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Over the last few weeks the amount of articles written about Australia’s domestic football league’s need for a promotion/relegation system has been astounding. And I must say, I support the idea.
Calls for an A2-League or B-League in an article yesterday even went to the lengths of a C-League, which just blew me away – and not at all for the wrong reasons. I have spent five years working with a number of people and organisations on football related programs in Australia and the UK.
I’m also part of a consortium looking to introduce a new team to the A-League by 2012, so I have hands on experience and understand the reality of the landscape that football operates within on this vast continent.
What has astounded me the most are not only Australian punters starting to wake up to see what is possible with football as a global product, but so are the Australian corporate organisations.
There is no other Australian sport that has over 1.2 million registered participants at grassroots level and a domestic league that leads into the AFC Asian Champions League, a Club World Cup and a brand like the Socceroos competing in the world’s largest sporting event – the World Cup. These reasons are the platform for change in the sporting landscape in this country.
This is the proof that if implemented correctly, and given time to adjust to the conditions for the benefit of sponsors and fans, a second and third tier of domestic football can be achieved. I know that many of you are saying this will not work because we don’t have the population and sponsors and there are to many sports competing for the corporate buck. You will always have that attitude if you keep reading mainstream propaganda, however we do have the population and corporate support to have another tier of football… maybe even two?
In Sweden, they have a population nine million people and four major cities (Stockholm, Malmo, Goteborg and Helsingborg). Stockholm has the largest city with a population of one million. They also have four major sports (European Handball, Football, Ice Hockey and European Equestrian League) competing at he same time of the year. You might be thinking that those sports are not as big and tough as the AFL, League and Union, but in terms of grassroots participation and corporate dollars, they are very similar.
Swedish football is its largest sport in terms of participation with the largest corporate investment going to horse-related sports. They have over 3,200 clubs all competing in a P&R structure with three tiers of professional football and an additional four tiers of semi-pro part-timers, before the system filters down to regional competitions, with a total of over 1.4 million players across all leagues and ages. Does the amount of participants sound familiar?
Let’s put this into perspective: Australia has a population of over 22 million, with seven major cities and 4.5 million living in Sydney.
The AFL, Rugby League and Rugby Union have one professional competition each. Then they have state-based semi-professional leagues with a combined total number of participants, including grassroots level of just over 850,000 players in 2008.
Football in Australia has one professional league at present and various semi-professional state leagues and regional based leagues with over 1.2 million participants in 2008. This is a massive advantage for football if embraced and capitalised on properly.
There are three key points outside the financial points on how well a particular sport in shaped for the future:
1) The number of grass roots participants.
2) Is that figure increasing?
3) How well your national team is doing on the global stage and the exposure they receive.
In my opinion, those three points are all positives for football and the FFA and stand to give reason for a P&R competition and a FFA Cup.
As for expansion, what makes me happy is that we are talking about expansion of the league at a time when mainstream press are saying the game is at rock bottom or going through a slump only a 2022 World Cup host nation win could fix.
Never mind the Rovers, I believe that they failed because of the circumstances and the type people involved rather than the idea itself, and I have been told they never tried to engaged the community, which would explain my theory.
However, I think the reason for these discussions about promotion and relegation football from the fans is because we are at a point where the game needs this implemented and the fans want it.
There are many organisations at present that want to invest money into football due to the lead into the Asian markets, however due to the FFA’s exclusive sponsorship deals with organisations like Westfield’s, Reebok and Qantas, this makes it almost impossible for other large organisations to move into the sport.
The FFA must remove those deals or restructure them for the best interest in the game.
The FFA must capitalise and expand the A-League into areas of future high growth and current satellite cities, which can only be done after the next TV deal is signed – however the FFA needs to start planning now!
If is was planning this is what i would look to implement:
A-League 2012-2013 competition: 12 teams – Sydney FC, Brisbane Roar, Gold Coast Utd, Adelaide Utd, Perth Glory, Melbourne Victory, Melbourne Heart, North Queensland Fury, Newcastle Utd Jets, Central Coast Mariners, Western Sydney Utd and Wellington Phoenix.
A-League2 Clubs 2012-2013 competition: 12 teams – Wollongong FC, Geelong City FC, Darwin FC, Canberra Utd, Tasmania Utd, Coffs Harbor City, Bathurst Utd, Adelaide City, Sunshine Coast FC, Perth City, Albury-Wodonga FC and Auckland Utd.
Expansion will work if a lot of prep work is done well before the clubs kick a ball, and I believe that most, if not all, of the current problems the FFA have right now are due to the little amount of prep work done prior to the new clubs – and even, to some extent, the existing clubs entering the competition.
The sport has everything going for it and we must act now!
If the FFA plan to expand by 2013 they need to announce it now and engage the wider communities straight away and work together, if the locals have a say the clubs will stay… if they don’t, they won’t.
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