Over the past few seasons fans have called for the ‘FFA Cup’ concept to become a reality.
Yesterday the first steps were taken as David Gallop announced it will commence in 2014, but very little else is known about the format.
An Australia Day final has already been floated by Gallop, and while the idea is romantic with those at board level I see this as their first mistake.
The Melbourne v Sydney games worked tremendously well this season, with one game in Melbourne and one in Sydney.
The FFA will only be shooting themselves in the foot if Australia day is reserved for the stand alone fixture of the Cup final.
Fans around the country want to be involved in football on our nation’s day, and a day crammed with A-Leagues fixtures should remain.
January isn’t a great time for some of the state level clubs either, with most in the middle of their preseason for their winter competitions.
A week after the conclusion of the season (similar to England) would be far more suitable for all clubs involved.
Now we have the biggest problem the competition faces, distance.
With over 700 teams tipped to be involved over both Australia and New Zealand, a completely knock-out competition is both impractical and unfeasible; this is why I have come up with the following format for our ‘FFA Cup’.
Entry: Would be available for all clubs across Australian and New Zealand to enter, with preliminary rounds held in each state/territory.
The number of rounds held would be determined by the number of teams entered and the number of qualification places available.
Divisions: Due to the nature of the competition and the geographical area that would be needed to be covered I have divided the competition into divisions in the preliminary rounds.
Each state/territory in Australia would have their own division, and New Zealand would be represented by the North and South Islands.
Available places: All 10 A-League teams would enter at the 64-team stage (Round 1) so this would leave 54 places available to the non A-League teams.
I looked at both 128 teams (too expensive for both clubs and FFA) and 32 (not enough opportunities for clubs to compete against A-League clubs).
The 64 teams would be drawn out at random, with no seedings; this would take place on Fox Football.
The first team read out will host the match, including the final; the FFA would be able to utilise a clause that would allow a smaller team to ‘sell’ any potential match against an A-League opponent.
This would only be completed if both teams are in agreement.
The 64 places:
10 – A-League clubs 9 – Victoria
10 – New South Wales 6 – South Australia
7 – Queensland 6 – Western Australia
2 – Tasmania 2 – Northern Territory
2 – Australian Capital Territory 5 – North Island (NZ)
5 – South Island (NZ)
The 54 places would be subject to the selection criteria of the FFA and would be based on both the number of entries, the development of the game and previous Cup results.
If the A-League was to increase the number of teams in the league, the amount of places would obviously decrease.
The FFA would look at providing at least one spot for regional areas in each division.
This would increase the potential reach the Cup competition has.
The competition will throw up many surprises and will see the game continue to grow in both Australia and New Zealand.
The preliminary rounds would commence in July/August of the previous year and the 64-team stage would begin in December/January.
James
Guest
Why do people keep going on about how bad it would be to have the HAL Finals Series and the FFA Cup finals at the same time? There won't be HAL Finals any more, that's the point of having an FFA Cup.
kylesy sky blues fan
Guest
This so much, especially in QLD NSW ACT and Victoria where we have massive state leagues which would be such an awesome tournament! We've still never seen a competitive match between a state level team and an A-league team properly, would be fantastic and a ridiculous decision that Heart and Victory weren't allowed in Mirrabella, while SFC and WSW and CCM aren't allowed in their state cups. Crazy stuff.
Johnno
Guest
We all seem to be leaning towards the early rounds being state based. I agree. I think the format should be this. -Have a state league style Mirabella cup style, where all the teams in the state all the senior divisions, country and city, play in a knockout leg. Not over 2 legs just 1 leg, and the higher placed team gets home ground advantage. -Then the winner of each state and territory, aligns with the A-league teams, essentially around 24 or so teams. Some team may get a bye, the high replaced top 14 or so , then you get it down to a round of 16. -OR maybe make it 32 teams, the 10 or so A-league teams and the top 2 from each state, and territory. But we can't have as much as i'd love too, Sydney FC VS Darwin, or Sydney FC VS Devonport FC, too much travel initially. Save all that for the round of 32 or 16.
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
Have the early stages state based to keep travel costs down, have the a league entries at the state based phases to ensure heaps of a league fans to grassroots venues, then expand it nationally, which will hopefully include some smaller teams As an a league fan there is a lot of curiosity into going to a nswpl team away for example, a bit of a change from the usual Sydney away trips
sl
Guest
Geographical groups of 32 clubs. As each area whittles down competitors to 2 they converge to surounding areas. APL teams come in at round of 256 A-League teams at 64. Random draws and sponsorship money to be pooled and cover travel costs. No Nix. Scrap A-League Finals with final rounds of FFA Cup.
dandaman
Guest
Why should new Zealand be in our cup comp when they have their own. Plus the afc would not have a bar of that. Otherwise a grand plan
Tony
Guest
For sure....Auckland City v Waitakere United in the FFA Grand Final?....that would be so sweet. Sounds like AUS based nationalism to me... why don't they ban all Kiwi players from the A-League then while they're at it? (Rojas, Smeltz, McGlinchey, etc) Terrified a Kiwi based team would win it if you ask me...
Griffo
Roar Guru
With the State Feds already running their own cup competitions, there really is little the FFA needs to do early on to organise the state/terrotory entrants. Like the APL the FFA could provide an umbrella branding to the State cups, along with a bit of sponsorship, to link these competitions to the FFA Cup, but leave them to be organised by the states as they are now. Interestingly Fuss you have NSW with 4 entrants - NSW has two state Feds, so effectively they will be the state cup finalists, but QLD and VIC would field all semi-finalists. The simpler the better to get it off the ground early: can fine tune if need be in later years but nothing complicated with what you have outlined there.
Cam
Guest
And quicker too!
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Weirdly, I agree with everything Fuss has written above. Both of us will now re-analyse the proposal to see where we stuffed up ;)
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Sheek, Flying to New Zealand is usually cheaper than flying to Perth.
Australian Rules
Guest
Jack - "kiwi teams bring a bigger market which equals more money" Just to put that into perspective, the GDP of NZ is less than the individual economies of Qld, Nsw, Vic and WA.
Football United
Guest
yeah this, i was livid when they pulled us out of the mirabella cup for no other reason than the fans won't be able to understand the difference between this and a national cup, like we aren't used to seeing multiple tournaments in football. Our off season wouldn't be so awful if we had a state cup to look forward to, especially if the top teams from that could qualify for the FFA Cup.
sheek
Roar Guru
Darwin Stubbie, I'm not apologising today for my narrow viewpoint. There's not enough money in Australia for all our sports plus the odd NZ teams. With football/soccer, the situation is complicated with Australia being in the Asian conference & New Zealand remaining in the Oceania conference. Anyway, I'm in a "I don't care what anyone else thinks" mood today. ;-)
Dazman
Guest
Whatever the exact format will be, it's pretty obvious that the only way to run it would be to keep it regional at the start (the teams being driving distance, meaning that travel costs are $0). And then as the comp progresses, and only as necessary, to increase the travel distances. Have the a-league clubs enter in the round of 16 (so there'll be 10 a-league clubs and 22 non-league clubs), but only play against the best teams from their own state. Only include national/nz travel in the quarter finals, with the professional clubs paying for their own travel, and the FFA paying for everyone elses out of media rights money. assuming that all a-league clubs make the quarters, the FFA will only be paying for 6 teams to travel, which shouldn't be too much. For that reason there's no reason why NZ teams should be excluded as only 1 NZ team will be involved by the QFs.
Brian
Guest
Round of 32 all in is probably more realistic. Final on Australia Day sounds good. I would also consider HAL Final being on ANZAC Day every year. Maybe Preliminaries July and August. Round of 32 early Sep Round of 16 late Sep Quarter Finals Boxing Day Semis New Years Final Australia Day You would also want to give the lower teams the best chance of coming up with ground surfaces that are acceptable am not really an expert on rainfalls
nordster
Guest
Has to come down to partly whats best for them overall. Having little to no interaction between their top one or two clubs and the rest of the Kiwi football scene could be damaging to them more broadly. Then from our perspective, if u go past one kiwi team it starts adding more costs to our league also. Good thing to do for them for now, i agree with them being in so far. Looking ahead though its not as clear.
jack@hotmail.com
Guest
I dont believe that is practical in the next decade or so and they probalby want more then one team in a pprofessional competion until that point. Even so isnt there a welsh league and the bigger teams Cardiff and Swansea play in England? Perhaps in 10 years who know they could have a 3rd team.....
nordster
Guest
More money and a bigger comp for us sure. Thats a little self centred. From the kiwis perspective maybe they want more than one or two teams in a national league setup, long term.
jack@hotmail.com
Guest
Yep agree kiwi teams bring a bigger market which equals more money and a bigger comp. Eventually 2 NZ teams in HAL will give another Derby and be great for the game. The AFC will have no issues with this at the end of the day its simple logic