Who's paying the price for A-League's problems?

It not "fortunate" that Aussies are returning to play in the A-League. They are returning to the country of their birth and their families and that makes up for a lot and the less noney they get. It will keep happening too - Kewell and Emo aren't the only Aussie football players returning to the A-Lague and they won't be the last. Foreign ownership and foreign investment occurs in all walks of life and is to be expected in the A-League. Its a tax consideration and gives them paid holidays to Australia. No point comparing privately owned A-League clubs to the Central Bank of AFL.

Why such an insular approach? Football is an international game. It is 100% irrelevant whether Australian clubs are owned by Australian investors or investors from overseas. Look at Manchester United and Manchester City as examples. Their owners are NOT English investors, but overseas investors. For the A League to move to the next level it needs more investors - wealthy overseas investors. Then we might be able to get rid of that lowly salary cap which causes most promising players to quickly head overseas, as it is impossible to make a decent living their quality of play merits based on the A League's lowly, anti competitive salary cap in a football world where there is no salary cap.

Thanks Jon, I'd not known the reason for the knockback on the Fury's ownership.

For some reason I missed this article yesterday, so I'm playing catch-up after I noticed it listed today as the most commented article. I repeat what I've said not far above: "FFA rejected an Asian bid to take over the NQFury — we northern fans have never been told why it was rejected." We'd have been happy to continue with foreign ownership.

FFA rejected an Asian bid to take over the NQFury -- we northern fans have never been told why it was rejected. Makes you wonder how much worse than Bakrie they might have been, and what it was!

Football already has a healthy state league and it would be great to see a local team play in a national knock out competition but what you are suggesting does not take into account the upgrades to local stadium to meet Fox's strict telecast requirements, the reduction in the talent pool as good players are brought by the cashed-up leagues, the removal of incentive for overseas players to come to Australia. Just to name a few.

Fox recognises that its mix of football from across the globe (not just A-League) is going to attract a predetermined number of supporters regardless of additional advertising. I did not see any advertising on FTA by Fox premoting it as a destination for football lovers - but yet I see other payTV channels advertised on FTA. Channel Ten's One HD was getting great ratings for its Football Show and was seen as a potential buyer of A-Leauge rights. Packer knew this and purchased a great slap of Ten with the intention of trashing One HD and sending all the good sports back to Fox. A look at who ownes the various media outlets in Australia would help open your eyes.

Ha!

I'm not always sure that just because it is a bigger stadium that it costs more money to hire. In some cases this is true, but in anothers no. I think Sydney FC get a very good deal with the Sydney Football Stadium, which is cheaper for them than a lot of other smaller size grounds in Sydney.

The A-league has it's problems, but foreign ownership isn't one of them. As long as it's controlled by the FFA, and they have a share in the clubs and don't let it get out of hand, it can only be a positive. I take it as a very positive sign for the long term sustainability of the league. Were not at a stage where TV money is the cure of all evils, so at the moment we need investment to keep the league going. And if some of that money comes from foreign investment then so be it. The EPL is pretty much owned by foreigners, and now other clubs in other leagues in Europe are being snapped up by wealthy foreigners. It's the way of the world. We need to realize that the clubs in the A-league play in a world market. I look at it as an advantage and a possible means for our code to have some extra investment. I think we do pretty well for the amount of media coverage the A-league gets. Fox does an awesome job, but they can only do so much. Our league can never reach it's full potential without some kind of FTA involvement. This next TV rights deal is crucial, and if we get a good outcome, in terms of money and coverage it will set the league up for the future. Expansion is a necessity within the next 5 years. We also need an independent commission one day to look after just the league, and let the FFA worry about the national teams and their development programs.

Way off topic but anyway: "The Bundesliga remained Europe’s most profitable league, despite a fall in operating profits from €172m to €138m. England’s Premier League narrowed the gap, with operating profits rising to €101m" http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GX/global/press/global-press-releases-en/8a17eba725990310VgnVCM2000001b56f00aRCRD.htm

FWIW Catery: I mostly agree with you. As an ADLUtd season ticket holder and a member(with benefits tbd) I would much prefer my club to be based on a membership model, like my old SANFL club Norwood. I just hate some of the cultural cringe in our game that we must constantly look towards the AFL for validation on our methods. Its silly to compare a sporting organisation that has evolved from one state into a one country behemoth with a fledgeling organisation (FFA is only 7 years old(HAL a touch over 6) There is a world of football experience out there to tap into. As a first world country developing a top flight football competition fairly late on in the gloobal scheme we have a fairly unique set of circumstances here in Oz, but not completely unique. A wise man learns from his mistakes but the wisest of wise men learns other men's mistakes, that we he doesn't have to suffer from making his own mistakes. We need to be tapping into the international footbal intelligence vault to draw what nuggets of relevant information we can and adapt it to our culture. Ideas like the membership culture of the AFL/NRL(recentl converts themselves) have proven to work not only here but in Spain and gee, they're not doing too badly on the world stage are hey? Sure some great ideas have come out of the AFL, but not everything they have done has worked. There are a growing group of disaffected former fans that have been left disenfranchised by the reign of Ross the Boss and Andy D. I would venture that the AFL have been reading the NFL crib notes themselves. The similarities between the NFL and the AFL are many.

Kasey, Well, it depends what you mean by "work". The Premier League lost half a biillion pounds last year. That isnt sustainable. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/may/19/premier-league-finances-black-hole

Kasey When the biggest and most successful sporting comp in the land can't get it to work, with two out of two monumental failures, then it certainly warrants further inspection. By the way, there are other examples in other sports, like Basketball, where the NBL Mk I had privately owned clubs, and one by one they dropped off the face of this Earth. And that's the thing. As soon as an owner decides enough is enough - there is just insufficient emotional attachment for people to save the club - that appears to be the history of private ownership in Australia. But let's flip it around, let's assume the privately owned club starts feeding millions of dollars into the bank account of the private ownder - how will fans react to that? Remains to be seen. With an incorporated association, where the club is owned by the members, in the rare circumstances where there are surpluses (7 out of 17 AFL clubs this season, including $2 mlll + surpluses by at least two clubs), the money can go nowhere else except back into the club - and that feeds more members, more attachment to the club. Ultimately, I think Australian sports fans prefer that model.

Ian, so because the AFL couldn't make it work, we shouldn't do it? You might want to let Sheik Mansoor know.

I don't believe the FTA stations are any more anti-soccer than they are, say, anti-darts. If FTA thought darts was a massive ratings winner, it would be bidding against Fox to get the rights to it, and as far as I know, when the FFA put together the 7 year TV deal with Fox, it was the only player in the market. Certainly the very top Socceroo games are bound to attract rival bids next time to help push up the price, although the move to put some of their games on the anti-siphoning list might work to reduce competitive pressures by taking Fox out of the bidding. But you're can't maintain an argumnet that Fox would work to diminish its own product, which is what you have said.

Wowsers. I've been moderated for far less than that.

@mid. while you do not want to suggest there is a media conspiracy, I will - and it makes good business sense. New LTD controls 70% of the media in this country and also owns half the NRL. Football offers unacceptable opposition to NRL so it make good business sense that News LTD and Fox do not go out of their way to promote Football but instead highlight its flaws. Packer and Murdock's links to NRL clubs are well documented. Until the FFA gets its media department in order, Football will remain off the radar to mainstream consumers.

i have a model that may work. And cut costs, and maintain tribalism, maybe aussie soccer will move to state conference model, in other words having a state league comp with the national champion begin the jewel in the crown maybe like a FFA cup, run along euro champions league format, it would cut travel costs and integrate regional and coutnry teams into an elite state comp, and be greta money spinner for dividing up tv ratings to as everyone in OZ could watch multiple 6 state leagues. And put ACT into NSW comp, and NT into South Australia comp, plus add teams form NZ into NSW and Victorian leagues , plus a team form singapore , or East Timor, or PNG, and Fiji where soccer is big and Suva is big city, solomon islands to small, like samoa, and tonga, Vanuatu, and Tahiti French Polynesia too small, but New caledonia soccer is big and just next to QLD they could get incorporated in QLD state league, and would be good to build closer ties with French soccer perhaps too.

Van Da Sar