Happy New Year to the A-League's persistent critics!

Bondy, I don't know what's sad and confused about it. Many countries around the world seem utterly ignorant of other forms of football; soccer is all they've ever known, and so its all they could become passionate about in a footballing sense. To me that is rather sad; that they never at any point wanted to imprint their cultural identity on their national obsession in the way some countries have. In Australia and around the world the football competitions that are worth the most are those that resonate most heavily with the local populous from an attachment/tribal perspective. They're about local rivalries and identities as much as they are purely about the contest itself. We care because we're invested in the teams. In Australia the teams and the types of football codes we've chosen to support as spectators have traditionally been more combative and dangerous sports like the Rugby codes and Australian Football, a fact that necessarily will have an impact on participation. So to say we haven't had the "choice" to consume the sports we play is a shallow reading of what sport is about from a fanbase standpoint. Case in point, as a kid I played soccer and Rugby League, and a bit of basketball. But I mostly follow the NRL and Super Rugby. I watch a bit of A League, but I'm more attached to and enjoy as a spectator the teams I follow in the Rugby competitions, and Super Rugby in particular. I don't think you could argue that I haven't had the opportunity to "get to consume the sport that [I] play", because I have and do, but strangely the sport I enjoy watching the most is one I didn't play. That's sport for you though; I grew up with choices and formed attachments and interests that didn't align neatly with those I partook as part of my own sports experience. My point in all this is really just me railing against what I consider a patronising and silly notion put forward by some in the soccer community that not embracing their game is akin to rejecting international culture. To me that's like arguing that our rejection of the Star Bucks chain of awful coffee is a reflection of us not appreciating global coffee culture because it's been so successful almost everywhere else, rather than being a reflection of the fact we just have a far more competitive market than they've ever faced before and their product wasn't quite up to scratch when competing against a variety of much more entrenched and local establishments that.

Daniel That's a sad and confused outlook that you have in relation to football globally and comparing to Australia .The popularity to football globally is because people get to consume a sport that they play unlike Australia where football's just never been seen as good enough for the commercial networks and commercial sectors to invest in and probably never will .. The sports that are popular here in Australia commercially are those that aren't consumed by participants though those sports are consumed by tv viewer ship , " sports that are popular on tv aren't played by the community in any solid volume " ...

Marron, I was referring more to the attitude of an American abroad. He knows English is the dominant language for business and diplomacy, and knows his country is powerful and speaks English, so he simply assumes English should be embraced by all. Fozz isn't a foreigner, but Australia has never embraced soccer like it has other sports, and whilst it has been here for almost as long as other sports in one form or another, it spent most of its history at the fringes, unable to resonate with the majority of Australians in the way other sports do. As for being foreign, well it is an English sport whose rules and structure Australia has had zero cultural imput on (unlike both Rugby codes, cricket and of course our own creation - Australian Football), so in a very real sense it IS more foreign. The point is that, soccer's success in countries that haven't had the imagination to create their own football codes or chosen to ignore other football codes doesn't actually mean the game some how deserves a prime spot in our collective cultural imagination. Personally, I find it more boring and culturally rather unimpressive that so many countries only know and embrace one type of football with any degree of enthusiasm. To me that's like putting McDonalds on every street corner and not bothering to have your own cuisine or sample any others.

Half the fake posters here work for the AFL M.D.

Ian is correct. Foxtel, NOT Fox Sports, paid the FFA for the A-League TV rights (with SBS). http://www.afr.com/business/media-and-marketing/fox-sports-and-sbs-score-with-aleague-20150512-ggzn8t ". . . Foxtel, which is 50-50 owned by Telstra and News Corporation . . . "

Pipe down Pippinu, you are the one full of Bull Sh't. Read this article written by the Australian Financial Review. Foxtel, NOT Fox Sports, paid the FFA for the A-League TV rights (with SBS). http://www.afr.com/business/media-and-marketing/fox-sports-and-sbs-score-with-aleague-20150512-ggzn8t ". . . Foxtel, which is 50-50 owned by Telstra and News Corporation . . . " Even if you believe the BS coming out of your own mouth, here's a breakdown of the main sources of FFA A-League revenues for 2015, (one year): Gate Receipts, prize money and match revenues - $51M Government Subsidies - $10M Sponsorships - $32M Player Registration and competition fees - $25.9M Other - $26M FFA is a non-profit organisation so all profits are used to pay off government loans or are put back into Australian football. Foxtel and News Limited are two separate entities. News Limited's mission statement is to print any BS as long as it sells papers. They don't give a rats if the A-League goes broke or not, as long as they sell newspapers with the story of the A-League going broke. So no one in their right mind would think that "News Corp almost entirely fund the ALeague" The FFA's sponsorship deals now puts them ahead of the ARU and NRL in terms of sponsorship money. http://www.afr.com/business/sport/new-sponsors-give-football-federation-australia-revenue-boost-20150521-gh6w8c Open YOUR eyes Pippinu mate and stop this ridiculous attack of yours on football and the A-League..

That's Foxtel, but it is my understanding that Fox Sports is a separate entity, owned 100% by News Ltd. Please correct me if I am wrong.

TahDan I cant disagree with most of your post and yes we're known internationally as a Rugby nation but recently that's changed due to Australia now consistently qualifying for Fifa world cups ,we're now know as a footballing nation internationally due to that . Just also I think most of us here too are under no illusion that Baseball is king in Asia in Countries like Japan & Sth K etc with football a somewhat distant second . Good luck with the Waratahs in 16 ...

@TahDan, Yes most people O/S do not see Australia as a football/Soccer nation. However travel anywhere in Asia & mention football & they think (soccer), don't get fooled.

I'll say it again, News Corp almost entirely fund the ALeague. Open your eyes Bob.

@Bondy Of course soccer people insist on calling it football themselves. That's quite alright and they have every right to, they just don't get to tell others what to call it. But my point was that it's rather naïve to say the habit of calling it "soccer" by large chunks of the English world is irrelevant, as it's clearly not, as demonstrated by my point on how the Japanese word for association football is simply a transliterated form of "soccer." If you talk to people in Japan about "futtobo-ru" (the transliteration of "Football") they'll discuss the NFL with you, and frankly it's not dissimilar in a lot of Asian countries. That's very much what I'm trying to illustrate; that scoffing at the Americans, whilst fun and all, doesn't alter the fact their version of the language is pretty dominant in plenty of very populous places and in Asia especially. My other point of course was that the history of the word football helps to illustrate why so many sports use it, and makes the ownership demands of it by any one sport (which in this country tends to be a fight between Australian Football and Association Football fans) a little ridiculous, particularly given it just means we're essentially aping British feelings of emasculation at the hands of a rising tide of American culture. As for Gallop et al, well sure they call it football, but going overseas most people don't think of Australia as a football/soccer country. Indeed, our complex sporting landscape goes over most people's heads and they're generally only aware that we tend to play with an oval ball in our big competitions. Rather amusingly, in my years in Japan and time in China and Korea, the general assumption from the locals I continued to come across was that we were like New Zealand; a "Rugby" nation. As primarily a rugby fan, I find that kinda funny, as I'm under no illusions as to the place of the sport here. But from a foreigner's standpoint it's understandable; most people around the world know what rugby is (and the All Blacks specifically it seems), but have no clue about Australian Football or Rugby League, so when they see an oval ball in relation to Australia they just think "ah! Rugby!" And let's not kid ourselves, Australia's "football" media is overwhelmingly oval ball based by sheer numbers.

TahDan Its irrelevant what you or anybody thinks in Australia in relation to the English teachings (American or English) throughout the world in relation to football in Australia . Its what gets reflected to the rest of the world from Australia in relation to football or soccer and the people who speak for the sport A Postecoglou, T Cahill, D Gallop etc all call it Football and there's were your problem lies for you and nothing can be done about it . Lol Lol Lol ...

Off topic I noticed Channel 7 has a new station coming soon, channel 7 will have 4-5 stations soon that could mean possible room for the HAL ? ...

"Is that what you took out of all this , that football was being combative?" What? No RBB, not at all. I asked Mike Tuckerman why *he* would start the year on such a combative footing. The very first thing Tuckerman thought to do on the Roar in 2016 was identify some tweets from Malcolm Conn and Rebecca Wilson, as if those muppets need more oxygen. Now, don't get me wrong, Mike can write whatever he likes, but I asked the question: surely there are bifgger fish to fry than those two..?

@Bondy It's kinda hard to know which Daniel you're responding to (not your fault of course). But as the Daniel who posted the first point about SBS and the subsequent one about people who try ram their preferred terminology down your throat, I agree with you. @TahDan Rather interesting little history lesson that. I'd heard before that the origins of the word "football" we're not quite what they seemed, and your account makes a lot of sense when you consider there's something like 10 sports around the world with "Football" in their title. It's also true that it's only relatively recently that the use of "soccer" has been a cause for consternation, and I'm aware that for a long time Association Football was called soccer pretty commonly in England, even to the point that some big publications following the sport used it in their title. It therefore stands to reason that a latent anti American resentment is behind the angst over the word.

Midfielder & Fuss I'm just sifting through my in tray as one does,the person who wrote this is paid to post here .

TahDan Do you wear a bandanna and work for Fairfax in Rugger ? ...

Daniel No person or a governing body of a sport has a right to tell another sport or people what they can or cant call their sport . Your arguments both bizarre and flawed .. We're Football ....

Well said Neil enjoy your football ...

The American traveling? These little phrases reveal so much. Fozzie is a foreigner, in other words. Traveling in a foreign land. Except, he's not. And neither is football. Football has been played here for more than 130 years. There are proud clubs all over the country with long traditions, some going right back to those times. There was football being played before those heady days of codification when most codes looked similar as well. It's not foreign. It's got just as much right to exist here as any other sport. So when Fozz complains, it's not the foreigner complaining. It is the citizen wondering why he is considered an outsider in his own country.