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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, any followers of the A-League will not have failed to notice the controversial issue of the day – the concept of a consortium representing former NSL powerhouse South Melbourne FC making a $3.5 million bid to at least buy into (if not all of) Melbourne Hearts’ shares, with a view to taking over the license.
There is some conjecture as to whether this would take the form of a merger or an outright takeover, and has proved to be a highly divisive issue for the football fraternity.
The issue is two-fold. Firstly, there is the matter of how the bidding process for the second A-League license in Melbourne was handled by the FFA.
The fact that this situation has arisen has the FFA facing its demons, in terms of the decisions it made during that process during the Buckley era and the rationale that underpinned those decisions.
Secondly, there is the matter of the so-called “Old Soccer” and “New Football” dynamic that was necessary between eight and ten years ago to forge the strong perception of a “clean break” from the problems that afflicted the domestic league in the past.
The football fraternity in the post-Buckley era needs to ask itself whether the need for a clean break has successfully run its course, and whether the time has come where it might be within their interests to move the A-League in Melbourne forward by rectifying the mistakes of the expansion process.
The first matter that the FFA need to face is that Melbourne is not Sydney. Unlike Sydney, it is not too much of a stretch to say that the “unite the tribes” vision was successful. This led to Melbourne Victory having a dynamic and multi-cultural fan base across the entire geographic spectrum.
Sydney FC struggled for cut-through in western Sydney, and there was a much-clearer need for a second team in Sydney to accommodate for this.
This was not so much the case in Melbourne.
Unlike the situation in Sydney, there is no sizeable segment of the committed Melburnian football fraternity which would have the capacity to form the core support for a new team.
The expansion process has the same hallmarks of the “top-down” approach of the previously failed bids.
Contrast this to Western Sydney Wanderers for example, where there was strong groundswell interest from the football fraternity, but a lack of willing investors. The FFA stepped in to finance the deal while engaging closely with the local community, and the venture has been a spectacular success.
Meanwhile, Melbourne Heart has subsequently failed to capture the imagination of the Melbourne public and the Melburnian football fraternity.
Perhaps it is time to face the demons of expansion and recognise that this is because the Heart Franchise is in Melbourne, but not truly of Melbourne.
In Melburnian terms, the only possible viable and sustainable alternative to Melbourne Victory is a team that in some ways represent aspects of the Melburnian football fraternity which by definition is the very opposite of what Melbourne Victory was born to represent.
That is the “Old Soccer” element of the Melburnian football fraternity.
Indeed, the only organic push from the Melburnian football fraternity is coming from precisely this quarter in the form of South Melbourne consortium bids.
The rationale against South Melbourne entering the A-League usually seems to be based on the fears of what “might” happen and the notion of bad headlines.
What is the worst that could happen?
Could it be any worse than the media hysteria that followed when Heart fans ripped out seats at the Etihad Stadium and threw them onto the pitch? Could it be any worse than having a Heart fan blatantly assault a Western Sydney fan in front of the Fox Sports cameras? Could it be having crowds in the region of only 5,000-7,000 outside of derbies?
Did the FFA avoid what they wanted in opting for the Heart consortium over South Melbourne?
Similar to Western Sydney Wanderers paying homage to the history of football in the region in the adoption of their moniker and the Poznan occurring in the 80th minute of each match, the presence of South Melbourne – one of the most historically rich clubs in the city and Australia – will be the Melburnian football fraternity’s form of paying homage to football past in that city.
It needs to be recognised that there is nothing wrong with the Melbourne “market” having two teams of vastly different sizes (eg., a broad-based powerhouse besides a smaller, niche club) that have a deep distinction not on geography, but on perspective.
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