FFA disrespects football's past

Well said Vjeko

The NSL was a league with community clubs. All A league supporters are paying for profits that the mega rich hope to have in their pockets. Lowy and Co have a league of corporations. There were clubs in the NSL that the anglo's supported aswell but it wasnt cool to watch it then cause only SBS would broadcast matches and everyone knows SBS is a Wog TV station. Now the mega rich and their friends at FOX shake hands and agree to promote the A League because they all have something to benefit from the sheep that would pay to support another WESTFIELDS, COLES, WOOLWORTHS and MICROSOFT. Have fun with that. PS. Why is it I only ever see flares from A League matches on youtube? When it was done by wogs then it was all over the headlines. Sydney FC committee meetings at Hakoah Club....... not ethnic aye? Then again the majority of A League supporters wouldnt know what Hakoah SC was?!?!?!

Sure mate, what ever you think. I have no idea about your true experiences with the NSL and you have none about mine. I also think you will find you are wrong. Unless by 'respected' personality you mean someone with a vested interest within an ex NSL club - an I have heard the pontification of those people first hand, and my goodness they can't recall seeing a single bad game, or a single low crowd! Ah the misty recollections of their now long gone time in the shadows. Enjoy living in the past.

Your thoughts on the NSL game play are so far off its not funny, ask any respected soccer/football personality about the quality of the two and they will tell you NSL by some way also.

The "ethnic" issue- negative connotations stemming from the hatefulness of what we see with many of these clubs. Particularly when some of them glorify the legacy of pro-Nazi regimes whose brutality appalled even German officers.

Fatty is an excellent player I agree, but the NSL was not usually a high pressure game even positioning wise. Though the debate between the relative merits of the NSL v the HAL does miss the major point. The NSL was the premier competition in Australia for football for 28 years, there was nothing better than it. Now the premier competition for football is the HAL, and there is nothing better than it. We will never get those occasional NSL teams that were brilliant again, so the need to denegrate either competition is pointless. jackM I hope that you still have your former NSL team to support in it's state competition (I have mine) and I hope that you go to see HAL games as well. They are different styles of game but all can be enjoyed, and as we know the best way to experience football is live at the ground.

General Ashnak, a slower game doesnt mean that their is no pressure, go and watch some south american football and look at the pace it is played at, yes the A league is quicker does that mean its better though? unfortunately we seem to have this obsession here of creating a product thats a poor mans epl with players running around like headless chooks for 90 minutes at the expense of doing the basics right, remember the best player in the A league is a fat unfit costa rican!

So jackM, you describe the NSL as being a slower game where players were given time on the ball as the fitness levels were pretty average overall. This allowed players to take 3, 4 or more touches before being put under pressure to do something with the ball. How does that compare to a player who receives the ball and is immediately put under pressure, the only time a player takes more than 2 touches is when they are doing a ball carrying drive - and they are doing them under pressure normally. So you have concluded that the NSL is a better competition to the HAL due to the slower pace of the game and the extra time players were afforded with the ball...

Ben Kantarovski - Newcastle Jets 12 - under 17 caps (3 goals) 4 - under 20 caps (4 captaincies) The current captain of the U20 national team and he is only 18. Been with the Jets for the last 4 years. A-league product. Future of Australian football

Plastic? "Olympic fans are dying to get back in the top flight so that we can watch football in oz again and if we were playing in national level you would see way over 10,000 average per game simple as that." Your fans would only show up if you were at the top level? how plastic is that? what crap supporters.

Greg Let's discuss the Crawford report since you made direct reference The findings and recomendation of the Crawford Report was never to disband the NSL but to keeo the clubs - and the NSL to have its own independent board from SA - The irony is that the FFA - HAL relationship today is a bigger contradiction to the Crawford Report to what the NSL was that led to its production in the first place Key lessons have not been learned - it was never about the ethnic issues Ethnicity depends on how its perceived - just like all over the world - just like the HAL today It was and remains political - the language may have changed with the new regime - but the motives have not This game will never reach its potential unless old and new paddle in the same direction and until the Flagship competition is run with its own panel - not the FFA or SA or ASF or whatever

Midfielder, some of those clubs that were around before the ethnic football explosion of the 50s are still very much alive and kicking. Really getting tired of your paranoid comments about an ethnic conspiracy

dm Well i suggest you ask your self the question about loyalty, these players want to go to play for A-league teams, it's a step up and then they want to step up even further like Tommy Oar did. The transfer fees are bull i agree but that is life mate.

Blaze See this is exactly the problem, clubs based on ethnicity and not locallity. The fact that you have to point out that there were clubs based around ethnicity shows why i never went to NSL games. I was raised in England , i supported my local team as everyone should in my opinion. I didn't support a team because of my religion or heritage, i refused to travel across Sydney to suppoprt Northern Spirit simply because i would be able to relate to them more, that is absolute bull! I should have been able to support my local team but my local team (Olympic) didn't make me feel welcome because i was Anglo. Anyone that says Sydney FC are a rebranded Sydney City are ignorant and personally i think they can stay supporting the E clubs, because anyone with that opinion still harbours racist, sectarian and anti semite views like the ones i read by a certain Alex Poulos on the Sydney FC facebook page. Alex, you are a foul mouth relic, just like your teams unless attitudes and cultures are changed which i highly doubt.

REALITY CHECK- these former NSL clubs are still developing future socceross, while the newly coup that have taken over since 2005 have become robbers pinching players for a bare min $3000? soccers future looks great...coff

Im with Alex on this....These current clubs like Melb Victory (scottish), Syd FC (Hakoahs), Qld Roar (dutch) have blanketed their ethnicity, yet these duds say there are no affiliation, well they are just blind as a bat and don't know australian soccer history for peanuts..

Greg HHHHHMMMMMMMM so the NSL ignored the history prior to themselves and washed it away as if it did not happen... and now they cry FFA are doing to them what they did to the associatins... The issue is not so much about history but about moving forward .... to move forward the E NSL clubs must accept their past actions ... if they do that they will realise they need to make concessions other teams don't .... but to continue to deny what the past was is to keep them were they are... if in any doubt google the Crawford Report... and remember in the 80's the head of the Soccer Australia was charged by ASIC and was never allowed to hold a position as a company director in Australia... so Soccr Australia changed it's structure so he could stay in charge... The issues identified by the Crawford & Stewart reports cannot be swept under the carpet for the sake of we should be allowed back in because we raided the associations and then trained their best ..... They have to earn the right to come back in .... and part of any reconcilation process is to admit past wrongs.... to this day no E NSL clubs has offered any sorries ... just blamed everybody and pointed to the very best things they did and said let us back in...

Whats better today are players fitness levels, for eg the Mariners last week ran around like mad men for 90 minutes, but the majority of its players and melb heart for that matter struggled to complete basic ball skills, yes the nsl was not played at the frantic speed that the hal is played at but the players were at a far more superior technical level, and no Adelaide United playing counter attacking football all year where they release long balls to Leckie is not superior to the nsl, its barely superior to the old morwell falcons who used that tactic with archie thomspon in the late 90s lol, individually the players were superior back then, your typical nsl playmaker was in the carlos hernandez mould really, sure the players werent your athletic fitness freaks that tun around today but they were a lot easier on the eye and made for much more enjoyable viewing.

I have no problem with people wearing Hellas scarves, or singing what they want at Sydney FC games if they are supporting a club that represents Sydney and nowhere else. The fans will obviously have different makeups, but they are united by the club and by football. I know some SFC fans wouldn't agree with me but the club is for everyone. If the games were selling out I would love to see Greek flags and Italian flags, Croatian flags whatever, although I think eventually you wouldn't need to wave any flags but a Sydney one. So long as they are there for the team and not to hijack it. I'm not denying that all these communities are part of the history, I'm just saying the a-league is where we are now and it's where we need to be.

"Next offer in writing that you will accept any decisions make by the FFA regarding your club no matter how it hurts your club in the future…" I don't think any club would agree to that. Just quietly.