The A-League desperately needs a great club

The EPL is popular in spite of the Big 4 domination rather than because of it.

Pip Are you making the trip to Bluetounge for the flogging of the Tards...

We saw tonight why Melbourne attracts good crowds.

Couple weeks you come to Bluetounge ... lets see it's 6 .. nil so far ... will improve on our average to be sure to be sure

There you go folks - we now have a great club - I present to you: Melbourne Victory.

Trust in Footballs world wide model…. no limit on salary, promotion and relegation , built on a fast attacking style … The laziz faire model hasn't been proven to work for small countries like ours and is leaving a lot up to chance. If we compete on the same terms as Korea, China even Indonesia then we will forever be in their shadow. Our advantage is that we are well organised and frankly the only league in the whole of Asia that I am jealous of is Japan. I find the EPL and other Euro leagues entertaining because of the quality of the footballers on display. But of the really capitilist leagues England, Spain Italy I am seldom inclined to watch their mid table teams and would much prefer (the more regulated Bundisliga). the NRL and AFL are highly regulated and considering their small base (about half of australia each) they do really well on a world scale. if we translated that level of support to the HAL I think we would be pretty close to the J league. That's is a pretty loose argument I know but I honestly think if we remove the cap then spending on non player improvements will fall in priority for clubs. That would be a real shame because safe and stable off field organisation could be one of our competitive advantages. We start letting clubs rack up big debts and turning over owners frequently then we can't be sure of what will happen.

MId is 8,000 on the Central Coast low? I don't know. At the start of the season, people were complaining about 8,000 at Townsvilles' games, and I was thinking to myself: what's wrong with 8,000 in a small town? I would have guessed that that would have been decent. In the Dutch Eerste Divisie (their second tier), many clubs only have about 4,000 capacity at grounds - it's a decent standard, and their total salaries are not too far above that paid in the A-League. How do these clubs operate? In truth, most of them are privately owned and rely on annual donations from wealthy owners. Whether this can work in Australia in the long term remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure, even in the Eredivisie, they are relying less on crowds (the middle sized clubs are around the 12,000 mark in attendances), and more on TV revenue and sponsorship. The A-League just has to survive these next few years and it will be another step in long term sustainability. I reckon the CCM model is an interesting one, well worth following. If we work on the basis that longer term, the A-League will be more about incubating talent that leaves to go off-shore around the age of 21-22, and welcomes them back at 30+, then CCM is positioning themselves in a world when they know they will have fewer revenue streams (compared to Sydney and Melbourne) in terms of memberships and sponsorship, but will remain competitive by producing its own talent, and may very well be able to turn it into a thriving business venture. There are plenty of overseas clubs who work on this model - but note - these clubs rarely win silverware - this is the big gamble in the Australian context - but its a model worth aiming for which might give CCM, for all of its hurdles, a bit of a competitive advantage in what is likely to become a dog eat dog comp in the near future. Back to the point about entertainment - we have to be honest with ourselves - last night's CCM vs Glory game isn't going to drag crowds through the gates. And every home team is playing like that this season! (except maybe Sydney) Melbourne has got most of its points on the road this season - that's good for Melbourne, but it means other home teams dropping points, and Melbourne has been on the back of three home shellackings this year - not a good look for generating some home town support!! Why does it happen??!! we've been asking this same question almost since day one!! At a minimum, regardless of how you're going, you need to do well on your own dung heap, supporters need to turn up knowing there's a chance of some home team goals and a good chance of taking the points. Supporters will watch their team, even if they're on the bottom, if they know they are always a chance to do well at home - this is one thing the Premier League stlll retains - despite the strong clubs dominating, supporters always feel they are a chance at home against anyone - it's a very powerful thing to have.

Pip This year the Mariners are $ 300, 000 under the salary and two players short of what they can have... Meaning a couple of things LM is being very selective with who he brings to the club as we have trailed heaps of people.. or we are short of coin... However there is a lot to do in the A-League to get it right... our crowd last night was just under 8, K... very poor in many ways.. we have been playing excellently lately it was a perfect night... what has happened I think is the cross coders have stopped coming... I wonder is it the same at other clubs.... What does mean if I am right we are in the year of the hard core rusted on at games... the FFA need to make the night as a whole more entertaining in some way to entice the cross coder back.. I think the constant war talk is not good for Football, Pip is a excellent model. It is obvious Pip enjoys his AFL..but equally enjoys his football..Thus he finds himself constantly defending AFL to football folk and football to AFL folk… most give up and say the hell with it and go back to their first choice… Not sure I know the answer because there are a number of AFL / RL & RU folk who enjoy slipping the boot in … I guess it requires clever reply’s that do not put the cross coder off. On the point of having a couple of super clubs it is very debatable Towser posted some compelling links to say I think in essence .. Trust in Footballs world wide model.... no limit on salary, promotion and relegation , built on a fast attacking style ... The Mariners have always assumed the salary cap would one day be taken away… further we have assumed big city teams would fill stadiums and have easier access to big sponsors… Thus the building of the Mariners Centre of Football Excellence is to provide the club a source of top players who would in time be on sold thus income… It is a massive effort and has many on the coast and overseas coming together to pull it off… Hoping and praying works starts on time next year… I guess it’s a judgement call, when do you relax the SC and the judgement is when the smaller clubs can survive the relaxation…

Is the salary cap holding back Australian clubs in Asia? The salary cap applies to the A-League only. When you enter the ACL, it doesn't apply - the only restriction is that you are allowed one less foreigner. So come March next year, the Victory and Adelaide can recruit whoever the hell they want, pay as much as they want, once they start playing in the ACL (with the restriction on foreigners). Are they going to splash out big time doing so? Of course not!!! Talk of the cap is a bit of a furphy. Melbourne is turning a slight profit, CCM is managing to breake even last I heard - absolutely everone else is losing millions of dollars per annum. One top liner starts at $1 mill per annum. Clubs are actually allowed to pay that out plus some on one marquee - but how many are doing so - even Melbourne has opted for a cheap marquee for the whole five seasons to date. A looser salary cap may have allowed MV to keep Fred a couple of years back - but they would have been forced to triple the salary for a player that was good by A-League standards, but who was not actually a world class player. IN other words - the current salary cap is currently where clubs can afford to be - only one or two clubs can currently afford to pay above that at the moment.

Competitiveness is important in ensuring a growing fanbase in the regional areas, like NQF and CCM, in Europe and England, the comp was much more even for decades allowing a fanbase to develop with some depth to support several tiers. Not to mention they are community institutions etc On the other side of the coin, there is a need to ensure some strong A League clubs that are capable of making a mark in Asia and being competitive in the ACL, having campaigns like the one just gone where CCM and NJFC are getting thrashed using teams missing key players (Jedinak) which haven't been replaced yet or far removed from championship winning teams (NJFC and to a degree Melbourne missing Fred) is not in the interests of the A League and Australian football either. So from that perspective it is good to have some strong clubs that can get out of the group stages and into the knockout stages by and large quite regularly So there is a bit of a balancing act required. For mine the solution lies in adjusting the salary cap allowing some of the richer clubs to go out and get some decent marquees to give them an edge, while ensuring it is still fundamentally there to allow other teams to still be in the mix and to ensure financial sustainability

Davidde, I believe the commentators said they were limited on what they could spend, that for me could have meant they have a limit on transfer fees, the salary cap that they don't have or perhaps they simply don't have a great deal of money, there was some financial limitation mentioned. Quite frustrating as it piqued my interest but I hadn't being paying attention properly, Liverpool playing to such a poor standard can have that affect.

Yes Football - the Melbourne 3 - Brisbane 3 game was outstanding because of the number of freak goals scored that night. But the rest of the season has been pretty disappointing if you attend for MVFC home games. If we had SFCs home record we would be 11 points clear on top of the table. Our home record reads Played 8 - Won 2 Drawn 3 Lost 3 GS 10 GA 16 Points 9 SFC's home record this season Played 7 - Won 6 Drawn 0 Lost 1 GS 11 GA 4 Points 18

Ok I will clarify Sydney has improved its standard. However i will argue that Central Coast & Gold Coast have played some great football on occassions. Am I missing something is Melbourne not on top of the table. The Brisbane Melbourne game was outstanding, the Sydney Melb game was great & Adelaide Melb game was very good.

Football - you need to correct that statement. It should read the quality of football at SFC has risen dramatically because of a competent coach. The quality of football at MVFC has pretty much remained stagnant this season. This explains why our attendances are down. There has been very liitle to get excited about. Especially when you lose 3 home games by a collective score of 9 - 0.

The quality of footbal this year has risen dramatically since seasons 1&2 & as Sydney are domonstrating you dont need to buy big name players to improve your standard, just need a competant coach.

Good point about the Bundesliga - I thought that was the case - but I didn't have the exact facts at hand.

Wolfsburg is hardly a top team in Germany. They were only recently trying to achieve promotion from the depths of the second division, and one league title does not make a powerhouse. Only in the last two or three years have they really become a team worth discussing by the masses, and that's mainly thanks to the coaching nous of Felix Magath, who is now at Schalke 04 (who have also buckets of quality). I'd easily put Werder Bremen before Wolfsburg - as would most of the world's population, most of whom have a better chance of knowing who Bremen are - and the current season's results would say the same. Hell, it would even say that six teams are currently better than Bayern and Wolfsburg... and they'd probably be true. Germany haven't really had a "top team" for years, and yet so many people (whether they actually watch the league or not) still consider it one of the world's top leagues. Goes to show that there are always exceptions to what people think should be the case, and why a constant one or two horse race isn't necessarily the answer to the A-League's woes. Even Turkey doesn't have that problem (how many of you had heard of Besiktas, the current champions, before they'd played against Manchester United). Popular isn't necessarily the same as powerful. I fear the discussion of A-League salary caps is nearing the status of "done to death," if it's not already at that point, too. We're aware that it keeps getting lifted little by little, and that it isn't a permanent situation (until expansion is at a certain point, and the league/clubs can appropriately sustain the cap's abolishment), so I'm not sure why this dead horse keeps being beaten.

Simmo The complex is worth that much .. the land and club are free... Simmo from a thread I made some time ago http://www.theroar.com.au/2009/07/22/will-the-mariners-centre-of-excellence-work/ """"....the Mariners Board record is impressive. They have convinced a local RSL club to provide 12 acres of land and their premises in return for having their club refurbished. The Wyong council has provided an adjourning 10 acres of land. The building will cost about 18 million ... but staffing it will be aside from Mariner staff will be Newcastle University with thw school of medice. TAFE will also have some input I think. I guess the Mariners will borrow much of the building cost as they have parntersips in place already with San Polo from Brazil. The motel is planed to make enough money to pay the loan and provide a sourse of funding long term for the Mariners.