Starting the A-League in October is worth a shot

TK . Fair point.

Yeah look I can understand it - but it seems to be an FFA decision, not the Clubs - and given the FFA have been bailing the club out all year that's fair enough. Just sticks in my craw a bit that the FFA are price gouging the fans that have been there all year and wondered if they'd done the same thing elsewhere last year, or if it a case of special treatment for us because the club 'owes' the FFA and it's a chance for the fans to bail it out. Still think if the FFA stopped friggin around trying to get world cup bids and get cup comps organised and just concentrated on the basic stuff that everyone on this site seems to be at constant pains to point out and just GETS THE A LEAGUE RUNNING PROPERLY, they might be surprised at the result. Annoys me that they keep trying to run the 100m in 10 secs when in some areas they are still learning to walk.

To TK, I admire you're passion for Football and the Roar what you say i believe. But the Brisbane Roar have been doing it tough this season financially (as you would no) and it's easy for me to say im not going to be there, but under these circumstances when 15,000 who never show up are going to show up shouldn't the prices rise for this game. That one would suggest that the gate taking at the roars home final would be more than what they'd take in 6-7 home games at least ,isn't that fair charge more for those who rarely attend (their hardly loyal supporters) the ones who turn up for a prelimanary final and a grand final and never show up again. I think you're being a bit harsh on you're club mate under the circumstances. It's got to make dollars and sense.

I think another area that will be improved by the later start is Club Memberships. With the early start and a lot of swing supporters (those who follow AFL / NRL as well as Football) are not buying memberships. By the time the other codes finals are complete we are into Round 6 or something and full memberships much less financially attractive. The commitment to rock up to individual matches is never as great as when you actually have a paid-up membership in your pocket (unless you're a Glory supporter of course!) By starting in October this should no longer be a problem. It may not have a dramatic effect on club bottom lines but it should have an effect.

This is seriously off topic, but interested to know from those who went to finals last year...did the prices of the tickets increase for the finals? I picked up my tickets for the Roar vs Central Coast final in Brisbane on Wednesday and not only had the pricing at Suncorp been reconfigured to minimise the area with cheaper seats i.e where my mates and I had been sitting all year, but they'd wacked an extra $8 on the ticket prices on the base ticket price. As a result of the reconfiguration of the pricing areas, we are now paying 48% more to sit in exactly the same place that we've sat in all year. I contacted the roar about it and they reckon it was the FFA. Did this happen down south when the finals were played last year ?

Yeah I agree - the media are to quick to jump on that sort of story to the detriment of the A league.

The timing of the season should be based on what is best for football, not what impact the other codes might have. Finishing in february/march means that A league players have very little chance to feature for the national team in a World cup or June/July asian cup or qualifiers that are held around this period. In turn we have the farcical situation of HAL players scrambling for overseas moves in the January transfer period, in order to keep their WC dreams alive, which really undermines the HAL's credibility.Finish in May and the starting point should be worked out from here, depending on the structure of the league, i.e number of games. An October or Septemer start also makes sense, as in August many football fans are still playing themselves and cannot get to the games.

I personally think that it is a mistake to wait till October to start the season, I would go for a late July start and and finish in mid march, by July most of the finals positions in AFL and NRL are sorted and at least 6 or so teams have no chance of making it to the finals,. If the FFA go for an October start and finish in April or May then all 17 or 16 teams in the AFL and NRL are still able to make finals and the interest in the season is at it's highest until finals time and media coverage will be even lower at the business end of the season than at the start of the A league season as it is now.

I'm pretty sure that it is an amount around that mark. I'm not 100% sure. But the amount is definitely capped. And I believe that there are no transfer fees allowed between a LEAGUE clubd. If a state league clubs sells a player to an overseas club they will get more money which would explain the rationale behind Melbourne Knights or Sydney United having an academy arrangement with Diinamo Zagreb. Though most Oz football fans would be concerned about that given the history behind Simunic, Seric & Didulica's concern, Dinamo Zagreb does represent the type of clubs Australian should be looking to move to as a stepping stone to a bigger European league. THough they are no longer a powerhouse of Europe like they once were when the Iron Curtain was in place they still produce a few players that go onto great things. Regarding the Richmond Eagles remark, I was just being a cheeky bastard.

good point there's no doubt that these sorts of stories feed on themselves, becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy (crowds going down because everyone says so, may as well not go)

*dropping mid-week matches that aren't on in the holidays* more like. Midweek games over the summer break did really well.

Except that was a pre-season hit and giggle for them and the biggest regular season match for Utd. When they're not on we stand a far better chance of media exposure. I feel like a broken record on this but here goes. When the A-League starts in August half of our fans are watching the AFL and NRL and basically forget that the A-League is on. Consequently, the A-League's crowds are weak for the first several weeks. But then the public perception and the media narrative becomes: "A-League crowds are falling ZOMG on the brink of failure". The part-timers hear this and are less likely to attend games even once the AFL and NRL are finished. We need to defeat that media narrative and alter public perceptions. A clear start in October is a very good idea

You've hit the nail on the head. I am totally ignorant about the club football landscape in Australia prior to 2003. Whilst I could recite the names of every person in the Man United, Liverpool, Notts Forest, Arsenal, Everton, Aston Villa teams in the 70s, 80s & 90s ... I wouldn't have recognised a single Australian footballer, other than the lads, who played for the National Team. I didn't feel I belonged at any NSL club, however, I felt at home watching the National Team, which brought together people from all the various NSL clubs who would join forces to support Australia. I'm supremely grateful to the Melb Croatia for producing so many of the "golden generation", but, yes, through my ignorance, I didn't realise Vargas, Leijer & Mattei. also came through your academy. It is such a shame that someone, like you - who has followed club football in Australia for years - doesn't try to educate us about the old-NSL without having to constantly bash the HAL.

Talk about a facepalm worthy post, I was talking about those who have made an impact just this season you knucklhead, could have also added Petar Franjic. look at victory the number of former Knights players at your franchise: Leijer, Dugandzic, Vargas, Pondeljak, Mattei, Petar Franjic. Thats 6 in total at the moment, and there have been many others over the past 6 seasons. I think its rather absurd for you to mock our quality in producing players, when players keep coming from our club. And How about all the players we lost from our last NSL season, Victory had no problem cleaning up our players then too. Given how much benefit Victory has reaped from our club you should be a little more grateful, or maybe you are just ignorant about it all. Yeah its ignorance, i think all of us on here are aware of it given how much of a fool you make of yourself everyday. And now we see you backpedal, frist you are saying that we will get relegated but now we are a mid table team. get over yourself, its amazing how you have zero comprehension of the ups and downs that football clubs go through in its history. See we actualy have 58 years of history, while your franchise hasn't even been around for a decade. You are a joke

Yes I think falling crowds would largely be fixed by dropping mid-week matches

So, in 6 years, you've provided FOUR players, who can cut it in the A-League. Last 6 seasons performance for Melbourne Knights: 9th (2010), 9th (2009), 2nd (2008), 2nd (2007), 11th (2006), 9th (2005) These recent results suggest a mid-bottom table team that occasionally has a successful year on the park ... more downs than ups. Green Gully seem to be the most consistent team with the best performances in the past 6 years.

fussball Zahra, Dugandzic, kalmar and Franjic. Looks like we are doing well enough don't you? best young talent still are Melbour Croatia boys and lol @ saying we won't be in the VPL long. because no club has bad seasons right? 2007 and 2008 we were runner-up in the regular season, and made GF in 2008. Every club has ups and downs. And given we haven't been relegated from a league through open play since 1964 I'd say the odds are in our favour, don't you? Just another clueless new dawner

I think the A-League should just worry about itself, not worry about anyone else for example, look what happened the other night, Adelaide United got more to its game than the a Crows vs Power AFL fixture focus on our game, everything else will follow

Ok. Never realised that was the policy for HAL clubs signing a State League player. What happens if an overseas club signs a State League player ... do they pay more? When Dinamo Zagreb signed Mate Dugandzic from Melbourne Knights, did they pay more than MVFC? PS: My user name doesn't reflect my ethnicity ... rather it has purely nostalgic connotations. In 1974, I fell in love with The Beautiful Game when I watched the FIFA WC from W Germany and a few years ago, I saw a video of the 1974 World Champions singing a song with the title: Fußball ist unser leben (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v19ZyiZpSEw) .. it stuck in my head. :-)

Now com'on. Everyone knows that if an A league club gets a player from a state league club they only have to pay $3000, or something similar. If a league clubs had to pay a bit more something like $20000 or $30000 then a state league club could put that money back into junior development or better facilities. With your user name shouldn't you be following Richmond Eagles anyway? I'm not saying that policy wan't introduced for a good reason but it is something that impacts on state league clubs in a negative way.