As the A-League heads into its ninth season, the ongoing issues surrounding its structure are rearing their heads once again.
This time it’s in the guise of A-League owners forming an owners’ group, with the issue of the length of A-League licenses at the top of the agenda.
Thankfully, unlike the bitter tensions that exploded at the end of the A-League’s seventh season following years of simmering discontent, the current climate is one of healthy creative tension in the spirit of “keeping football current”.
This is absolutely necessary in any organisation, let alone football, in order to prevent stagnation.
An enthusiastic proponent of owner’s interests, Perth Glory’s Tony Sage is quoted in the aforementioned SBS article as saying that “These are cooperative discussions between ourselves and FFA, we are not anti-them, but we do need a resolution. I think we are all on the same page.”
This is a welcome change in tone from some of the bitterness that has risen to the surface throughout the A-League’s nine years.
It is useful to look at some of the comments attributed to Central Coast Mariners chief Mike Charlesworth.
“The clubs are basically being leased out,” he said. “How are you meant to attract serious investors on that basis? Who would want to buy into a deal on those terms?”
Charlesworth then went on to raise the issues that merchant bank UBS will have in finding a buyer for the Western Sydney Wanderers.
Not only is it telling that the buyers being speculated are sporting institutions rather than the traditional ‘rich benefactor’, it is telling that an area often referred to as a ‘heartland’ of the game with a groundswell of support was unable to get a benefactor to back a ‘franchise’ in the area in the first place.
The issues surrounding the sale of the Western Sydney franchise and the importance of preserving the role of fan engagement and fledgeling traditions illuminates the expectations from the football fraternity on how A-League teams should be managed.
As it stands, the FFA have traditionally exercised a high degree of centralised control over the A-League. This was loosened up at the end of season seven when a ‘joint commission’ of sorts was formed.
A cynic may suggest the only reason the FFA relented to prevent Clive Palmer’s alternative governing body getting any oxygen among the football fraternity.
But it needs to be recognised that the A-League has moved well and truly from its start-up phase into a consolidation phase.
Indeed, there is an argument that the A-League actually moved into this phase four years ago, with the FFA failing to adjust accordingly to the detriment of interest in the league and its average attendance.
There were some good reasons to have a heavily centralised ‘franchise’ model for the national league back in 2005. Firstly, as a start-up operation it is more cost effective and easier to streamline many of the processes, such as kit manufacturing, web operations and sponsorship.
The other reasons were the issues raised in the Crawford Report into the old NSL, including that competion being undermined by some of the clubs having a little too much power to the point where the ‘bigger picture’ suffered.
These reasons for heavy centralisation began to become obsolete around season five of the A-League.
There has only been limited success in giving clubs decision-making capacity on core aspects of their operations – namely, they aren’t arbitrarily restricted to wearing white away strips, a small breadth of templates and a single league-wide kit manufacturer.
Questions persist though as to why we all still have to suffer the generic club website templates.
The clubs don’t have the capacity to make decisions such as profiting from being able to stream pre-season matches.
There is also the highly controversial restrictions clubs have had to face when trying to acquire sponsors that don’t conflict with the FFA’s league sponsors.
These issues have prevented clubs from being able to further forge their own unique identity and the meaningfulness of their association with the local fans who support them.
At the very least it would have assisted in arresting the slide of average attendances as the novelty factor of the A-League’s first years inevitably wore off.
As far as the forward-thinking issue of the length of licenses go, it is a delicate issue. There is a balance that will need to be addressed in terms of needing to ensure a proper sense of longevity, along with needing to be able to cut clubs adrift for the greater good of the game.
Not to mention the scope of finding room for adopting the Bundesliga system of mandating partial fan-ownership of A-League ‘franchises’ over the long term.
This would be useful in cementing their long term place in their respective communities.
Plus it acts to nullify the impact of the A-League not having the best players of the code as it shifts the emphasis from ‘supporting the team’ to ‘supporting the club’ as an institution.
At the very least, there is a need for substantial reform as to allow clubs to gain a much greater say over their own affairs.
Statler and Waldorf
Roar Guru
my point wasn't summer V winter but rather alignment between all levels of the sport. as in all levels of cricket play summer, and all levels of league play winter, I was silly enough to suggest that all levels of football should play the same season. I said winter as I thought it easier to move one comp (HAL) to winter rather than all other comps to summer Answer this, when Man U became successful did they play at the same time of year as all other levels of football in England or in the opposite season? makes sense to me but not others. I do however accept the point that moving away from competing with NRL & AFL has worked but I believe that the A-League will be strong enough one day to compete in the same season - why do football lovers not believe that it will? By then it will be probably be well and truly entrenched in Summer and not able to move At the end of the day it was just an opinion - not worth getting upset over and destroying your ? key over :)
1860melbourne
Guest
+1
j binnie
Guest
Towser- Your'e making my mouth water just thinking about that food,a true treat. jb
mahonjt
Guest
+2
Towser
Guest
jb In answer to your last sentence as an Owls fan their is no doubt,how ManU went about the "business" of football during & after the Busby era is everything to do with the Worldwide phenomena they are today. Meanwhile Wednesday are still sponsored by the local black pudding shop.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
"and a buyer for WS franchise couldn’t be found" On the contrary - there were several interested buyers, but they all came with various baggage. Me, I say just guts it up and adopt the Barca model, and have the club owned by it's members.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Yes, but in which direction ? Do you do reforms designed to make strong clubs stronger, or to ensure that regional clubs survive ? What role does the A-League have in developing national team players, and what role does it have in supporting other levels of the code ? Personally, I think it's picking a nice balance right now, and I would be happy if they didnt change a thing.
j binnie
Guest
Craig - As your logic surrounding the summer HAL appears to circulate around a winter v summer discussion point can you please explain something else. Why is it that Manchester United have the largest fan base,not in Manchester, not in England, not in the UK not in Europe, but in fact the World.The answer is reasonably simple my friend ,it is an exercise in business known as "Marketing".Our clubs in the HAL are yet to amass the "hard" finance,& the business know how to operate at that level and the true fans can only hope they will succeed in the future. After all, when Man. Utd were taken over by a shrewd operator called Busby,they were in England's second division ,had a ground that was little better than a bomb site (one end had been obliterated),and in just 70 years they have become the worldwide phenomenen they are today.Did this have anything to do with what time of year they play????? I doubt it. jb
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
Oh, and in answer to your question regarding the football leagues, I believe the MLS plays over Winter where the amateur leagues play over Summer
Brendo
Guest
Totally disagree, A-League is better aligned with overseas football than grassroots here. With the alignment with overseas football we at least see some volume in media exposure for football. Football just gets lost against AFL and League if played in winter. The key to drawing news fans in not the season but media exposure. FTA TV and a higher presence in the Daily papers and news broadcasts as well as the continued excellent exposure online will see the sport grow. As suggested above though the FFA need to continue to push hard for Futsal to grow as the Summer Football sport.
Australian Rules
Guest
Punter, what are you on about? I said that 1) NRL and ALeague attendances are very healthy by global standards; 2) participation isn't the ONLY factor which leads to high attendance at the pro level. What is my "agenda" here? What is it about those statements that you disagree with?
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
In many ways you are correct, Craig. The playing of the sport in Summer does create a level of disconnect between park football and the A-League which isn't a good thing. The problem is the negatives of playing the A-League in Winter far outweigh the positives. On balance, Summer has proven a better bet. It is nothing new. Football in Australia has been played at the elite level in Summer for the last 24 years. Hopefully when the FFA Cup comes into play there will be more overlap.
Kasey
Guest
RL partnering with Touch and now classing all rec Touch players as 'RL participants' is nothing more than a sneaky way of boosting 'total participant numbers' for when the govt is giving out money based on a sports reach. I'm glad Craig J is not running the sport. Some of his ideas are frankly terrible and would do irreparable harm to the A-League if they were implemented.
Kasey
Guest
Matt Sargeant( FFA Operations) at last night's AUFC Forum gave a straight yes to the question will the FFA Cup be played midweek? So while the HAL should and will stay a Summer League, the FFA Cup could fill in some of the off season in midweek games leading into the HAL season proper.
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
I personally agree with autonomy as opposed to independence, given what's happened with the England experience My point is that everyone points toward independence because of the great biblical Crawford report, the AFC because that's the fashion and later on the owners commercial interests will demand it Full independence MUST NOT happen, otherwise we'll end up with a league like the EPL which doesen't serve the greater interests of the country which it is in
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
There is a lot of sense in hosting in in tandem with the popular European leagues, not to mention the other issues of practicality in running the comp at the same time as other codes Generally it is accepted as a masterstroke when then old NSL moved from winter to summer My thoughts were always that it would be good to have the bulk of the FFA Cup during the winter months, that way the hardcore football fraternity can be engaged with their A League clubs, we can have A League teams playing during winter and the players are getting a longer season and less of a gap between the end of the season and the beginning several months later
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
Would have thought the culture of the FFA are inclined to be heavily against the idea tbh The only reason they would be is when they are aboslutely desperate for a buyer in order to take the running costs off themselves, The reason relations blew up between the FFA and the owners with Clive at the forefront was because the FFA under Buckley in particular had a deep disdain towards the games stakeholders over the years. This is equally true of the fans as much as the owners but that is a topic for a different article The owners are generally millionaires yet they were expected to put up money, lose a lot of it and suffer heaps of restrictions on ways in which they could generate revenue and balance the books. It's hardly surprising many ended up pulling out and a buyer for WS franchise couldn't be found
gregscavater
Guest
Just a few observations. A league played in winter would suffer from the pitch (suncorp etc) being chopped to pieces from other winter hand ball games. with natural expansion (and ffa Cup) the competition will be played more in the colder months. Expansion should happen as demand exceeds supply, we should have learnt from previous expansion for expansion sakes. The finals series is something that the other leagues in the world miss out on ,2011 Roar v Mariners and 2013 Wanderers v Mariners were games that were well worth it for the fans ,football and Aus sport in general , I don't recall a crap G.F in terms of atmosphere, crowds and football (Adelaide being stitched up 6-0 was highly entertaining)in the A-league . The salary cap makes the whole competition COMPETITIVE. David Gallop has so far been beneficial for the A league definitely capitalising on the previous efforts from Buckley and O'Neill and has yet to make significant blunders.I read somewhere that we don't have APL as lawn bowls owns the name (someone may confirm /correct that one)
AZ_RBB
Guest
i can only speak from a WSW perspective. but our crowds are almost entirely under 30 or young families. which is one of my favourite things about the club. aside from the handful of instant sellout games all the other games had hundreds of young kids attend on behalf of their respective junior clubs. Cricket has been mentioned a few times. This summer i'll be playing senior grade cricket and holding a WSW season ticket. For round 1 of A League a few teams are worried about fielding half full teams because of the large number planning on travelling to Gosford on Saturday afternoon. In short, A League is hardly hurt by its positioning in the Australia sporting landscape and calendar. If anything, this is ideal.
Statler and Waldorf
Roar Guru
I see what I am saying about getting kids interested working in both League and in cricket so I am not plucking ideas out of thin air but if that's weird then let's agree to disagree I hope that there is enough support and money one day for a team here in the Gong - we have a good(ish) stadium that is hardly ever used so my agenda is definitely not anti A-League