What is the purpose of a team participating in a football match? In my opinion the answer is simple: the goal is for the team to kick more goals than the opposition.
That is what is football is about.
When we determine who wins the league, it’s determined by whoever won the most matches (combined with the points gathered with drawing the match) in a season.
How do clubs ensure that they win the most games in the season?
The clubs try their best to ensure their club win by creating a good working environment to ensure optimal results, good training pitch, purchasing players and the right coaches. To achieve all that they need revenue by attracting crowds and memberships as well as the ability to attract sponsors etc.
All these factors are key performance indicators towards the success of the club.
Now imagine if we didn’t decide who won the league based on who achieved the most points in the year but instead on key performance indicators.
For instance, if the FFA was to rate each individual club on their organisational ability, the technical standards of the players, the quality of stadium and training pitch, crowd attendance, marketing and promotion of the club, revenue and grants, and then whoever does the best in these categories would win the A-League trophy.
It would be a joke.
That’s exactly how the AFC determine how many clubs join the Asian Champions League. They don’t allocate spots based on performance on the pitch but on key performance indicators.
They allocate points based on organisation, technical standards, attendance, governance, marketing, business scale, game operation, media and stadia.
Australia failed to excel in these KPIs as our league isn’t independently run, we don’t have 12 Australian teams in the A-League, our football season doesn’t last for 10 months, we don’t have promotion relegation and we don’t have a cup competition.
In my opinion all these KPIs are important in developing the technical standards and improving the performance of our clubs. Having more clubs means having more players playing full time at a professional level.
Having a promotion and relegation system is good for youth development where often younger players get to play professional football at a lower level and a cup competition would assist greatly in scouting players and in connecting the grass roots with the professional levels.
A longer football season is absolutely crucial to ensure that players to develop and stay match fit throughout the year. It would be great to have if it was financially affordable. However the FFA has decide that it isn’t financially viable right now and implementing it would be harmful to Australian Football.
The point of these KPIs is to assist and improve the technical standards of the A-League and to improve performance of the clubs participating in the ACL.
They are not the end game itself.
Some of the criteria are subjective and are debateable on whether it is a positive thing to implement. Whether promotion and relegation, extended seasons and an FA-style Cup are a good thing or not are influenced by cultural, economical and geographical issues and should not be mandated as something every league must have.
It should be up to the individual confederation whether to introduce them or not. Right now the current management has decided that so far it isn’t affordable and in the interests of Australian football to implement all the AFC recommendation and that decision should be respected.
The goal of each football governing body is to ensure that their clubs win matches in the Champions league. Each league should be given some flexibility on how they want to achieve these goals.
In my opinion, these criteria should be aspirational targets and guidelines. The inclusion to the ACL should be based on one thing, performance in the tournament. The AFC should copy UEFA and implement an AFC Country Coefficient based on performance in the Asian Champion League to determine how many teams get included in the ACL with the maximum of four teams or 1/3 of the league whichever is higher because performance on the field is the essence to what football is all about.
If the leagues don’t implement AFC recommendations and it turns out their refusal to implement it was a bad idea, then that would reflect in the results and they will be punished for it by a reduced number of teams.
If they refuse to implement it and it turns out it was a good idea then that would reflect positively on the result and would prove that the criteria aren’t universally a good thing and Asian football will benefit by allowing flexibility in how every country decides to run its league.
If the ACL was purely determined by results on the pitch and it was determined that the A-League only deserved one full spot and one playoff spot then I would accept that as a fair result as the process was merit based.
In fact, considering Adelaide United are the only Australian club that is consistently competitive in the ACL, I doubt Australia deserves anything more than two spots in the ACL anyway.
However I just don’t accept punishing leagues based on subjective criteria and having the AFC trying to force square pegs into round holes by forcing leagues to implement policy that may be detrimental to the development of football in their region.
dasilva
Guest
Well my point was that the criteria is against the spirit of sport. The fact that the criteria was created for economic and political reasons doesn't exactly change my point (although does Australia really offer less revenue than Uzbekistan who are present in both the West and East asian zone). I know that administrators sometimes sacrifice spirit of sport for political or economic reasons but I don't have to like it. i'll say there are two schools of thought on what the spirit of sports is. It's either a) diverse participation aka the olympic spriits. So selection criteria is based on trying to get as many country as possible participating in the event. Something like the original UEFA Champions League or earlier incarnation of AFC Champions League where there was only maximum of 2 teams per league irrespective quality b) Celebration of sporting excellence. So a purely meritocratic system. Get the best team as much as possible to get the highest standard possible. So the UEFA coefficient is soemthing like that. Now I know that the changes in the structure of the UEFA champions league from diversity of coutnries to excellence was motivated by economic factors but regardless of the intent, the results still are in the spirit of sport because it produces a competition that brings the best teams in Europe competing with each other. Of course this is on the gradient and most competition have criteria that is a mixture of both. The process of this AFC criteria neithers achieves both of the criteria. At best it's a misguided attempt of "celebration of excellence" where they screw up in achieving that criteria by focusing on the KPI instead of the finished product. At worst it's a criteria designed for political and economic purpose.
Neuen
Roar Rookie
Remember each team get a sum of the tv revenue. Why pay some of that revenue to a third team that do not contribute much towards the money to be made back?
Ben
Guest
Australians don't support 2nd rate football in a 2nd rate league, Period. We just don't . And the AFC should respect our culture and way of life. The only way this could be possible is to have something like an FA Cup style where A-League clubs get involved after the 3rd round where each game is an elimination. FOX/SBS could Telecast 1 or 2 matches from the first 2 rounds, then from round 3 all matches to be telecast either or both on Fox/SBS
Me too
Guest
Two spots is fair and all we deserve on any criteria you would wish, performance based or otherwise. If we grow and improve we'll no doubt earn another spot.
dasilva
Roar Guru
It's true that politics and football are intertwined. Doesn't mean that I have to like it or that I can't point out how the political influence results in unfair criteria. This article is discussing the basic principles behind the criteria rather than take in consideration the politics behind it. If the selection was done purely on performance than Korea and Japan would probably be benefit from it as well. So would Qatar as Al-Sadd won the ACL in 2011. So it's not like the politically strong nation wouldn't benefit from performance based criteria and this would remove any criticism of unfairness Sport is about performing on the day and proving you are the best, the best run leagues will be reflected in the results. It's not about creating arbitrary criteria and determining who is the best. If that's true what's the point of playing a football match the ACL criteria of inclusion goes against the spirit of sport.
Red Block
Guest
Wow! Politics in football, who would have thought? What has changed since the Qatar debacle? If there's one thing I've learnt about football, it is that self interest is the ultimate master. So, it leads to another question 'who stands to benefit most from this decision?' Simple answer, the countries with the best run leagues. Japan, Korea.
gurudoright
Guest
Unfortunately AFC only sees the A-League with 9 teams as they do not view Wellington Phoenix as an Australian hence AFC team. So to expand to a minimum of a 12 (Australian team) league, the A-League needs to expand to another 3 teams for their 12 team criteria
Ballymore
Guest
Whether you agree or disagree with Australia losing spots, I would suggest the timing of the decision was unacceptable. Why not grandfather it in for 2014, and leave 2013 as is?
dasilva
Roar Guru
Just a correction in the article I wrote "Asian Champion League to determine how many teams get included in the ACL with the maximum of four teams or 1/3 of the league whichever is higher " it should be changed to "whichever is lower" Sorry about that
dasilva
Roar Guru
I completely agree. The UEFA coefficient is meritocratic or at least far more meritocratic then what we have here
TC
Guest
If corruption was a major consideration, there'd be no teams playing anywhere. TC
Andyroo
Guest
I think the UEFA coefficient system has worked pretty well for them and the allocation of spots is a known quantity. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download it now [http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/the-roar/id327174726?mt=8].
dasilva
Roar Guru
I'll also add that these criteria seems to be subjected to political machinations One of the criteria was no fixed game in the past 3 seasons (that was the criteria for the 2011-2012 ACL) to get points in Governance/Soundness However because Korea and china had match fixing issues. They ended up changing the criteria to remove match fixing as a criteria for governance as long as they are process being done to stop match fixing and the match fixing was punished. Now of course it does seem ridiculous to cut spots to Korea who are dominant team in the ACL or to cut spot to China who are the economic superpower of the region. So they ended up chanigng the goal post to ensure that Korea and China don't lose a spot A simple criteria of purely based on performance avoid the politicisation of allocating teams and prevents accusation of manipulating criteria to ensure certain nations get the most spots
dasilva
Roar Guru
If the choice is to accept the criteria or leave the AFC Of course I prefer to accept the criteria However, maybe I'm naive but I like to think that we were accepted in Asia as a productive member of the confederation where suggestions from Australia are valued and we as long as all the other Asian nation play a role in running the game. I'm not saying FFA give an ultimatum to AFC to change the criteria but more of FFA give suggestion to how to improve the ACL. Australia sometimes get criticise for not respecting other cultures and I think them demanding australia to implement some of these criteria are the case of AFC not really appreciating the unique cultural, economic and geographical issues that prevent Australia from implementing some of these suggestions
Towser
Guest
dasilva The AFC gave us a lifeline 6 years ago(no need to rehash why, to regulars like yourself). The alternative, being back in Oceania is too frightening for me to contemplate. So whilst I may not agree with the decisions of the AFC(especially the standard of football bit) I'm more philosophical about what they do. IMO bite the hand that feeds you & they may not feed you again. So as others have said above ,we keep on improving what we have to meet the 600 point criteria & we'll be better off anyway for it,including the standard of football.
jamesb
Guest
I'm saying no to promotion/ relegation, but a cup competition, expand to 12 teams, and expand the season, those three things can be achieved in the next 4 to 5 years. I also think we have ourselves to blame. We started the a_league with just 8 teams, which should've been ten. Also we had to fold two expansion teams in Fury and GCU. Let the A-League have stabilty for the next few years, and than it will start to see the benefits. But like I said earlier, i say no to promotion and relegation.
dasilva
Roar Guru
I don't really have a problem with 2 spots. I just don't like the process in which we lost the spot. I suspect that if it was done purely on performance that we would have been lucky to hold on to 3 spots. The AFC goal is to raised the standard of football so that Asian clubs are just as good as South american and european clubs So I get that they want sides to raised their game and implementing some of these criterias However the end game is the technical standards and strength of the Asian clubs. All these criterias are means to the end not the end itself By selecting clubs not by performance on the pitch or even technical standards (I prefer performance on the pitch but considering that the stated goal of AFc is to raised technical standards so they can better compete with other confederation I can accept technical standards as well) they forget what's important and why they want the criteria to be implemented FA cup, length of seasons, promotion relegation are the means to raised the standard of football but are not the reflection of standard of football in of itself By selecting clubs based on KPI but not on the finished products (which is quality of the teams) then you no longer selecting the best club teams on asia and you not rewarding countries who are the strongest in Asia.
Cappuccino
Roar Guru
Totally agree, HAL growth should be the priority.
Cappuccino
Roar Guru
I agree that the situation is unfair, and that the A-League should definitely be awarded three slots. But the decision has been made- now the ball is in the FFA's court. Promotion/Relegation, a Cup competition, 12 teams+ and a longer season are all long-term goals. If we can start implementing these things sooner (obviously expansion, promotion can't be rushed), particularly easier tasks like long season and an FFA Cup, not only will this problem be solved but Australian football will be moving forward at the same time.
MV Dave
Guest
As long as we have 2 spots open, being Champions and Premiers, then that is good enough for now. As the HAL gets stronger and is able to continue evolving hopefully into the top league in Asia then the ACL situation will change. ACL is the icing on the cake but lets make sure the cake is right first...