How can we grow the A-League? Look inside, then look outside

I hope sooner rather than later mid. A year ago this subject wouldn't have been a priority for me but it is now, the FFA look overwhelmed by trying to do so much and De-bonehead has been found out as a light-weight, 3rd-rate administrator. It's time for change but with very clear responsibilities for the HAL so the owners dont get all selfish (EPL style) and swing too far in their own favour.

Waz I think the separation will come sometime over the next 7 years...

Tow Agreed mate

You're correct on the money, we need more. But it can't be dependent upon rich owners, they get bored, lose interest, run out of money and run away sooner or later. At this stage it can't be dependent on the financial performance of our clubs - the most successful is Victory who made a profit of $500k plus $1 million from a transfer which is hardly Stella. The FFA need to release more of the money the HAL generates back to the clubs, on the current TV/sponsorship arrangement that could be up to an additional $20m/year and on an improved deal as much as an additional $30-$40m each year. This requires some level of operational separation of HAL and FFA. A brave move I can't see the FFA adopting, ever to be honest, but that's what's needed.

Mid We can only dream of a Martin Tyler commentating in the A-League one day ,but Charlesworth is spot on we can do better. What I also notice overseas is that the Offsider to the main man commentating displays a deep understanding of football in the way he(sometimes but rarely she) talks about whats happening on the park. Maybe its because overseas they assume the audience is knowledgeable about football, whereas here they still assume there's educating still to be done, so "keep it simple stupid". Personally I've found the regular Australian football watcher to be well informed about the game, so its not IMO necessary to dumb it down.

Tow What irks me is the way many reporters [football] in Australia have a bias for a team an area a style and they let it be known so many ways... Charlesworth and I am trying to post what I can from memory said he watches the A-League in different parts of the world and he said we would be surprised how many do watch it overseas... he further went on to say with a couple of names known world over who are excellent commentators are there and at about the same price as what is being paid... He [Charlesworth] believes and I agree a decent set of callers with international names would add a lot to the product and I think he is right our media [football] has not kept pace with the change in the game locally.

The article got lost for a while on the Rugby tab,so no worries. Couldn't agree more, watching a lot of overseas stuff involving mainly English commentators,sometimes I despair and at times even Simon Hill falls into "the local ways traps". Same applies to print journos, I could go back over the years and drag out "prophecys" from certain journos and embarass them no end,but no point its a negative approach to do that. We need football media personnel, sticking mainly to whats on the park on the day and if other comments are offered let them be football relevant comments in relation to the teams/players/coaches on the park.

Tow Sorry I missed your article have just seen it....blame work ... I cannot agree more and can only add to your reasoning those wanting pro / reg because it works in Europe and some other parts of the world are beyond out of touch with the Football environment in Australia... I too have been impressed by the clubs this year and generally by the standards... One area I am mixed on is the media... generally the non Football media has been excellent this year and I use the flares as the perfect example when its reported everywhere they are not football fans and only a handful ... imagine the reaction even 3 years ago.. Like you and contra to most I think FFA and Gallop have done a very good job this year and many of the issues this year needed to be sorted and there was no easy way.. My biggest gripe actually is with the Australia Football media ... especially former players who IMO need to improve .... I was at a recent Mariners pre match function that Mike Charlesworth attended and MIkw spoke to fans and he said some things that to me anyway made a lot of sense and I will use a Mariner Example... Nick Monty was sent off for a slide tackle ... I have no objections to the send off it was careless, and late.... however in a 20 year career this was only the Second red card he has received and while he is a hard player he is not a dirty player and his playing records indicates this. Mark Ruden when on and on and on and on saying things like he had lost control, and the red mist could be seen in his eyes .... he essentially accursed Monty of attempting to take the player out of the game .... Charlesworth hit the roof over the comments and wrote to the board of Fox over them.... but what he said after I found very interesting and BIG note to SBS... The A-League is a world product shown in over 100 countries and does have a following but it lacks at the commentator level the same improvement we have seen the clubs produce ... he then said in Europe there are many former players with high international profiles who could work in the A-League as commentators with no real increase in cost and they are streets if not towns in front of many locals ... he believes this is a major issue pertaining to viewer-ship ... RRRRRR could keep writing but work calls... great read mate... will try to get back and post more latter...

To grow the A-League, we need to have better FTA coverage. I know a lot of folk have criticised the SBS for ratings failure. But, SBS has been excellent viewing with informed analysis in my opinion. the Reason why the ratings are low, is because the games telecast are on far too early in the night. Saturday night 8:00pm (AESDST) would be a far better arrangement. The SBS current contract does no favours for FTA viewers---especially those who live in Queensland, 6:30pm Qld time is not suitable for those still stuck in traffic trying to get home---it is far too early in the night.

Lets presume we can get the required money to create A-League growth from wealthy football savvy owners and TV/sponsorship/advertising money.,what is the actual goal, the end product of the League? Two elements dictate its growth one is the quality of Australian players and two is the quality of import. The quality outside A-League clubs is determined by the coaching programs the FFA is in place,but every A-League club needs academies training facilities to the standard of Melbourne City, just in case that is not up to scratch. However Australia will never produce enough quality players to fill the rosters, so imports are needed IMO forever. Its the quality of imports that’s the key, the Fornarolis and on the Australian side the Mooys. “Quality of Football” then across the board is the Mission Statement, rather than an obsession with the traditional football systems of promotion/relegation or the “Moneybags” approach of developing leagues in countries with large populations like the USA and China. On promotion and relegation if you can produce a P/R system that levels the playing field, but the playing field is on top of the mountain rather than in the valley your cooking with gas, but having been brought up on P/R in England I can tell you that its impossible, the small clubs today are the same small clubs as in the Sixties and beforehand. The only way today to improve your lot , like Bournemouth or Leicester is with more moolah, coming from an owner or TV money plus astute recruiting. Furthermore all clubs in the 4 English professional divisions either come from towns or Big cities with maybe two clubs or more from the biggest cities like London or the Birmingham area. Looking at the NPL clubs most are either suburban or the old so called Ethnic clubs, if they were in England they’d be lucky to be in the National League(5th tier), the gap therefore between the A-League clubs the majority of NPL clubs is too large to make up, the dragging will be down not up under the present salary cap system. Conversely with P/R and no salary cap the Grand Canyon will open between the Sydney/Melbourne clubs and any club in a second division. This is without considering logistical/financial problems regarding distance in Australia. So what is possible in Australia, what can be achieved to satisfy the needs of both the football and general sporting public. Better first to recognise that both sectors view overseas football traditionally as better than domestic, thats why the standard of football is more important than any football system in Australia. So first we need an ideal number of teams IMO ,16 teams gives 30 proper home and away matches per season,no more “dogs breakfast” fixtures . Plenty of places Wollongong, Canberra,Gold Coast, North Qld , 3rd Sydney maybe, Auckland,Ipswich(if suitable stadium) but please no more Clives or TInks. Solid football savvy investors or no expansion. Would still keep 5 imports(or maybe 4 plus 1 Asian) , but would raise the level of imports by allowing each club to spend $3 million outside the salary cap to be spent on imports. Would also allow 2 Bums on seats marquees if a club so wished. This $3 million can be spent in a flexible manner ie 5 paid 600,000, 4 paid 750,000(1 inside salary cap) 3 paid 1 million(2 inside salary cap), 2 paid 1.5 million( 3 inside salary cap, if a club wants one player it has to be a BOS marquee. We are assuming in this scenario that money is available from TV etc. So how much extra per season. Depends on the club’s turnover. Victory simply by gate receipts alone dwarfs the Central Coast but I should imagine that its overall revenue is probably in the same proportions ie 3 times that of the Mariners. If the salary cap itself is constant then the basic outlay for the Victory and Mariners should be similar, but whats going in the till isn’t. Therefore we use Victory’s revenue as the yardstick and presume they can afford up to an extra $3 million on imports. If they choose not to spend that or only part of that it’s their perogative. So the Mariners with one third the revenue of “The Yardstick” club Victory can put in $1 million and the FFA $2 million. If the Mariners decide on only $500,000 then the FFA puts in $1 million and so on for each club. For the Roar currently $1.5 million FFA $1.5 million. So overall the FFA needs a revenue source to fund this of approx $30-40 million per season. A bigger league(more clubs) does not mean more growth ,but a “Better on the park-across all clubs ” league with the “optimum ” number of teams does.

Lets presume we can get the required money to create A-League growth from wealthy football savvy owners and TV/sponsorship/advertising money.,what is the actual goal, the end product of the League? Two elements dictate its growth one is the quality of Australian players and two is the quality of import. The quality outside A-League clubs is determined by the coaching programs the FFA is in place,but every A-League club needs academies training facilities to the standard of Melbourne City, just in case that is not up to scratch. However Australia will never produce enough quality players to fill the rosters, so imports are needed IMO forever. Its the quality of imports that's the key, the Fornarolis and on the Australian side the Mooys. "Quality of Football" then across the board is the Mission Statement, rather than an obsession with the traditional football systems of promotion/relegation or the "Moneybags" approach of developing leagues in countries with large populations like the USA and China. On promotion and relegation if you can produce a P/R system that levels the playing field, but the playing field is on top of the mountain rather than in the valley your cooking with gas, but having been brought up on P/R in England I can tell you that its impossible, the small clubs today are the same small clubs as in the Sixties and beforehand. The only way today to improve your lot , like Bournemouth or Leicester is with more moolah, coming from an owner or TV money plus astute recruiting. Furthermore all clubs in the 4 English professional divisions either come from Big cities with maybe two clubs or more from the biggest cities like London or the Birmingham area. Looking at the NPL clubs most are either suburban or the old so called Ethnic clubs, if they were in England they'd be lucky to be in the National League(5th tier), the gap therefore between the A-League clubs the majority of NPL clubs is too large to make up, the dragging will be down not up under the present salary cap system. Conversely with P/R and no salary cap the Grand Canyon will open between the Sydney/Melbourne clubs and any club in a second division. This is without considering logistical/financial problems regarding distance in Australia. So what is possible in Australia, what can be achieved to satisfy the needs of both the football and general sporting public. Better first to recognise that both sectors view overseas football traditionally as better than domestic, thats why the standard of football is more important than any football system in Australia. So first we need an ideal number of teams IMO ,16 teams gives 30 proper home and away matches per season,no more "dogs breakfast" fixtures . Plenty of places Wollongong, Canberra,Gold Coast, North Qld , 3rd Sydney maybe, Auckland,Ipswich(if suitable stadium) but please no more Clives or TInks. Solid football savvy investors or no expansion. Would still keep 5 imports(or maybe 4 plus 1 Asian) , but would raise the level of imports by allowing each club to spend $3 million outside the salary cap to be spent on imports. Would also allow 2 Bums on seats marquees if a club so wished. This $3 million can be spent in a flexible manner ie 5 paid 600,000, 4 paid 750,000(1 inside salary cap) 3 paid 1 million(2 inside salary cap), 2 paid 1.5 million( 3 inside salary cap, if a club wants one player it has to be a BOS marquee. We are assuming in this scenario that money is available from TV etc. So how much extra per season. Depends on the club's turnover. Victory simply by gate receipts alone dwarfs the Central Coast but I should imagine that its overall revenue is probably in the same proportions ie 3 times that of the Mariners. If the salary cap itself is constant then the basic outlay for the Victory and Mariners should be similar, but whats going in the till isn't. Therefore we use Victory's revenue as the yardstick and presume they can afford up to an extra $3 million on imports. If they choose not to spend that or only part of that it's their perogative. So the Mariners with one third the revenue of "The Yardstick" club Victory can put in $1 million and the FFA $2 million. If the Mariners decide on only $500,000 then the FFA puts in $1 million and so on for each club. For the Roar currently $1.5 million FFA $1.5 million. So overall the FFA needs a revenue source to fund this of approx $30-40 million per season. A bigger league(more clubs) does not mean more growth ,but a "Better on the park-across all clubs " league with the "optimum " number of teams does.

Putting this article in the right category would be a start.

lester First I agree, but look at it from a slightly different angle. What I've tried to do is look at the A-League from a realistic viewpoint ie what is possible. I believe rather than disadvantage either Victory etc or the Central Coast etc we should try to bring the level of football at these clubs up to as close as possible to the level the top clubs could achieve if some restrictions were lifted by the FFA and the whole set up was more flexible. However until somebody shows the A-League the money, I see little change to the status quo.

Not restricting our top clubs from achieving their potential because we're supposed to feel sorry for Central Coast fans would be a great start.

Thanks Urthor. Years ago when a person told me I had made a spelling mistake in a letter, I used to say I deliberately left spelling mistakes in letters ,so when a person complained I at least knew they had read it. And hey, good luck with the rugby, too much sport is not enough.

They set an A-League article to be visible in the Rugby Union section by mistake. I could make a joke about one eyed site editors trying to force people to embrace multiculturalism and play soccer, but I expect it's just an error.

Urthor, I don't get the reference to Rugby. I have reread Towsers article a couple of times, because I often miss key points when I rush things, but you've got me tossed with Rugby mate. Why is WHAT visible in Rugby.

Why's this visible in Rugby?