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This Sunday is the game that we’ve been waiting for all season – the A-League Grand Final. The game is expected to be a sell out at the 54,000 capacity Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
This weekend Sydney FC will have to hand over the Golden Toilet Seat to either Brisbane Roar or Central Coast Mariners.
I’m not going to speculate on the winner here, but talk about A-League season six at this point in time in the A-League’s history.
The A-League kicked off for the first time ever in Australian football in 2005. It wasn’t a bad season to begin with and has enjoyed 3 or 4 years of growth since then.
However, the attendances for the A-League began to fall over the last couple of seasons and season six didn’t start too well. The opening round attendances and TV ratings for the beginning of the season were the lowest in the history of the A-League.
I guess there were a few excuses put forward for that – like clashing head on with the NRL and AFL finals and the lack of promotion by the FFA.
The South African World Cup campaign from the Socceroos in 2010 was also a failure in some regards and with a quick exit in the first round, the Socceroos failed to create any momentum for the start of the 2010 domestic A-League season.
Comments from the then national team football manager Pim Verbeek didn’t help either, as he has made no secret of his dislike of the A-League. He also made a parting shot at the hopeless domestic players and hostile Australian media who let him down.
Let him down? Didn’t he let the country and the A-League down?
The big distraction of an unsuccessful World Cup bid also didn’t help. The great financial strain, the negative press created on a number of issues and fronts including the AFL’s perceived lack of support.
The fact that Australia only received one FIFA delegate vote and was the first eliminated for its $45 million dollar bid was also an embarrassment.
Even midweek A-League games became an issue. Attendances to the midweek games were not as good as hoped for and were about 50% lower than weekend A-League games.
The “Fan Made” promoted A-League season ironically generated the most number of complaints ever from football fans about the FFA and the A-League – everything from the way security guards treat fans at stadiums to Newcastle Jets changing their gold jerseys to red and blue for next season.
Then two weeks before the season decider, the FFA sack the North Queensland Fury from the A-League. Not good publicity especially with a lot of people, including Craig Foster, attacking the FFA for their decision. Couldn’t they have waited till after the grand final to make that announcement?
Financial problems also beset other clubs including runaway league leaders Brisbane Roar and Adelaide.
Even with a sold out grand final at Suncorp Stadium this weekend, the average game attendances for A-League 6 will drop to below nine thousand per game – about five hundred per game lower than last season. The aggregate attendances will still however be around the 1.4 million mark, which is similar to last season.
I don’t think this all spells the end of the A-League as we know it, but it hasn’t been the A-League’s best year, has it.
The lowest ever attendance figure during the life of the NSL was one hundred and fifty [that’s right 150 fans] for Sydney City Hakoah v Wollongong City in 1985 and the NSL still ran for 27 long years from 1977 to 2004.
And after all, the second half of A-League season six was better than the first half and comparable with season five. Maybe we have hit rock bottom and are on our way back up already.
All the football experts in this country agree that the standard of football in season 6 has been the best ever and is forcing clubs to re-think their strategies and lift themselves to another level to compete successfully. This will help to keep the existing A-League fans and find new ones in future.
I think most football fans are really looking forward to the grand final next week expecting a great game in front of a packed house.
We are all also looking forward to an improved A-League season next year – I think we all need it.
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