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In many ways season six of the A-League in 2010/11 looks to be more promising than ever.
Following on from another successful FIFA World Cup finals qualification campaign as top of the group and undefeated, a third appearance in the World Cup finals in South Africa watched by hundreds of millions around the world, an impending decision on the World Cup bid in the middle of the A-League season, possibly the announcement of a World Cup finals to be held right here in our own country.
Plus, the great progress made by the New Zealand All Whites football team at the World Cup should also see a big knock on effect for the A-League and football in the region, particularly the Wellington Phoenix.
Then there’s the likely successful bid to stage the Asian Cup here in Australia in 2015, a famous victory in the Asian Cup Final by the Matildas to be crowned as our first Asian Women’s Champions and the victory by the U-19 Young Socceroos as Asian Champions yesterday.
Top that off with an appearance by the Socceroos in January 2011 in the Asian Cup as one of the favourites.
Then throw in a second Melbourne team, the Heart, joining the A-League, add some popular European based players like Nick Carle and Michael Beauchamp returning to the A-League and then a pre-season where an unprecedented five major and world famous European and South American clubs came down under to play, teams like Boca Juniors, Everton, AEK Athens, Glasgow Rangers and Blackburn FC.
And the overseas club sides weren’t playing the Socceroos, like in the old football days, they were playing against A-League teams, who put up some very creditable performances.
Then A-League six should be a bumper season, right? The answer is – no one really knows for sure.
While Australian football at a national team and international competition continues to thrive, and football goes on overtaking other Australian sports as the most popular participation sport, and guaranteed to keep doing so with phenomenal growth statistics, the A-League is not such a sure bet.
After two or three seasons of tremendous growth in support for the A-League at the turnstiles, the A-League has recently suffered falling attendances.
The question is now – has that decline hit rock bottom and will A-League attendances rise and start to trend upwards again?
In some ways the 2010 World Cup in South Africa was a disappointment, not just for the team and our results, but for sponsors as well. The Socceroos didn’t progress to the knockout stages, as we did in Germany 2006 and consequently interest in the Socceroos and football was down on the last World Cup.
The bids to host the FIFA World Cups of 2018 and 2022 have also had their fair share of problems. Rather than galvanising the country and improving the profile of football, it has been a disjointed effort bringing out the worst of criticisms from anti-football folk and further divisions between codes and their supporters.
And despite our great achievements in Asia, we are yet to see any major benefits accrue to the A-League or a major influx of Asia’s best players wanting to play in Australia.
Apart from the Everton game where over forty two thousand came to see them play Sydney FC, the attendances at the other pre-season games and the Sydney Festival of Football have been disappointing for the promoters.
Philip Micallef from SBS said that “Sydney fans should hang their collective heads in shame after snubbing the Sydney Festival of Football.
“Sydney’s fickle fans unfortunately did not get too excited about the big event that served as a valuable pre-season exercise for all competing teams, especially Sydney FC.
“A poor turnout of 14,000 on match day one, 9000 on match day two and 15,000 on match day three would have left organisers shaking their heads in disbelief and wondering if it was worth bringing over such quality teams.”
Season six of the A-League will be one of the most important in its short history.
Despite the recent fall in attendances, the A-League still has rising TV audiences and ratings for pay TV, growing sponsorship dollars, the FFA negotiating for a much bigger TV rights deal and a growing international exposure – the 2010 A-League grand final was shown live in over 100 countries to over 70 million households.
However, the national football competition still needs to get a larger share of punters through the turnstiles to keep the cash flow going and help avoid financial losses for A-League investors.
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