Cahill’s scepticism concerning for the FFA and A-League

Their careers were not "destroyed" they were past it and not good enough. The A-League is better than what they think and Cahill is scared of failure.

A-League teams are never going to be hugely profitable in Australia, we don't have the market or the media bias like other sports. Its not about vision, its about giving something back to the country that made him what he is.

How is Cahill's rejection of Australian football good for the game here? How will Australian Football ever improve if one of our best players keeps referring to the A-League as a "backward step"? We need ex-Socceroos tp put back something into Australian Football, which has made them rich and famous, not keep dragging it out in some Chinese or Arabian second rate team to line their retirement pockets. Its not about what he says about the FFA, its about money, playing for the highest bidders. He'd love to still be playing in the EPL, but no EPL club is going to pay his asking price, so he ends up in China.

The Socceroos may not have a "major sponsor" on their shirt, but sponsorship is up 30% and the FFA have overtaken NRL and ARU for corporate sponsorship revenues. http://www.footyindustry.com/?p=1520http://www.footyindustry.com/?p=1520

Tim, Great vision signing for 5 months.....with a team you really don't know about or have not studied the VISION. The FFA .....like all good government departments has a huge plan and VISION .....and it is all around infrastructure. Soccer has no infrastructure.So getting the funds/money/cash to build infrastructure is the key. Cutting un neccessary bureaucracy and any excessive player payments. The A league owner must be able to break even or make a small profit. The 40 million spent on the WC bid was a major black mark on Current FFA leadership and our savior Sir Frank.It is clear what FFA lacked was not vision.....but someone and some people to say to Frank....No No No stop stop stop. It was a bold vision to bid for the WC.....bold bold VISION.....so what didn't TIm get? The HAl needs expansion. The Hal needs a second tier.....more than state NPL. So Tim. Read the whole of football. Read player payments are too high. Read owners get nothing. Read infrastructure.......infrastructure. Tim must be deeply upset at not impressing his coach and getting fired. Getting fired is not good and really effects people. Tim. Why don't you invest 5/10 million in the HAl.......and really show us VISION. Or take a small ownership position instead of salary.......eg Jets. Love your play Tim. But please invest your money like an owner. Think like an owner as you start to think about retiring. We love your play Tim

Northerner, I won't bother going through your entire list but I will make the following corrections to your most obvious mistakes and offer a few comments............................ Television - many countries have claimed this invention but Russia has the strongest claim and England the weakest! Antibiotics? - YOU must be kidding??? Alexander Fleming was a fraudster AND claim jumper! - He accidently 'discovered' Penicillin and couldn't do a thing with it so he noted it's existence as a curiosity and then forgot about it! he didn't have the intelligence to make anything of it!..................it was the Australian Howard Florey and more particularly the intelligence and efforts of German biochemist Ernst Boris Chain who turned antibiotics into reality. Fleming had NOTHING to do with it! Electrical Motors (AND Generators) - predominantly French and Italian inventions Vaccinations - Obviously you are referring to Edward Jenner??? Vaccination had been practiced by the ancient Indian and Chinese cultures for many centuries and Jenner was fully aware of this FACT when he conducted his cowpox experiment. Anyway, it is a widely recognised that Louis Pasteur "father of microbiology" did far more important work in the field of vaccination and microbiology than Jenner ever did! And don't forget the work of Franscico Redi, Nicolas Andry de Bois-Regard and a long list of GREAT Italian and French microbiologists who did all the original groundbreaking research LONG before Edward Jenner was even born! Internal Combustion Engine - Italian, French & German invention Jet Engine - The Frenchman Maxime Guillaume patented the FIRST jet engine in 1921! Incidentally the French also invented the Scram jet!.....................England had NOTHING to do with it's development! Sorry but the University of Paris is the 2nd oldest university in the world.

Great & good luck to him, now can we get on with the A-League & forget about Timmy until he plays for Australia next. No more visions please!!!!

Tim Cahill has signed for Hangzhou Greentown.

Tom, that is an extremely good point. Wasted opportunities one after another.

Oh, they LOOK swiss do they? That was a conscious decision I take it, which the Australian Italians have refused to make. If only they would! Some have... it's interesting to look at. Take the Rocca brothers. Sav LOOKED less Italian the Anthony didn't he? What a champ. No cultural cringe going on there. How we cheered when he quit AFL for gridiron! He gave us relevance. Sorry anon. Can't have cultural cringe about something that's not part of my culture.... can laugh at it though.

Tom- from this reply I gather you have studied history at the highest level---------sitting atop Mt Everest in total seclusion. jb

Vikings that settled in the region which became Normandy. Norman is derived from the word northmen. Another name for vikings. The only way I can except the norman conquest. Though I would rather Harald Hardrada had won at stamford bridge in the north than William at hastings. Hardrada was staunch with the old gods.

Al Azhar University, Cairo: 975

Oh, and has for the English having invented nothing, other than Westminster democracy, the concept of habeas corpus, and a few other minor things of that ilk, how about, lets see now: the steam engine, and the steam turbine; steam locomotives; cement; marine chronometers; the seed drill; spinning jennies and the spinning frame; the electric motor; the jet engine; television; computers; the world-wide-web; vaccinations; antibiotics. As I said before, you should be writing for Monty Python.

University of Bologna: 1088 University of Oxford: 1096 University of Salamanca: 1134 University of Paris: 1160.

History seems to be a major problem for you my friend.........................the world's second oldest university is in Paris................... The English have invented nothing..........................FULL STOP!!

I gather history isn't your strong point. The oldest university still in continuous existence is in Italy (long after the Roman Empire had disappeared). The second oldest is Oxford. Rome had nothing to do with either. The law in England, and here, is entirely different from the civil law system on the Continent. I suggest that, if you don't like the concept of the presumption of innocence, you get yourself arrested in Italy or France. You could be a long time waiting for a hearing. If you think parliamentary democracy and habeas corpus carry the same weight as women's cosmetics, well, I tend to have a different view. The Romans built bridge and viaducts and roads. Great engineers for their day. But their day in England ended well over 1500 years ago. They build roads, sure. So did the Incas. The English, and the Scots and a lot of others did too. The Romans might have dreamt of a combustion engine, but they didn't build a workable one. Come to think of it, I believe it was the Greeks that first came up with the idea. But it was the British that made it happen. Opera and ballet have zero to do with the Roman Empire. Italy yes, but at the same time, Germans and Englishmen and Frenchmen were exploring music as well. Handel spent much of his life in England, after all. Bach wasn't Italian and neither was Tchaikovsky. Plenty of culture to be spread around, and Italy and France do not have a patent on it. As for Brunel, yes, he was born in England, because his family wasn't welcome on the Continent. Think about what you just said: continental Europeans kicked his family out, and England accepted him. How is that a plus for the continent? It seems to me evidence to the contrary. Do you even know who the " English" are? Celts, Germans (you know - Anglo-Saxons), Danes,Normans, Huguenots kicked out of France, Jews who fled the continent, a whole mix of people. Their cuisine wasn't the best, but I'd rate the English system of government and laws well ahead of anything on the continent for most of the period between 1600 and about 1900. No, make that 1600 until today. I've seen French and Italian law at work. I've lived in a number of European countries, with the most time in Italy, a country I love. It has a rich cultural tradition, as does France. But so, my lad, does England.. Goethe and Dante might possibly be the equals of Shakespeare, but not his superiors. Darwin has only one counterpart and challenger in biology, and he too was English. Oh, and another thing. During the Dark Ages of Europe, the great repositories of knowledge weren't on the continent at all, but in the monasteries of Ireland. As trade between the British Isles and the Continent was restored, the knowledge preserved there made its way back. You might just possibly have some of this backwards. If it wasn't for the British ( English and Scots) precipitating the industrial revolution, it might well be the continent stuck in the dark ages forever. By the way, do you actually know who the Normans were? Not Italians, and not French.

Yes, and the AFL need to understand they are Australian Rules Football. Totally agree!

You're having a laugh aren't you??? Are you seriously claiming that England invented "democracy"?!?!?!? A little history for you buddy...............GREECE INVENTED DEMOCRACY BEFORE ENGLAND EVER EXISTED!! ahe law, schools and universities, bridges, roads, tunnels, concrete, glass, hot spas and saunas, women's cosmetics, the internal combustion engine, piano, opera, ballet, concerts, high art, high fashion, much of the food culture and it's vernacular that the Pommies and Aussies eat every day etc etc etc etc etc were all invented and built by the Romans and Italians. WHO do you think invented them???................................THE ENGLISH?!?!?!? HAHAHAHA!!! Even England's greatest ever engineer AND WHO was voted the second greatest "Englishman" of ALL TIME 'Isambard Kingdom Brunel' and who virtually built the railways in the 1800s - BTW, engineering is just an "anglosied" version of the LATIN words, 'ingenium,' meaning "cleverness" and ingeniare, meaning "to contrive, devise" - was actually the son of the great French engineer Marc Isambard Kingdom Brunel who designed and built the first tunnel under the Thames River in London in the 1830s and still in use as a railway tunnel today, would NEVER have even been born in England if his father had NOT been forced to leave France during the revolution in the late 1700s!! If it wasn't for the Romans/Italians and Norman/French, England would be stuck in the Dark Ages FOREVER!! WHY do YOU think the English HATE the French and Italians so much?? Because they are SO ENVIOUS of those countries rich cultural traditions which makes them feel so inferior!! BTW, did you know that more than 60% of the English language is either Norman/French and Latin??

"Firstly aussie rules was invented here by English public school boys based on the games they played in their English public schools. It bore big similarities to many of the other games being played at the time, including the set of rules which by all accounts were the forerunner if the FAs, the Cambridge rules of 48. The successful Sheffield rules, games of which were being played in the 50s, later influenced the FA to diverge a bit more. In the places where aussie rules became popular it got a stranglehold on the culture for a number of reasons. And became singular as a result – but not universally ubiquitous across the country. So are you calling half the country not Australia, because the game is not popular there? Above the barassi line we don’t owe it to anyone for nurturing a game that might as well lot have existed for generations! Get out of your parochial bubble and see the reality. I don’t denigrate the game itself. The AFL is the one who insists on calling it AFL up here as it happens. But I’ll denigrate anyone who tells me what my culture is from a Herald sun inspired bubbledome. I’ve always called it football. As have a pile of people I know. Are we not Australian? When I was growing up and playing football I copped stick for not assimilating. Don’t be different. Because proper aussie. Be part of the crowd. I was the minority. As the pendulum swings it is highly highly ironic to have all these people trying to tell me not to be a sheep. The hegemony is breaking up so a new narrative is needed, step forward the defender of the true faith, or the culture bearing hipster…. You talk about not seeing the beauty and worth in the country…. The story of football here is one of beauty and worth, a social history would tell you a pile about this country and then some. Generations of Australians have played and loved the game. But no. They don’t fit your idea of Australianess so they aren’t true patriots or some such rubbish." Holy moly what a post! Marron as per usual, the voice of reason and wisdom.