We saw early last A-League season that Adelaide United had just 13 fit players at one stage, which lead them to sign Cam Watson and Joe Keenan just to fill a legitimate match day squad.
Newcastle were in a similar boat with barley a fit 15 to fill their squad later in the season.
What needs to happen is the scrapping of the National Youth League (NYL) competition. The door may be left ajar for the possibility of a youth cup, but the youth competition needs to go.
There is speculation that in the near future state league football will be played simultaneously with the A-League. The league needs to introduce a ‘reserves side’ to go with their current youth team.
Squads need to be increase to somewhere between the 42-46 mark. (The current average A-League squads including youth is not far from that figure.)
Along with this, A-League match day squads need to be extended from 15 to 17, as it is illogical and unfair to a manager to be forced to predict what he will need during the game – there are simply to many variables out there.
Unlike what you may think, this would not lead to sides needing to spend more money as there would be more income from gate takings, an increase in minor sponsorship, more merchandise sales at these games, while at the same time cutting spending on interstate travel and accommodation for the NYL sides.
This would also lead to the death of the highly criticised and frowned upon ‘injury replacement’ contract.
Club structure would look like this:
– Seniors play in the A-League.
– Reserves play in the appropriate State League competition.
– Youths play in the appropriate State League reserves/under 21s competition.
Squad build-up (42-46 players):
– One player on marquee contract (outside of salary cap).
– One player on ‘Australian-only’ marquee contract (outside of salary cap).
– 16-20 players on ‘professional’ contracts.
– 12-16 players on ‘youth’ contracts.
– Nine-12 players on ‘semi-professorial’ contracts.
For example, the Melbourne Heart’s reserves would initially have a side fielded in the top tier of state football, which is the Victorian Premier League (VPL). The youth side would be fielded in the VPL under-21 competition.
The reserves and youth sides from each club would play in their appropriate state league competitions, but would be vulnerable to relegation and naturally promotion (if applicable).
Having this new club structure will allow for players on the cusp of the best 11 to still manage some match fitness, if not selected in the senior squad.
It will also allow for players returning from injury to play in a stronger comp than the NYL.
For example, a 100 per cent fit Michael Beauchamp should never have missed 25 per cent of Melbourne Heart’s games last season, but in this scenario he would have at least been able to keep match fitness – and along with players like Dean Heffernan and Jason Hoffman, they could have been given a chance to proved themselves.
Contract structure:
The ‘marquee’ and ‘professional’ contracted players would be on standard A-League wages as per the Professional Footballers Australia’s (PFA) industry agreements. These players would be play in either the seniors or reserves.
The players signed on youth contracts would be on standard A-League youth wages. These players can be played in any three of the sides.
The ‘semi-professionals’ would be on a standard State League wage and could play in either the reserves or youth sides.
These players would form the nucleus of the reserves side, playing week in week out, but would also help mentor the youth players.
The semi-professionals could also be called up to the senior squad whenever their club desires and would have some sort of an ‘A-League game’ bonus worked out in their respective contracts.
Players with these contracts could be players who have been given a chance to prove their worth, fringe trialists, as well as ‘semi-retired’, ‘mentor-type’ players, such as John Aloisi did in his role at Melbourne Heart.
The reserves and youth sides would play after one another as per the state federations rules.
This gives fans a better incentive to get down to these games, clubs also have the option of including these games in their memberships to drive sales.
The positives of this structure would be:
– It brings in more competition between players for spots, thus raising the profile football as a whole.
– It sets up cover for injuries on the senior playing list.
– It better helps develop youth, in a stronger competition, whilst giving them a more direct path to the senior squad.
– It better engages fans from state leagues and grass roots, spreads the clubs brand of the league, clubs and the game itself.
– It will help bring people back to the state league competitions.
– It will benefit the clubs financially.
– It will create more meaning to the state cup and FFA Cup.
By having this format, with the required tweaks, our game as a whole would be the big winner.
MB
Guest
People were crying out for Youth Team football and now you want to scrap it? My god, what have we come to!
Buddy
Roar Rookie
Again this was something I was unable to elaborate on, due to the word-count restrictions. By having the Reserves and Youth playing in the premier state competition, you are virtually creating a faux affiliation club. It opens up a window to receive sponsorship for these sides and also the ground they play on. For an investor or sponsor it may be appalling for them to sponsor the Reserves and Youth sides who are connected to the Heart for a few reasons. Local or smaller sponsors may only want to reach a certain demographic, others may want to support Melbourne Heart as a whole but cant afford the heft price tag and so on.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
These clubs do not want to be babied, they would rather be playing against us then 'teaming-up' with us. The end product is grassroots engagement, local growth and expansion of the game. Affiliations don't work so well, just look at the AFL whom destroyed the VFA. Having a direct affiliation wont work as it will help the 'powerhouses' to create even stronger sides, whilst discouraging others. Then by splitting the teams in half it leaves nothing for expansion and you have too look at relegation and promotion. If something like that was to happen I think you'd find Heart in the North/West (considering they are based in Bundoura) and Victory in the South/East considering they are based in RichmondAlso I don't know if you follow the VPL to closely as some of those clubs you have grouped don't particularly like each other,
RedOrDead
Roar Guru
How do you expect to win over any "old soccer" folk to folloow the "new football" clubs when these clubs will be directly competing against the Old Soccer clubs? ...or have we given up on them? Instead of directly competing against South Melbourne, Melbourne Knights, Heidelberg Utd, Oakleigh Cannons, etc you can create an affiliation with those sides and have them become your feeder teams. If you don't want to have a one-to-one relationship, i.e. Heart with South Melbourne and Victory with Melbourne Knights, you can split the VPL teams in half. For example, Heart can team up with South Melbourne, Spingvale White Eagles, Richmond, Dandenong Thunder, Oakleigh Cannons and bentleigh Greens (THE SOUTH/EAST) where Melbourne Victory will team up with Melbourne Knights, Saint Albans Saints, Green Gully, Northcote City, Hume City and Heidelberg Utd (THE NORTH/WEST). The same way that AFL teams have an affiliated VFL team as their feeder/reserve teams, the VPL sides can act like the reserves for the A-League sides :-) Of course, if this happens "VTC Footbal" in the VPL will cease to exist...
whiskeymac
Guest
good read and some interesting ideas. removing the NYL doesnt sit comfortably at first until consideration is given to incorporating the competition into the harder and varied premier league comps - but does this mean HAL teams (federal) have a second set up in the premier leagues (state)? I s'pose this bridges the gap between old and new - wld the premier comps go for it; wld FFA allow it? Mirabella Cup is instructive on how FFA is focussed on differentiating and protecting its "product". can certainly see merit in the proposal(s) though.
matthewthorpe
Roar Pro
"Unlike what you may think, this would not lead to sides needing to spend more money as there would be more income from gate takings, an increase in minor sponsorship, more merchandise sales at these games, while at the same time cutting spending on interstate travel and accommodation for the NYL sides." Just wondering how the gate takings and minor sponsorship etc would increase just by having more players in a squad? But you do make a very good point about NYL and having only 3 subs on th bench, I've always thought that was a bit strange.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Hot off the press ... The HAL fixture for Season 7 has just been released live of FoxSports and can be downloaded from the HAL website. Looks like a huge improvement on last season - virtually every week there will be a game in Melbourne ... as would be logical with a two-team town! Source: http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/A-League-2011-12-Season-Draw.pdf [Roar Hosted - PDF - 260K]
nordster
Guest
break it off for a follow-up piece if u have the time... would be keen to read it.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
In regards to the 'clinics and academies', clubs are getting out there but have very limited budgets due to minimal subsidies/budget allocations from the FFA. It is also something that doesn't get publicised to often either. In my state I know Melbourne Heart Have been doing plenty of work in the grass roots. They formed a partnership with SEDA before Victory (even with a 5 year 'head-start'), they have held extensive 'Keeper clinics, 'Little Terra's' school holiday program, 'Westpac community festival' in regional areas like Geelong, Sheperton, Ballarat and Morwell amongst others. In the future we can only hope these clubs break away from the 'franchise' tags and build on some real club culture. This means from Seniors right down to the Under-9s Bigger benches are a must, it can really take away from the spectacle at times.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
Absolutely agree, I had a whole paragraph on club culture, but had to take it out as the article was over 1000 words long.
Titus
Guest
Excellent points. The NYL is an unnecessary expense that is not the best way to identify and develop young players. A-league teams should be involved in small sided games, holding clinics and running academies and tournaments from this they should select the best talents to play in junior teams in the local associations, something like U/14, U/16 and U/18 teams. Then they should have a semi-professional reserve team playing in the premier state competition. Agree with Cattery, for once, about the benches. Bigger benches can help introduce juniors gradually to the top level and will encourage the use of players with more specific skills.
Nice constructive piece, Buddy. Good to see it in a forum like this. Going forward, the points you raise should be obvious matters of discussion between FFA, PFA and the state bodies.
nordster
Guest
Rini Coolen was talking a bit about this last season... he reckons it means utility players are getting too much of a role as its harder to have specialist positional players with such a small bench.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
These are reasonable calls. I've never understood why the A-League has the bare minimum 3 on the subs bench (plus a keeper). Even one additional player would help a manager tremendously. It just helps you cover more bases. With four on the subs bench, you can have a striker, defender, midfielder, and a wide player, for instance. a left sided player who can cover all positions on the left side. Or you might go for an additional midfielder capable for filling a variety of roles from the back third to the front third. Much better for the manager to have one or two additional options on the bench, even if they are youth players.
nordster
Guest
some good ideas there, it would help build depth to the first-team as u mention but also the culture of a club. And a precursor to full youth age team rosters down the line...