Rise of the Phoenix gives us a true trans-Tasman rivalry

James, as stated before, Oceania wishes to retain its independece and NZ is a big player in Oceania. Don't expect any movement on this matter soon. If Oceania moves, NZ goes with it, not the other way around.

Still NZ is harping on about the 'finals money'. Who gives a f..k, all teams especially Melbourne, have pulled in decent crowd over the life if the A-League to support the FFA. Wellington gets 2 decent crowds to finals games and expects the World to owe it a favour. Well stick it, learn to develop football in your own time and space. Don't bother us.

Stuff the netball, it's only paid by a few countries.

You want the dirt, OK then, you can have it. This is the email from the FFA when I askde the how we ended up with New Zealand as an opponent. I've edited names out for privacy though. The text is legit but: Dear, Thanks for your email and your interest. We tried to get several World Cup nations to come and play us. Unfortunately FIFA prohibits matches from 17 to 23 May, and after that none of them wanted to travel to Australia, understandably, as it is getting close to the World Cup. We also approached a number of nations that did not make the World Cup, but because most of the leagues end early May, they did not want to keep their players training to the end of May, also understandably. So, we are really pleased that we have a World Cup participant as an opponent. The match is really aimed at farewelling the Socceroos, and, with due respect, the opponent is secondary. I hope you will come to farewell the Socceroos (and also the All Whites). Thanks again for writing, Kind regards,

Oh and before you start down the road of the ANZ netball championship being Australian it's not and never has been, it is the result of both countries combining their domestic competitions hence why there is a 50/50 split in the number of teams

Not surprising still more rubbish from you AA and still you haven't fronted up with the so called "Dirt" you say you have. The FFA will be very chuffed with the money that Wellington Brought them in the finals series, the minor final crowd between Sydney and Wellington was truly pathetic if that had been in New Zealand it woyuld have been a guaranteed sell out and the FFA knows this they would be foolish to cut the phoenix loose.

Well now that this has all dies down, it's all quiet. And in the cold hard light of day, I still can;t see how the AFC or FIFA can support the Phoenix. The FFA are silly indeed if they continue to support this team's inclusion in future A-League seasons beyond 2011.

No and no to your 2 questions above. No hope of NZ joining the AFC in the near future. Asia don't want them and Oceania won't let NZ leave. NZ now has Australia's old job of being "Oceania's Kings". Welcome to the real world NZ.

Betty, having the Phoenix in improves the chances for teams like Fury to survive. By your own logic the Phoenix are indeed an integral part of the A-League. If you want sides like Fury to collapse then getting rid of the Phoenix is one step towards that outcome. By having the Phoenix aboard the FFA have improved capacity to support smaller, financially insecure clubs.

"If the case for Phoenix is based on money then we’re going against FIFA’s own basic edict." ... so all the other leagues around the world are merely non profit organisations are they ? FFS that the dumbest comment out of you yet - and that's saying something

AA you talk so much F@rking BS it's laughable, dish up the dirt or shut up it really is that simple. Also how much do you actually read before you start banging away at your keyboard, you have selective sight and only take out what you want and then twist and turn things to suit your ridiculous pathetic rant.

I have been a fan of the NZ Knights and now the Pheonixs and also support the Breakers, nz netball teams in the ANZ series but when you read this type of articles in the paper it really does put you off sometimes. This is exactly why I don't bother support rugby league in NZ anymore because most artcles about rugby league in the last ten years have been about them taking over rugby union as our national sport. http://www.smh.com.au/sport/a-league/sir-terry-changes-the-face-of-new-zealands-rugbymad-capital-20100309-pvtu.html 'Sir' Terry changes the face of New Zealand's rugby-mad capital MICHAEL COCKERILL March 10, 2010 Someone wrote in to The Dominion Post yesterday saying Terry Serepisos deserves a knighthood. He's a football saint, that's for sure. The man who decided three years ago to save professional football in New Zealand is the talk of his home town. Wellington Phoenix are bigger than the Hurricanes right now and that's saying something. Serepisos is the man who made it happen and it's cost him more than $10 million. For that he is lauded, promoted - he's New Zealand's Donald Trump, having just finished hosting the local version of The Apprentice - and respected. He can't walk out the door without being recognised and patted on the back. He deserves it, as do most of the club owners. The A-League, as recent events in Townsville have underlined, is still not paying its way. If owning a football club is only about an ego trip, then Serepisos should be walking on air. But the property developer has never been one to pump up his own tyres. His appearance on the pitch at full-time last weekend was only the second time in three years Phoenix fans have seen him out in the middle. He went down the tunnel not to seek praise, but to give it. ''The fans have been unbelievable and because it was our last home game of the season, I wanted to thank them for their support,'' he says. ''To get 32,000 people was beyond my wildest dreams. We even had 3000 people who couldn't get tickets watching the big screen down at the waterfront. It's incredible to think how much it's all changed.'' Hasn't it what. When the Phoenix rose from the ashes of the unlamented New Zealand Knights, a club based in Auckland, few took them seriously. Certainly not the Hurricanes, the undisputed masters in town. ''To be honest, when we first started and we asked the Hurricanes if we could do some joint promotions, they didn't want to know,'' Serepisos says. ''We did something with them three weeks ago and of the 2000 people there, maybe 1500 were wearing Phoenix shirts. I look at my son's school. When we started, they had 11 football teams. Now they've got 26. Kids who've always played rugby are now switching over. We're definitely changing the landscape, and I suppose I'm pretty proud of that.'' Them's fighting words from anyone else but Serepisos. He's so open, so polite, that the rugby crowd don't take offence. Nobody wants to run anybody out of town. And right now, it's a Phoenix town. At the bottom end, local registrations are up 20 per cent and there's no longer enough parks to cater for the demand. At the top end, two successive home finals, two bumper crowds and two epic confrontations decided after extra time have whetted the appetite even more. There's a tsunami of goodwill and it's not over yet. Phoenix chief executive Tony Pignata has been frantically lobbying Qantas to re-route bigger planes to the NZ capital so more fans can fly to Sydney for Saturday night's preliminary against the Sky Blues. Last weekend's game against Newcastle Jets drew the biggest television audience for the Phoenix on this side of the Tasman. This weekend's match in Sydney will certainly set a new benchmark for ratings back home. The fans can't get enough and neither can Football Federation Australia. Serepisos reckons he's earned the FFA $1.4 million in gate takings in the past two games. Under the finals formula, he does not get a cent. All this despite the club having no guarantee of survival beyond next season. Imagine how much better it could be with the certainty of a new 10-year licence. Serepisos does, all the time. It's probably the only thing that keeps him awake at night. In the meantime, he's hoping the black cloud can still produce a silver lining. ''Nobody wants to lose money, including me,'' he says. ''Hopefully, with all the goodwill that's around, this is the last season we'll finish in the red. A lot of major sponsors have come forward, there's a few people talking about coming on board as investors and we're aiming for 5000 members. The local council are also getting behind us even more because they've done a study which shows we pump about $15 million a season into the local economy. There's a lot of positivity around and what I have to do is leverage that. Hopefully we can break even for the first time.''

The Phoenix isn't an Oceanian team. Oceania says they're not, so they're not. They aren't an Asian team. AFC says they're not. FIFA says they can be, which is why they are there. They all need to get in a room with a few bottles of bourbon and sort it out.

Context, Betty. 'Propping up' was an imprecise comment, I admit, but the theme remains. I mentioned sports where we participate in a domestic or trans-Tasman competition, and it seems to me that the winner is Australia. Australia is great sporting nation but you have a crowded market, particularly in the football codes. Unless codes sacrifice themselves for another you do not have the numbers to sustain the growth each code seems to want. I'm thinking longterm (like the AFL). You know... when I'm in a nursing home waiting for my sedatives because ranting pushed my blood pressure up. Football is the dominant junior sport in NZ, too. The problem we have is the problem you have, only less so. They don't stay playing when they grow up. They stop or move to other codes. The A-League won't be able to continue buying quality imports in a competition of modest size. They need those players to boost the overall skill level else it will return to the mire. The Phoenix provide another home for them and Australian players. I expect a Christchurch team to do the same in a few years. The equivalent of an eighth of NZ's population live in Australia and citizens of both countries freely travel between each other. Eventually, we'll have a shared currency. There's even a provision in your constitution for us to be your seventh state. To me, this paints a reasonably unique picture. One that requires similarly unique solutions.

How about we do like the NHL? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHL) Example: A league with 15 Aussie teams and 5 NZ teams. Of course, NZ would have to join AFC first. Could it work?

As I have said repeatedly on here, the money issue goes against FIFA's direct edict of 'being for the good of the game'. If the case for Phoenix is based on money then we're going against FIFA's own basic edict. No-one (and I mean no-one) on here has addressed that for me to date. Anyhow, the Phoenix sideshow is over. No more home games there until next season (and post World Cup as well). Then we can talk then.

I think you've lost it a bit here KR. National competitions certainly weaken their predecessors, in Aust just as much as in NZ - QLD and NSW rugby leagues are classic examples, not to mention rugby union where it's much worse, but we're surviving ok and much better off longer term. But I can't agree (or let you get away with) the call that NZ is propping up Aust sport. I saw a similar call recently that NZ was also proppping up the Aust economy!! I do think some of you guys over there need time out to reconsider these rather brash and unfounded calls. I don't see too many gaps in Aust rugby league talent. It's nice to have kiwis around, and some are very talented, but they're outnumbered ten or twenty to one. Cricket - well, I think in a couple of years there'll be a regional T20 competition. Do you guys use our cricket academy? Sth Africa does, you should. Rugby - you guys rule supreme and we don't have enough talent for the existing S14 teams let alone another one. AFL - they'll recruit anyone they can, but I doubt there'll ever be too many kiwis make it. As for the A league - you ask the right questions but NZ is not the answer. It's played by more kids in Aust schools than any other sport and given more exposure (through world cup and asia cup and other appearances) I'm pretty sure we'll find the answers. It will never be an EPL, but it's taken giant strides already, give it time, with or without the Phoenix.

Oh dear - don't get too nasty boys! Of course the Phoenix are good for the A league - and benefits both NZ and Aus - as do lots of other sporting competitions with both countries involved. But the question remains, should a NZ team from Oceania be playing in an Asian league? As Adrian says in his article (up top) the AFC says perhaps - but with Aust players and 3 import rule. And I say what good is that to NZ footballers? Maybe it is good 'cos it raises the profile of the game in NZ and helps finances (though I don't think it will ever bankroll FFA as someone suggested). But any NZ team will be at an advantage financially (just as Nix) and be able to buy better players (like Nix). And to me that works against Aust teams (like Fury) who must (rpt must) be at the top of the FFA's prioity. The FFA must look after Aust first, second and third. Then make sure its Asia link is solid, then worry about promoting the game in NZ or elsewhere in Ocenia.

AA said: Australia had to rebuild from the ground up, so I see no reason to pass on these benefits to New Zealand. Apparently you needed NZ teams though, else why would you have them? Because they looked pretty? Why are we passing the benefit of having a team in the A-league to you? AA said: Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, are we helping these guys out as much as we are helping NZ? You'll find you are helping yourselves more, but why pick and choose? As you say, it's a world game. Are you saying that strengthening said world game is bad? How this for a dream? You can laugh afterwards. Bring the Oceanian teams in to the A-League to build a truly awesome competition, with matches between said teams picking Oceania's CC representative and none to be available for ACL. AA Said: Too many people see the Australia-New Zealand rivalry from a rugby specturm. It's good to play you once in a while but the prospect of regular matches bores me to tears. Doesn't help us either. AA, what I see is Aussie domestic football being boosted by the Phoenix. Hopefully NZFC can ride the media coattails, reverse the normal trend, and strengthen NZ domestically. At the moment Aussie gets the vast majority of benefits. Another team, more Aussie players playing, more quality overseas imports, more money, more exposure. NZ gets a professional team promoting the game (mostly made up from imports if you count Aussies), and a boost to the local economy. No youth team. No reserve team. No avenue to Champions Cup through Oceania and currently none through Asia. The advantages are all yours, buddy boy, and yet you complain.

In rolls Republican with his usual Cut and Paste. I wondered when you'd show up to back up the other Sith, Senator of the Republic. "Always two there is hmmmmmmmm"