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The big Australian sports story of the past 24 hours has been the decision by the FFA to rush a new team into the A-League for the start of the 2012-13 season.
The team will be established and owned by the FFA, with funding assistance coming from the Commonwealth government.
There will be much debate in the ensuing days about the rights and wrongs of the manner in which this has come about; the chances of long-term success at the new club; the conflict of interest with the FFA chairman; and the appropriateness of governmental provision of seed funding.
I will let others argue those points. My task today is to demonstrate that the FFA has made the right call.
Gold Coast has been in its death throes for a while now; resuscitation was never an option. The reality of it continuing in the A-League, with or without Clive Palmer’s money, was always pie in the sky.
Canberra was never on the agenda. I am simply amazed that people keep throwing this option up as if it were ever a possibility. FFA has done everything it can bar shaking Ivan Slavich by the scruff of the neck to make it clear they were never interested.
Even when it was clear that Canberra had the very best bid of what was supposed to be an open tender, it remained buried among the maybes, possibles and never-would-bes.
While the Canberra bid remained at the bottom of the in-tray, the FFA concocted a Sydney Rovers bid that had little chance of becoming a commercial reality.
Even when an opening for a 10th license loomed large with the demise of Gold Coast, and with the Canberra bid team at the top of Capital Hill shouting “We’re here! We’re here!”, FFA continued to look elsewhere.
Largely, it was the allure of big city lights.
As harsh as this may sound, there is an obvious reason why FFA were quick to tear up the Gold Coast license, shredding the Canberra bid on the way to visiting Julia in the Lodge.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, can compete with having a second team in Australia’s largest city.
It’s like when the celebrated thief was asked why he robbed banks. He answered that that was where the money was.
In professional sport, you go where the money is. When you consider people, corporate support, attendances, media interest, ratings, pizazz and bright lights, the answer is and always will be Sydney.
Why not keep Gold Coast or let Canberra in while also pursuing a second Sydney team?
There’s a very good reason. The last thing the FFA could afford now is to issue the 10th license to a team outside of Sydney (like Canberra).
Then they’d be stuck with 10 teams for a few years or more, effectively locking out the one place they need to be in above all other places.
Lastly, Western Sydney makes an attractive offering to broadcasters.
Following on from the last point, it was imperative that the FFA went into the negotiations for the next broadcast deal having a minimum of 10 teams locked in, which included a second Sydney team.
The big ratings consistently come from the teams in the two largest cities.
There was an option of suffering one last season with only 9 teams, with the promise of a second Sydney team making it 10 in time for the start of the new broadcast deal.
But the problem there is that there would be a lot of guesswork as to what that would be worth.
In all likelihood, no matter how the new Sydney team performs, its matches will attract more interest than what Gold Coast managed to attract, or what a Canberra team would have attracted.
There is an immediate win there in being able to present better figures in time for the negotiations.
Ultimately, just like the celebrated bank thief, you have to go where the money is.
The FFA simply had to lock in a second Sydney team by hook or by crook. There was really no other choice.
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