How could the FFA have dropped the ball so terribly in regards to western Sydney? The decision to not include two Sydney teams from the start has been proven to be the wrong choice. Now we have the prospect of Rovers failing.
Why? So that Lowy’s friends at Sydney FC can keep the city to themselves, despite them having alienated everyone who lives past Strathfield with their Eastern Suburbs latte sipping bling FC mantra?
The FFA appears to have abandoned Rovers the minute the bid was announced, with very little advertising or media presence since the first initial announcement, especially compared to the GWS AFL team, who have been plastered all over the media, and who have secured multi-million dollar government funding grants.
How can the Rovers bid be expected to come up with the money in a week, when no-one outside the of fans that participate in various online forums know anything about them?
If the Rovers bid fails, it will set back progress in this heartland of football in Australia, an area that has produced dozens of Socceroos, as the supporters feel they have been abandoned once again.
The FFA have propped up Gold Coast and NQF despite them having a combined crowd average of about 6,500, and refused to sell Adelaide when a group was ready and willing to take-over.
Reports are that it is costing the FFA over 12 million dollars a year for these three clubs. GCU and NQF should have been terminated as experiments gone wrong.
Adelaide should have been sold to the Alan Young’s consortium, even with the two-year transitional period that Young desired. Instead, Adelaide is still in FFA hands, still costing them money, and no-one looks like stepping forward, meaning it will probably end up costing them the two years of FFA ownership anyway, and more likely, three or four years.
That money should have been used to to ensure the future of football in western Sydney and to secure the position of the other clubs in the league whose owners didn’t pull out at the first signs of a loss as has happened in North Queensland and the Gold Coast.
The A-League hasn’t gone backwards because of the ‘novelty’ wearing out, or the quality on the pitch falling (as it’s got better), it’s down to the continual failures at the highest levels of the sport in this country.
This situation is a disgrace, and Ben Buckley’s head should roll.
If Rovers fails, he should take responsibility for his failure, and resign.
Hopefully he could be replaced someone like Peter Wilt, a man with drive and vision, who can lead football the way it deserves to be lead, and not an ex-AFL playing suit with no passion for the game who appears to be a simple yes-man for Frank Lowy and his Sydney Hakoah friends.
Mister Football
Guest
Clubs taking over a league is the complete antithesis of the independent commission/board concept.
Realfootball
Guest
Yeah, sure, Tom. The gold ol' days. The NSL of hope and glory. Good thinking.
Midfielder
Guest
Some good news (well a good story anyway) coming out of MV... http://www.theage.com.au/sport/a-league/victory-in-bid-to-revamp-aleague-20100912-156yt.html .. Essentially MV want the clubs to take control of the running of the A-League ... makes sense to me...
Mister Football
Roar Guru
AndyRoo Kanta is an interesting case study. Most keen observers would agree that from the age of 16, he looked the goods to make it in the big time, he appeared to already have the prerequisite qualities for a professional career in a top League. One could argue that ten years ago, he would have been in Europe by age 17 or 18, working his butt off to make it big. But now here he is scoring spectacular own goals - great for the highlights reel, but not necessarily great for him and/or the NT. I accept that rules have changed, so it's probably a different landscape today in more ways than one. We will only know if my take on Bozza's observation is an accurate one in 4 to 8 years time.
AndyRoo
Roar Guru
Interesting topic Mister Football. I would argue that the A-League could morph into a revamped NSL style comp (with paltry crowds and media interest) and it doesn’t necessarily affect the formation of future Socceroo squads. As long as the A league is a full time professional league (with coaches that have pro licenses) then I think it will be a positive for the Socceroos, if it did go back to being semi professional like the NSL that would be a step backwards. If 3 men and a dog are watching is neither here nor there except it would be pretty hard to fund a professional comp with that sort of support. David Carney having a tough time in Europe coming back to OZ having one good season (at a time when the league was much worse than it is now) and getting the profile boost he needed to get another decent crack at Europe is a great advertisement for the A league. In a way it’s replaced lower tier football as the stepping stone, and with less and less Aussie players eligible for a European passport that’s going to be a necessity. Carney just made his EPL debut. Bozza made an interesting observation recently – youngsters no longer have the hunger that his generation once had to succeed in Europe. Robbie Slater is one who I think only went overseas because he had to so there definitely out there but even back then you still had Alex Tobin who never went overseas or guys like Damien Mori who only had one crack at it. Those 2 would surely be better off being born 15 or so years later. People are different, those that are ambitious and driven will go overseas and they will do so. If you look at other football codes you see the stay at home factor is pretty big (League players hating England and coming back asap, AFL players wanting to return to Perth etc), I think Association football lost a lot of players because of this pre A league even before the players made NSL level because playing semi professional for a “Greek” team wasn’t much of a dream. If we had the A league back then it would have made the Waugh and John brothers choices a bit tougher. I originally thought someone like Kanta who seems a bit lax to go overseas as a point in your favour…..but now I’m not sure. Surely playing for the basket case Jets isn’t much of a step up from the NSL so don’t it’s that that is holding him back.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
fussball I didn't say anything about profile, please read my last post again carefully. I said that the old Soccer Australia/NSL regime ultimately led to the golden generation that qualified for the last two WCs. It was Bozza who said that he is not seeing the same hunger to make it overseas as he saw when he was in his teens - one could conclude that a teenager might have less hunger because of the opportunity of playing in the A-League for a decent salary, thus fewer players are putting in that extra effort to make it to a big league.
jimbo
Roar Guru
The AFL is spending $200,000,000.00 on each new team on top of $140,000,000.00 to "expand AFL into NSW and Qld". That's $540,000,000.00 to expand to 2 more teams in the next 2 years. The FFA have about $0.50c to spend on promoting the A-League. If GWS don't get more crowds than Sydney Rovers or Sydney FC combined, they should all hang their collective heads in shame.
jimbo
Roar Guru
Mister Football I don't think its the FFA's fault really, you seem to be unfairly criticising them [again]. The FFA have given the Rovers more than enough time to raise their capital and extended the deadline a couple of times for them. It seems the financial backers have got cold feet because of the decline in A-League crowds and aren't as prepared to risk their money as they were last year. The Canberra bid fell well short of the $6M required to purchase an A-League franchise as well. The Rovers have the green light from the FFA, they just need to come up with the money by the end of the month.
Midfielder
Guest
Con Constantine to leave Jets. FFA to take over running of the Club until new owner found. Announcement soon - possibly tommorrow.
beaver fever
Guest
Apoligies, i know this is off topic, but i did research German flags, and between 1914-18 the german flag was the St Kilda colours of red, white and black. In 1915 St Kilda changed its official colours to red, yellow and black in a move allegedly designed to bolster patriotic pride given that the club's original colours of red, white and black were shared by Imperial Germany. (However, an equally plausible explanation for the change may have been that it brought the football club in line with the cricket club which for many years had boasted red, yellow and black as its official colours.)
punter
Guest
MF, Not first the first time we have disagreed, while there has been a few players return to the A-League in the last few years, there are still 125 players plying their trade overseas. While the likes of Johnston playing OS there was only a slow trickle of Aussies plying their trade O/S. When Dukes, Moore, Kewell & the rest of the golden generation was trying their luck, the number of Aussies bloomed to about 30 to 40 players giving it go. Currently, the following players aged 18 to 23 years old playing overseas include Zullo, Williams, Vidosic, Oar, Troisi, Stamblzovi, Spiranovic, Sarota, Park, McGrath, Mcgowan, Herd, Holland, Gulum, Esposito, Davidson, Bulut, Burns, Bouzanis & Lowry, some of these players have even represented Australia. Plenty of players here who could go onto to our next golden generation.
beaver fever
Guest
Between 1915 and 1922 the jumper had a dash of yellow, scroll down to see jumpers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Kilda_Football_Club WW1 = 1914-18, the club actually changed it colours to the colours of the German flag at that time, must be a reason ......... why, and if it was relevant, i dont know.
DERBY COUNTY FC
Guest
Beaver Fever Collingwood Aussie Rules Club wear Black and White stripes and are called the Magpies.... did they copy Notts County Football Club. I don't know. I don't care. It's not important, now can we get back to the subject in hand?
NY
Guest
West Sydney was a heartland for so long due to immigration of many Southern and Eastern Europeans into Western Sydney. That is why clubs such as Sydney Croatia and Marconi were great NSL clubs. Problem is that the immigration has stopped to an extent and Serbs, Croats, Italians, Maltese etc aren't as large in numbers. The parents who immigrated in the 60's and 70's still live in the area and follow the sport, but they won't go to the games. A lot of the children have moved into more affluent areas of Sydney. It could be that the West of Sydney could well not be such a football stronghold in say 10 years time. AFL have too much money, and the sport is an option for parents now. The participation numbers are still huge, but where will the next Kewell, Cahill, Popovic, Kalac, Emerton, Schwarzer or Craig Moore come from. Sydney FC are a lot to blame for this. They really could do much better, but are lazy. For example look at an NRL team like Wests Tigers which plays all around the city. Great innovation and they pack out a lot of grounds wherever they play around Sydney. They promote their team. That is Sydney. You can't make every game the same. You have to give people new experiences, otherwise they will not come back. Sydney FC management just don't have this type of innovative thinking to play some games in other parts of Sydney and promote the team and the game. They would rather play every game in a stadium which is too big for them, and also a stronghold of AFL and the rugbies. There are many football fans all over Sydney but they know when they are being ripped off to pay a fortune to travel and watch a dull team play. I know I am being ripped off even though i show up to most games. That is how Rovers got started in the first place. It was more a rebellion than anything else.
pike64
Guest
weren't St kilda's colours originally black, yellow & red? I believe they changed them to the current colours during the war because the old colours were the colours of the German flag.
Scamp
Guest
Western Sydney had Marconi, Croatia and a host of other clubs over the years. They only used to pull 3 or 4k a match. I do not think it is quite the promised land it is being made out. West Sydney is a BIG NRL area and AFL will make big inroads. Soccer would be like Belgium was in WW2, wedged between France and Germany.
Scamp
Guest
Does the Roar know more about soccer business in Oz than the FFA? I doubt it. They need that new tv deal. Gold Coast and Townsville have so far failed to live up to expectations. You have to blame the people in their catchments for that.
beaver fever
Guest
http://gc17.com.au/index.php?id=8 Actually over 9,000 members.
Mack
Roar Rookie
Canberra did not have the funds required either. They still don't, as shown by a recent media release indicating that they were still half a million or more short, including the Government funding which we all known can evaporate at the drop of a hat.
Australian Football
Roar Guru
BF, GC Aussie Rules have ripped off the Adelaide United FC strip. I guess that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... You said it.. :D