 in the entire history of the A-League and the NSL give Sydney any credibility as a viable neutral venue for such a game, and why should it even be considered?

Is it not a better look for the game to play to a sold out crowd at some other city than to have maybe 30,000 at ANZ in Sydney?

If you are of the opinion the fans of the best team deserve to have the chance to have the grand final in their city, make your voice heard now, before it is too late.

Don’t let the decision be made then complain about it later.

close