Miron Bleiberg has urged Football Federation Australia to take full advantage of a surfeit of A-League expansion bidders and start planning for an 18-team competition now.
Two teams will be added in the 2018-19 season to make it a 12-team league, but Bleiberg – who is associated with a Brisbane Strikers bid – sees no reason why the governing body should stop there.
Close to a dozen different parties are waiting on criteria to be released by FFA in February before they progress further with their proposals.
Bleiberg believes with enthusiasm for the A-League so high at the moment, no strong applications should be turned away.
“FFA has done an excellent job with the A-League in the last few years. You can see how many bidders there are, it is a hot commodity,” Bleiberg told AAP.
“From what it looks to me, there are a lot of strong bids.
“So for me, it’s not enough for FFA to think in the short-term to admit two teams now into the A-League to expand it to 12.
“They also have to look at the future and also give a guideline about when it will be extended to 14, 16 and 18 so these strong bids will not disappear.
“Whatever markets suit FFA should be for the immediate future, but the others should also be used to get us to the ideal number.”
A-League chief Greg O’Rourke told News Corp earlier this week any new team would have to “add value” for all existing stakeholders.
He also said FFA’s primary focus for the next five to seven years would be expansion, determining the right number of teams and the right markets.
It’s expected FFA will heavily favour teams based in major population centres, like Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, to provide the biggest boost to the A-League’s incoming broadcast deal for this round of expansion.
But impressive regional bids from Tasmania and Wollongong will make it a complex decision – which is why Bleiberg wants them to strike while the iron’s hot.
“Now is the right time, the A-League’s doing well – credit to FFA – and everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. Maybe tomorrow that will not be the case,” Bleiberg said.
j binnie
Guest
nemesis - This is the best thing you have written for some time. It hits very close to where we are at at this point in time. I particularly like your second sentence for I too see that as a distinct possibility somewhere down the track as the "easy" way to lift the standard of our football, which we all want to happen for sure,but could be misconstrued as "the way to go" . However I doubt that AP and his Merry Men, running the various Socceroo teams, would back such a move. Can you imagine an HAL with 70% or 80% "imported players? The mind boggles at the debate that would arise. cheers jb.
Aethelbert
Guest
Canberra having more football history than Wollongong? Are you serious?
tully101
Roar Guru
we are not better then either denmark or south korea, denmark has 3-4 very good teams who are competitive in europe, and sth korea is better on the basis of the ACL
marcel
Guest
#no.ovals
pauly
Guest
Souths, the Gong, Canberra and Tassie. Where the hell is this second Brisbane team going to be and what makes anyone think they'll do anything OTHER than cannibalise BR's supporter base?
pauly
Guest
I too am pretty sure people situated between Beenleigh, Ipswich, Cleveland and Caboolture who want to be fans of a local HAL team already support Brisbane Roar.
pauly
Guest
But that's only for 6 weeks, and if it's not raining.
steve
Guest
Miron just loves hearing Miron talk about Miron. LOL
steve
Guest
What is this hard on people have for trying to manufacture a " derby " in Brisbane. I'm not understanding where this groundswell of support for a second Brisbane team or the mish mash of Ipswich, Logan, Toowoomba region team is coming from. It certainly isn't coming from normal football supporters, granted there maybe some small areas of support from supporters of the game but there isn't a groundswell. Its coming from the self interest groups, IE Miron himself, as we all know he loves nothing more than to hear himself talk, generally about himself. Any thoughts of this mish mash Ipswich/ Logan/ Toowoomba team playing out of Suncorp is nothing short of ridiculous. I highly doubt the Strikers alone have the supporter base. That's why the Strikers are engaging in talks about a mish mash team with Ipswich If anything they will draw their support from the Roar's already relatively small supporter base, diluting what the Roar have now.
Jeff Williamson
Roar Pro
Going to 18 teams may work. But at the moment I think we should be looking at how fast we can go to 14 teams.
Bondy
Guest
I agree with most here I want a longer season or a few midweek matches to get the level and standard up, but I dont want 16-18 teams the quality of the league is then diluted. The standard of the HAL now is quite good better than most leagues throughout the world I.E Denmark, Sth Korea to name a couple .. A 16 team comp is about as far as we could genuinely go ever and that's 10-15 years away ...
jamesb
Guest
26 teams altogether with two divisions. Top tier 16 teams. Next tier 10 teams. Sydney x 4 ( including Sutherland and Liverpool) Melbourne x 4 ( Including Casey/Dandenong and South Melbourne) Brisbane x 2 Adelaide x 2 Perth x 2 CCM Newcastle Wellington Nth Qld Sunshine Coast Gold Coast Canberra Wollongong Geelong Tasmania Auckland Christchurch
Mark
Guest
Well the FFA haven't released their expansion criteria or guidelines yet, so if we were being strict we could say this whole discussion is totally pointless. It's all speculation. Just because a couple of bids are on the starting blocks ready to go well before the guy with the starters gun has even showed up doesn't mean they will win the race.
Mark
Guest
Canberra doesn't have competition from the Big Bash, unlike Tassie.
punter
Guest
Mid, I tend to agree here & also aware as per Nemesis & JB has allude you previously, all good & well including extra teams with good financial stability, but we don't want to deplete our standards. 12 teams next year, my feeling, not exactly my preference (actually don't have one) is that 3rd Sydney (southern Sydney) is the frontrunner. Both 2nd Brisbane or 3rd Melbourne (SMFC especially, but will FFA take risk on them, I hope so) or Geelong would be next favourite. Tasmania (investors) & Wollongong (infrastructure, but may be hurt by South Sydney team). Hopefully yes a few years later 14 teams with those missing out having a few years to get ready, 16 would be the most.
Paul
Guest
We need to keep the finals. Fans love them - regularly have the highest viewing and attendance figure and they get big media coverage
Paul
Guest
Brisbane x2 Melbourne x3 Sydney x3 Adelaide x2 Perth x2 Canberra Tasmania Wellington Auckland QLD other The Gong Jets CCM That's 20 and not really stretching it.
Paul
Guest
A bit of latitude is required on his comments as he went on to say the FFA would issue the guidelines for expansion teams in the new year along with some guidance on what the target number is. It was at the end of that he said 16 or 18 so he may have been shooting from the hip
MarkfromCroydon
Guest
Miron is right that there needs to be a long term vison and plan. The key word is Plan. Many people have a 'dream' of what they want, some have a vision, but to execute and achieve, you need a Plan. My dream would be a 16 team league with 30 rounds across 34 weeks, no finals, breaks for some international dates, and a seperate FFA Cup with the final 2 weeks after the last league round. Domestic football from 1st weekend in Oct to first weekend in June. Space for players to rest or play at world cup/euros/copa america/maybe asian cup in June July August. Minimal conflict with AFL/NRL in their finals rounds. Fifa Dates are generally 2 each in March, June, Sep, Oct, Nov.
AZ_RBB
Guest
I thought the plan was 14-16. But fair enough if O'Rourke said 18 teams