A remarkable moment for the A-League came late last week with Sydney FC announcing the signature of Italian great Alessandro Del Piero to a two-year deal.
Unarguably, this is the biggest signing in the A-League’s short history. As good as the signings of Harry Kewell and Brett Emerton were; this is on another level.
It began as an audacious project by Sydney FC CEO Tony Pignata and influential player agent Lou Sticca, and one I didn’t think would be possible.
The club was rumoured to have beaten Liverpool, Celtic, clubs in the Middle East and the US to the former Juventus man’s signature.
What the signing of Del Piero can do locally is get the portion of the football-loving public that never embraced the A-League (also known as Eurosnobs) to think twice about the quality of their own league.
It can also help give some international exposure to games: Sydney FC trended worldwide on Twitter the night he signed, and overseas media outlets jumped on the story the next day.
There was also talk of Sydney FC games being shown live into Italy via its Sky channel, something that only a signing like Del Piero could have done.
A case example in this is the exposure and benefits of the David Beckham deal with LA Galaxy, an area where the A-League can learn from the MLS. This can put the league on an international map where not many players could.
The day after (even though the press conference was at 10pm), the Daily Tele had Del Piero splashed on front and back pages, even teaming with the Italian theme and offering a cookbook with it.
One thing that struck me throughout his press conference and an interview with Fox Sports’ Daniel Garb is how committed he was to Sydney FC and how serious he was about the move. The deal is for two years with an option for a third, with $2 million a season.
He has made his respect for Australian football clear, remarking on our national team, and seems genuinely excited about his new world. What also endears me to the new Sydney No. 10 (apart from being a legend) is that his dealings with Sydney weren’t a drawn-out saga. It is a sign that he wants to be here and wants to have a lasting effect on the game.
The challenge for Sydney FC is to keep the gates ticking through once Del Piero retires from the club. There has to be a long-term strategy and engagement that keeps the bling, and the football to match it. The club won’t grow to the full potential it has if this signing isn’t capitalised upon.
What is positive is that a football person in Tony Pignata, now heads the club. In a short space of time, Pignata has made some positive calls already. Witness the move to allow free public transport to games with memberships, a great initiative to help get Sydneysiders through the gates.
Where Del Piero plays and what he can offer on the pitch will cause some conjecture for Ian Crook and a fickle, demanding Sydney supporter base. Del Piero played a part in a side that captured the Scudetto undefeated over a long, cold season. Playing in a warmer climate and a shorter season can only see him perform at his top standard. I can see him deployed next to or in behind new recruit Krunoslav Lovrek, but it all depends on the football Crook will demand.
Delivering a signing like this is a great step and a welcome boost ahead of a massive season. Now we just sit and wait…
Titus
Guest
Arena Football League is pretty big TC.
TC
Guest
I'm more a numbers man than a words man, so I rather enjoy sifting through these stats. The AFL is ranked 4,941 while the Australian Government is ranked 16,958. I rather like the idea that we put sport ahead of our Government - it seems so Australia. USFooty is ranked a very low 1,967,806, but that is actually higher than the WA Football Commission at 2,148,338.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
m,ilf Thanks for that website - very interesting resource. I had to include the "audience snapshot" for FFA & AFL websites ... it's just too good to keep to myself: Based on internet averages: a) footballaustralia.com.au is visited more frequently by males who are in the age range 25-34 and are college educated. b) afl.com.au is visited more frequently by males who have no college education. :-)
me, I like football
Guest
TC, your maths looks right even if the number of internet users is wrong. here is more detail data of the website http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/footballaustralia.com.au# I only copied the graph link due to wanting to show the peak over a month and not the 7 day default graph that the main link gives you.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
According to http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm there are estimated to be 2.3 billion internet users in the world.
TC
Guest
milf So if there are one billion global internet users during a 24 hour period (for argument's sake), then the 0.002% equates to 20,000, and the 0.006% equates to 60,000. Is that correct? And 44% of the 60,000 were from Italy, or 26,400. Is that right? So of the 40,000 increase, 26,400 were Italians and 13,600 were Australians (or from other parts of the world). Is that roughly the order of numbers of what we are looking at? Or is that one billion starting number much greater?? I'm actually quite curious about how it all works, and would like to be enlightened. Cheers TC
me, I like football
Guest
It's an "Estimated percentage of global internet users who visit footballaustralia.com.au"
Stevo
Roar Rookie
Money goes a long way but the UCL finals are also littered with teams like Porto and Monaco and I wouldn't quite put Liverpool in the mega spending bucket like Chelski or the two Manchester clubs. List of winners at: http://www.maltasport.com/modules/msfeature/item.php?itemid=27 As for the HAL I can see the salary cap rising as the league generates cash. Coupled with good home grown youth development and coaching standards rising should see us very competitive in the future. A HAL team will win the ACL in the next 10 years or even this year?
TC
Guest
Stevo done ok - to do better, an A-League club would have to be head and shoulders above its peers. Look at all the major European leagues to see the formula, with the exception of the Bundesliga, as mentioned by Ian above, and yes, I'd agree that the Bundesliga is a terrific model for all sporting comps. TC
Stevo
Roar Rookie
I guess Adelaide United could hardly be considered as being miles and miles ahead of the pack but have done exceedingly well in the ACL.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Ian Whitchurch Can you name 10 ex-HAL players, who are in the 2nd & 3rd divisions of Europe? I can name 10 ex-HAL players, who are contracted to teams in the 1st Divisions of Europe. Anyway - it doesn't matter any more. HAL is about to blow up - on its last legs. Terrible competition. Uncompetitive teams, 50% of clubs close to insolvency living of gambling addicts, no one seems to want to discuss the sport, even though we're in the middle of finals ... ooops ... that's AFL not football! :-)
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Brick Tamlin, And then the league has more money to give to the constituent clubs. It also means when the league is negotiating with the owners of grounds it doesnt own, it can credibly threaten not to use them - for example, imagine Football Australia owned a ground with 20 000 capacity. Ethihad or the MCG could fit more attendees for a big game, but if negotiations broke down because the owners of those grounds got greedy, then the game still happens. This is exactly how the AFL used Waverley to get a better deal out of the MCG, by the way.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Fussball, The problem is that HAL clubs probably wont wither up and die. They are far more likely to blow up, damaging the league - you know, like what happened to Gold Coast United, the New Zealand Knights and North Queensland Fury, and what is happening in stop-motion with the Newcastle Jets. Ensuring this doesnt happen should be a priority for the entire league - acting like a league, with a common goal and a common purpose, will be more likely to strengthen the code as a whole, and then all the individual clubs can prosper. At the moment, the A-League is in the Geoffrey Edelsten/Christopher Skase era of private owners, instability and boom and bust. If it can get on an even keel, then I can see people looking back uncomprehending at an era where good young kids routinely left Australia to play in the second- and third divisions of Europe, and when a crowd of 12 000 was seen as a good afternoon's attendance.
Brick Tamlin of the Pants Party
Guest
But the AFL owning a stadium doesn't necassarily help the clubs out does it?,the AFL will just get a larger cut of the ticket sales if they own the stadium.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Fussball, I worded it carefully. Ownership and management rights arent the same thing, and the AFL has something close to hybrid equity in the three grounds. For example, Gold Coast Suns have management rights over Metricon - this means that something like the Foo Fighters concert saw the income go not to the owners of the stadium but to the Gold Coast Suns club. When you rent a stadium by the afternoon, these sort of secondary revenue streams dont exist. As well, if you contribute a large chunk of equity up front, you can get a good long-term rate locked in - as the AFL seem to have done with Skoda, Adelaide Oval and Metricon.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
".. contributed equity to Skoda, Adelaide Oval and Metricon" Skoda Stadium is owned by the NSW Government. Metricon Stadium is owned by the Gold Coast City Council. I'm pretty certain Adelaide Oval is owned by the Sth Australian Cricket Association. So, the AFL has ZERO equity ownership of any of these stadia. If a tenant undertakes capital improvements on land/property, it does NOT automatically create an equity ownership/interest in the underlying land/property.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Brick Tamlin, The QRU owns Ballymore. The SANFL owns Football Park. The AFL is scheduled to own Ethihad in 2025, and contributed equity to Skoda, Adelaide Oval and Metricon, in return for some rights of control. This was all essentially paid for by the AFL's sale of Waverley Park, which the 12 clubs of the VFL jointly purchased in 1959. Its a long term plan, but when you control your own ground, you control your own destiny. Regarding kids, you may well be right ... but kids being encouraged to go to the footy is something thats important.
Brick Tamlin of the Pants Party
Guest
With regards to your comment about getting kids to games,just from my experience of going to games and watching them on the tele,i would say the A-League on average would have the most youthful punters of all the codes.The owning of grounds is another thing you've brought up,how many football clubs of any code in Australia actually own their own stadium?
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Ok, Ian, I get it ... 1. Del Piero will be a flop - on the pitch, off-the pitch and won't help the HAL. 2. The HAL clubs are all going to wither away and die. Happy? Now how about you go back to discussing your wonderful, perfectly administered, best sport in the world (that the world doesn't give a stuff about) and leave us to discuss our nothing sport & nothing league?
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Punter, Again, you're making the mistake of confusing knocking the administration of a code and knocking decisions individual teams make with knocking the code itself. Regarding your paranoia about "AFL cohorts", the A-League wasnt moved until after the other footy codes were done with their finals because someone got drunk at an office party. It was moved so that A-League clubs could *recruit* AFL and rugby league fans who wanted a sport to follow over the summer when their usual footy had stopped. It was an excellent move. Regrettably, people like yourself and Fussball go out of your way to make the sport you love as unwelcome a place as possible to people who also like other sports. In short, its not just paranoia. Its self-destructive paranoia.