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The A-League Finals Series is about to commence and the vision splendid of the A-League Grand Final can only be seen live at a venue near you, in either Adelaide or Melbourne.
Watching the Victory and Phoenix A-League Premiership decider, as it turned out to be, courtesy of an Archie Thompson 90th minute mishit shot in the direction of Southern Cross Station, Fox Sports football newshound Michael Zappone gave us a scoop.
The Telstra Dome is hosting an AFL pre-season game on the same night as the A-League grand final.
So what, get on with the game!
After the usual annoyance with how an AFL pre-season game has prominence over the A-League Grand Final and the Arse End of The Earth’s domestic climax of the World’s most popular football code, I started to think it might be a small blessing in disguise.
A blessing, being treated like second class citizens by the AFL Commissioners again?
Well, the next bit of Mr Zappone’s sentence mentioned something about having to play the A-League Grand Final at the MCG instead. That is, of course, if Melbourne is to win the A-League’s Major Semi Final Home and Away Series and triumph over the Asian Champions League Runners Up and the Manchester United of the A-League.
When the Victory last played United in an A-League Grand Final, apart from the one sided score line, the match was sold out, with tens of thousands of fans unable to get tickets. One article even went so far as to suggest that the game should have been played at the MCG and they would have probably filled it.
If Melbourne were to get into the A-League Grand Final first and the Telstra Dome (aka Etihad Stadium) was not made available, would the Victory play it at the Melbourne Cricket Ground instead and would the Arse End of the Earth’s domestic football attendance record of 55,436 be under some sort of threat?
An attendance record, by the way, that was set by Victory and United in the 2007 A-League Golden Toilet Seat Grand Final.
What about Adelaide?
If Adelaide were to win the Major Semi, where would they play the game? With the support the team has been getting this year, they would surely sell out an Adelaide Grand Final at Hindmarsh Stadium or even the Adelaide Oval. AAMI Stadium, perhaps.
Aurelio Vidmar has already made it clear that he wants to play all Adelaide games at Fortress Hindmarsh.
We all remember the storm in a teacup that the FFA’s decision to play the Grand Final at Aussie Stadium rather than Bluetongue Stadium last year created for the Football Family and the Marinators in particular.
Will the FFA Board have to play favourites again this year in deciding the venue for the A-League Grand Final?
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