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Support for football in Australia has always suffered from the cultural cringe. The relative strength of overseas leagues has proven far more alluring than the domestic competition.
And in a multicultural country like Australia, the crimson threads of kinship have often drawn football fans back to their ‘homeland’ clubs in South America, Britain, or the Continent.
In some respects, this preoccupation with overseas competitions is one of football’s great strengths. As a child watching World Cups and Italian and English football on SBS, I learnt a great deal about the world.
To borrow a line from French existential philosopher Albert Camus, ‘all that I know most surely about the morality and obligations of man, I owe to football’.
However, this antipodean view plagued the National Soccer League clubs for most of their history, and entrenched a self-fulfilling prophecy that Australian football is poor because overseas football is better.
And as the talent drain became more pronounced during the 1990s, our best football talent was playing in Europe, not Australia.
This cultural cringe remains a significant challenge for the domestic competition. Turning the so-called ‘eurosnobs’ into passionate supporters of their local side can be an uphill battle.
One of the common charges against the A-League is that the standard is not as high as in Europe. It is folly to argue with such an assertion, the point is self-evident.
You win no points for such an obvious statement.
However, are quality and entertainment really why we watch football?
Nick Hornby wrote in Fever Pitch that “the natural state of a football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score”. To Hornby, football is ritual, commitment and belonging.
With this in mind, I agree that watching Barcelona FC play is certainly entertaining and the quality of football is clearly exceptional.
Yet at 4am, thousands of kilometres away from the action, Barca’s pretty ‘passing carousel’ actually means very little.
It is possible for us to get a thrill from wearing our Barcelona replica shirts, doing the silent fist-pumps so as to not wake the housemates, in the illusion that we are a part of the action – a transplanted culé.
However, it is, in the end, wishful thinking. We are little more than oglers and on-lookers of Barcelona, AC Milan, or Celtic.
Nothing can replicate the experience of being at the ground, among familiar faces who have been there through the highs and lows. And in the A-League, there are indeed plenty of lows.
Watching many of the A-League sides play is often more frustrating than it is fun, more aggravating than artistic.
In the end, however, it is in these lows, and in this physical engagement, where the essence of football support exists.
While everybody welcomes the rising standard of play in Australia, and the arrival of marquee players, it is the A-League’s idiosyncrasies that I find most appealing.
In a salary capped league with restrictions on foreign players, the quality of the A-League perhaps has its limits. It is, essentially, a feeder league. However, is this such a bad thing?
I love the salary cap. In truth, the concentration of wealth in Europe’s big leagues has turned many ‘competitions’ into a farce. Money dictates results, to the point where being a fan of Hereford United or Deportivo La Coruña can be an exercise in self-flagellation.
Winning the league is simply not an option for humble clubs like these.
Moreover, international club tournaments have been reduced to a circle-jerk for the biggest, richest clubs. Gone are the days when Red Star Belgrade or Steaua Bucharest could actually win the European Cup.
These days, Serbian and Romanian clubs are lucky to be fillers for the group stages of the rebranded Champions League.
By contrast, the cap on spending in Australia allows each club a genuine stake in the title race.
I love the restrictions on foreign players. The fact that there is an element of risk in purchasing a silky Argentine midfielder or a stoic Dutch journeyman defender adds to their mystique.
Moreover, it is a test of the coaches’ recruitment, with the need to maximise the output of those five allocated spots on the roster. When coaches get it right with a player like Marcos Flores or Patrick Zwaanswijk, their presence is extra special.
Indeed, I love that the A-League provides an opportunity for young Australian coaches and players. They might have their sights firmly set on a bigger and better future abroad, but this should be considered a credit to the league, rather than a downfall.
That the A-League can provide a platform for Australian coaches and players to lift their gaze to the world benefits the game as a whole.
There are of course several key issues which need to be addressed. The league’s visibility needs to be increased through a greater free-to-air presence, and clubs need more autonomy and involvement in the direction of the game, as do the fans.
The expansion failures have been embarrassing, especially when compared to the success of the AFL in broadening their base.
Nevertheless, the A-League provides what the English Premier League or La Liga cannot – a tangible club to physically support, in a competition that is as fair and equal as any in the world.
While UEFA and FIFA dithers on fair-play rules and remains beholden to moneyed interests, the A-League provides a much-needed respite. It has it’s own rich clubs and small clubs, and it’s fair share of mining and industry tycoons.
However, there are regulatory barriers to them using their wealth to dominate the league.
The fact that the Central Coast Mariners have succeeded on a shoe-string budget with a mostly home-grown squad is a rarity in world football that we shouldn’t take for granted.
Ironically, it may be that these restrictions that actually hamper the overall quality of the A-League. There is an argument that removing squad and salary restrictions would allow clubs to hold on to their young talent and their imports.
However, Australian sporting competitions thrive on egalitarianism. Perhaps it is an institutional manifestation of our tall poppy syndrome and our support for the underdog?
In any event, it is the A-League’s greatest asset in an increasingly commercialised and economically unjust sport.
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