The rejuvenation of Sydney Olympic

Well it seems that the new guys in charge are trying for the best. I saw their new offices in the newspaper the other day and also read about the 3 new employees they have there now and i must admit i was impressed. I doubt it if any other Premier League Club has such offices. I might go to a game or two this season and see for myself what they have done and see whether its worth supporting them again this season. But to be fair, i must say well done for their efforts to date, but of course they've still got a long way to go....

Andyroo well said my friend byt he governing bodies of fotoball on nsw dont want whats best for the game they want control! EVER MOVE FOOTBALLNSW MAKES FOR THE GAME IN NSW TAKES THE GAME BACKWARDS how can you pay $38,000 to enter a comp their is no adds for the comp and the prize money is $25,000 does that make sense

Genuine question, why would Football NSW be against Olympic? I know the Victorian state comp seems to be against the ethnic teams and Football NSW has some stupid rules regarding P&R where it should just be first goes up and last goes down. It seems stupid to interfere in off field matters like they do, imposing criteria and such. State league is never going to some huge money making league they should run it in winter with straight fair and square P&R. If there good enough who cares if a Sudanese only football team wins the comp?

All i can say is that Sydney Olympic FC is back baby look out for over 1500 season pass holders in 2010. We will recconect with the community and strenght our club, we know the FFA doesnt want us we know footballnsw doesnt want us, but guys news flash the people want OLYMPIC, juts like South Melbourne is doing big things in Melbourne and recconnected with their massive family we are going to do bigger things. Stay tunned have over 2600 members on facebook whereby sydney fc only has 1458 is the first sign. 1500 +++ season pass holders in state league is the next step. Stay tunned sydney olympic fc is back baby!!!!

Who said we are exclusive in allowing which fans can come to the games, anyone is welcome. Nuff said.

This argument has been thrashed many times before. I have put forward the opinion that there are three groups of people that would love the A-League to fail. One are of course some fans/journalists from other codes that see 'soccer' as an intruder and have no place in Australia, the second are the eurosnobs that think that the A-League is rubbish and have no reason to exist and the third are the nostalgics from the old NSL that are very pissed off they were dismissed by the new FFA and hate the 'plastic' A-League. These were the true holders of the faith when football was maligned and derided. They were the one who put the money and worked in their spare time building clubs and teams when no one was interested. I can understand that when football becomes an attractive item to governments and sponsors they are marginalised with no recognition of all their contribution. And we know from the socceroos that the development of players from this team was top notch. Some commentators have stated that the technical skills developed were higher than the current A-league offerings. However We have to take Jeffa point of people speaking Greek. What's the problem speaking Greek? None whatsoever. (I am a native Italian speaker myself) and just because these people are from Greek/Italian/Croatian/Macedonian etc. origin are they less 'Australian' than others? Not at all. But following a team is not a rational decision. There must be some link to emotionally attach to a team and support it through thick and thin. And of course there is a question of perception. When you want to attract people to something, perception is important. So even if a team has become truly 'Australian' perceptions that it really belongs to a particular group (through colours, chants, sponsors and language spoken) can prevent people to come on board. Unfair? Yes. But that's the reality. That is why the A-League had to create a new clean slate and create teams which provided a perception that they were not attached to any particular group, but the attachment was purely geographical rather than cultural. So any football supporter that feels some schadenfreude at the 'problems' the A-league may be experiencing at the moment is doing the cause of football a disservice. Yes the NSL had fans with passion and knowledge but it was not a mainstream sport. It was seen as irrelevant and marginalised. Having said that the phobia of the FFA to include the 'old soccer' (for better words) is a mistake. If I have one criticism of the FFA is thet I think they may be great administrators but do not have an appreciation of football culture. If we could somehow combine the two (ie. taking the Western Sydney team as an example) I think football would be in a much stronger position.

Why are so many people so adamant to rubbish a football club that wishes to reconnect with its historical roots and embrace a new following in its contemporary context? The A-League has had its chance to develop a product of character and charm but has not only failed to impress those who hand-carried, bled and cried for this sport through its long period of obscurity and belittlement by the other sporting codes, but moreover has disowned these same people and labelled them as being proponents of ethnic sectarianism who are irrelevant in the modern Australia. For me, the image is very different. In contrast, I would argue that it is the shared responsibility of these rejected clubs and their traditional supporters to demonstrate to the xenophobic, verging-on-heartless mainstream that they can continue to exist, flourish, and even support one another in an encouraging and cosmopolitan Australian context. I believe that it is possible, and again I invite whoever is willing to participate in this to do so. If I am alone, then I have failed. But then nobody can say that we never tried.

Midfielder, "Fighting yesterdays battles today"

It is an easy argument to settle... FFA in 2008 not counting any government money received 85 million in revenue...The last year over the NSL was around 4 million... In the time the FFA have been in charge the Socceroos have gone from a once in four year’s team to Australia's biggest brand... It is in fact hard to find any level of the game in better shape under the NSL management than FFA management... It is easy to shout from the barricade anything you want .... BUT there is no comparison between the two sets of management or team structure models... if that comparison is based on revenue, media coverage, mainstream interest, crowd averages.

Da Silva, You state the following..."Fox wouldn’t have paid that large amount of money if the A-league had ethnic clubs." So you believe that if the A-League had ONE Ethnic club out, say, of a total of 12, that Fox would NOT support it? If that is true (and I believe it), its a disgraceful indictment on where this country is at the moment.

yeah I admit it was a bit of a hyperbole to say no one will go near it or to infer that the league had no sponsors However it was a response to the assertion by OlympicsFTW that the problem with the NSL was not the ethnic clubs but due to lack of money from sponsors. He an NSL fans states that one of the main problems of NSL was that it had "minimal sponsors". Obviously the league had some sponsors and some of the sponsors came from major corporation but they never paid large enough money to make the competition viable. Unless you are suggesting that the NSL didn't have a problem with attracting large amounts of money from sponsors. Maybe the reason why sponsors didn't spend large enough money is due to the non-mainstream nature of the perception of ethnic clubs. Fox wouldn't have paid that large amount of money if the A-league had ethnic clubs. Despite all the (reasonable) complaint about how channel 7 buried football. The official reasoning behind them not broadcasting the NSL was that one of the conditions when channel 7 bought the rights to the NSL with a larger sum of money then what the SBS had offered was that there would be a reform of the NSL to de-emphasised and rebrand the ethnic clubs. When that failed to happen to channel 7 liking, that's when Channel 7 decide to shaft the NSL (along with them wanting to please AFL as well)

dasilva, you said " The NSL despite the few multicultural clubs had a stigma of being an ethnic league. No sponsors would go near that." Coca Cola went near it by sponsoring it. So too did Ericsson So too did Phillips and West End and Qantas......... I think you have no idea what you are saying

AndyRoo,, My point is a philosophical one. At a pragmatic level, if South could guarantee 20,000, the A League would HAVE to accept them. But it is NOT going to happen. Greek Australians don't need the crutch of a Soccer team to retain their Hellenic identity.

I'm happy to admit that the A-league and FFA is prejudice towards ethic exclusive clubs. however just because it's prejudice doesn't mean the prejudice is wrong, unfounded and not based on reasonable thought. To me it's like being prejudice to clubs that are unsuitable to a professional league. Any old "ethnic" clubs who want to join the A-league should undergo what Brisbane Roar ( who has links to brisbane lions a dutch ethnic club) or what Southern Cross bid (which I thought was unfairly shafted). eg.completely rebrand itself and advertise itself as a multicultural club and follow strict FFA rules of no non-Australian flags into the stadium.

The criteria in mind is that one day these clubs could represent everyone in their geographical region. We don’t want to have to out 3 teams in Adelaide for instance, by having one team in Adelaide that everyone can support then the full potential of future growth can be realised. In a place like Sydney where there is a huge geographic spread and plenty of rectangular stadiums then there is no way you would want a team that draws from an ethnic demographic rather than a geographic base. In Melbourne where both teams will be playing out of the same stadium then I can see some sort of case for South Melbourne.

Da Silva, you are WRONG. It is freedom of association. The A-League will not allow a team to enter that has a unique cultural link. Yet, if this team was able to attract an average of 25,000 to each game, how stupid would the A-League look? I am not saying that any of these Ethnic backed clubs could. I do not believe any of them could get a crowd (except for South Melbourne perhaps). My point is that the prejudicial behaviour lies NOT with the old NSL (who accepted clubs like Perth Glory, Northern Spirit) but with the current A-League structure.

Yes we live in a multicultural society Multiculturalism is about bringing different ethnic groups together not separating them Therefore isn't it against multiculturalism to allow ethnic exclusive clubs to join the A-league. yes, who's being racist now indeed.

We live in an ethnic society, we live in a multicultural society, yet many people in the FFA and postesr on here refuse to accept an ethnic team. Who is being racist now?

do you realize A-league crowds are not dwindling. 3 clubs are down, 5 are up and apparently its a crisis

What australian football needs to take the next step is to get rid of mono-ethnic clubs all together and have only multicultural clubs participating in all competitions around the country, not just in the A-League. As long as mono-ethnic clubs exist this wonderful game will always be divided in this country.