- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
This Saturday night, Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory will lock horns at Allianz Stadium in the latest version of the Big Blue.
It’s a match that holds the record for Australian club football’s biggest ever regular season crowd.
With both clubs unbeaten in the first five rounds, it’s a mouth-watering prospect, and probably the biggest game on the A-League calendar outside a derby.
Unfortunately, the scheduling of this weekend’s game has it being played on a FIFA international weekend. Half a decade ago, this wouldn’t have raised too much of a murmur for the A-League.
But the times, they are a-changin’, to quote Bob Dylan.
No less than 27 players from the A-League are unavailable this weekend due to international commitments. Six of those players are from Kevin Muscat’s Victory squad while Graham Arnold loses three. That’s almost half the players likely to take the pitch.
Wellington Phoenix lose six players for the weekend as well, while the other clubs lose between one and three players, except for the Western Sydney Wanderers who have remained intact and have only ACL hangovers and jet lag to contend with on their trip to Perth.
Arnold has advocated that the A-League falls in line with FIFA’s international dates for quite a while now, and it’s about time his call was looked at more closely.
Having the marquee game of the round missing nine players, eight of whom have been regular starters this season, dilutes the game significantly. A-League clubs can only carry squads of 23, and with Victory and Phoenix missing six each they are a couple of training ground injuries away from not being able to select a full squad.
Of course, there is the side of the coin that the FFA and the A-League need to constantly consider. Unlike the European leagues, the A-League operates in a crowded sporting market with three other codes vying for media space, grounds and bums on seats. Moving the start of the A-League to October has been a sensible option but the league is operating in a seven and a half month window and doesn’t leave a lot of wriggle room for free weekends.
All but two clubs share their grounds with other sporting teams, whose season kicks off in March. While fans have every right to be bullish about the league’s great start to Season 10, it’s still sensible of the FFA to try and schedule the bulk of the season so the problems of ground-sharing with other codes doesn’t eat into the majority of the campaign.
The league could observe international dates and move rounds to midweek. Past midweek rounds have not been successful in attracting crowds but it will be interesting to see whether crowds are affected this week – especially in Sydney – by the absence of so many players.
FFA then need to balance out whether full squads playing midweek would have attracted a larger audience, both at the ground and on the TV. My feeling is that they would, especially if the league embraced the period of the long summer school holidays in January.
Midweek crowds flock to Twenty20 cricket matches, there is no reason why properly promoted A-League games could not find a willing audience on work nights.
It is ironic that a decade ago, it was Australia’s international players in Europe who had to fight for release to play Socceroos games, even after FIFA decreed the international dates rule. Now, Australian clubs need to advocate for the A-League to have this weekend off.
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.