Reviewing South Melbourne's chances of entering the A-League

Four new Clubs by 2020 would be good, another two teams in Victoria and Brisbane, Tasmania clubs would be good for the league. As the league currently stands Victoria is under represented and having a fifth NSW club would make the league overbalanced. I'm not from Victoria so I'm not familiar with the communities but I'm sure a regional club would be a good idea. South Melbourne merged with Hakoah so maybe that will influence the bid in their favour. Preferably I would like to see Brisbane and Tasmania as top priority but by 2020 another two Victorian clubs also. It's time for the FFA to stop producing reports outlining the games strengths and weaknesses and instead outline a strategy for football in this country and get it done.

I'm keen. Get it done Jimmy

11. Dandenong/ Casey 12. Tassie 13. Wollongong 14. South Melbourne 15. Liverpool 16. Canberra If the Nix get kicked out, replace them with a second Brisbane team.

maybe they are entitled to an A-league spot?

Phew! That was a breathless reply...with the standard "ignorant people who don't understand football etc etc etc..." Here's how I see most people seeing it... For the past 4 years, Gallop has publicly pumped the new broadcast deal, talked up expansion, promised football will become the no. 1 sport yada yada yada. Others may disagree, but I struggle to find many "wins" on Gallops scorecard...and this backflip dramatically underscores that.

To be fair to Gallop, the ALeague is not his responsibility. The ALeague has its own CEO who is probably earning about $300-500k per annum to do this job. The FFA Board should take the blame for lack of vision. As far as I know Gallop is not on the Board.

I firmly believe in this issue. Soccer in South Australia is organised by Football Federation of South Australia (FFSA) who organise local competitions.[citation needed] FFSA is a member of Football Federation Australia. South Australia has one team in the A-League named Adelaide United. Adelaide United also have associated youth and women's teams in the National Youth League and W-League. South Australia was previously represented in the now defunct National Soccer League by a two clubs in Adelaide City and West Adelaide. FFSA run the Federation Cup annually. The Federation Cup is a knock-out competition for South Australian clubs. Since 2014 the Federation Cup also qualifiers the winner to participate in the national FFA Cup. The first South Australian Club to win the Federation Cup and qualify for the FFA Cup in 2014 was Adelaide City. The highest South Australian league is the National Premier Leagues South Australia (NPL SA). Since 2013 The winner of this competition plays off against the winners of the NPL conferences from other states in a national finals series to determine the NPL Champion. Below the NPL SA in order are the SA State League 1 and SA State League 2.

Now while I wouldn't say that Gallop is an abject failure, he is 100% on Buckley, but Gallop is far too conservative, he is not a visionary, he has not grown the league to the extent the fans, clubs, owners ect have wanted. Football in this country is looking for someone to lead us to the promise land, there is so much potential, we need a greater leader. We have many potential teams, a few with some serious backing, but the FFA are too conservative. The lack of marketing is an example. Sometimes you have to spend to make money, the current FFA regime doesn't think so.

Really? I read the article & never came to that conclusion. All i read was "no expansion before 18/19" which is what we already knew.

So no expansion before 2018/19 season which is pretty much how things were before. But that language is concerning. Why not say we are looking at expansion in 18/19? The feeling I get from this is that we'll be lucky to see any new teams or expansion until the 2020/21 season.

Not surprised when people who are ignorant about football don't understand the roles & structures within football. David Gallop is CEO of the FFA. The CEO of the FFA is much much broader & complicated than what is involved running sports that only have an Australian context & no national teams. Here are the Objects of the FFA as stated in the FFA Constitution (2007) The objects for which FFA is established are: (a) to be the premier body for Football in Australia and, as such, to promote and enforce the Statutes and Regulations and the Laws of the Game at all levels, including by: (i) controlling the strategic direction of Football in Australia; (ii) determining the highest level policy for the conduct and management of Football in Australia; and (iii) supervising and governing State Bodies, Standing Committees and Football Leagues; (b) to be the Australian member of FIFA and comply with the Statutes and Regulations in force from time to time; (c) to govern Football throughout Australia, prevent infringement of the Statutes and Regulations and the Laws of the Game and protect Football from abuse; (d) to accredit and regulate referees, coaches and other individuals or entities to undertake functions and activities in relation to or incidental to Football in Australia; (e) to foster friendly relations among the officials and players of Football by encouraging Football games at all levels; (f) to take all reasonable steps to ensure that discrimination or distinction does not occur among Football participants on any grounds regulated under any Equal Opportunity Law; (g) to make, adopt, vary and publish rules, regulations, by-laws and conditions for: (i) regulating Football in Australia; (ii) deciding and settling all differences that arise between any of the following: State Bodies, Football Leagues, Standing Committees and FFA; and (iii) doing everything necessary or desirable to enforce those rules, regulations, by-laws and conditions; (h) to do everything expedient to make known the rules, regulations, by-laws and conditions of Football by, in particular: (i) advertising in the press, on television and radio and by circular; (ii) controlling the rights to photograph or make films or other visual reproductions of the games controlled by FFA; (iii) publishing books, programs, brochures and periodicals; and (iv) granting prizes, rewards and making donations; (i) to secure and maintain affiliation with other bodies, domestic and international, having a common interest in Football; (j) to promote, provide for, regulate and ensure effective management of Football tournaments and games under the control of or authorised by FFA, including: (i) national championships between teams representing or selected by State Bodies; (ii) interstate competitions between teams representing or selected by State Bodies; (iii) international competitions; (iv) games in Australia between visiting overseas teams, between visiting overseas teams and teams representing or nominated or selected by FFA or between visiting overseas teams and teams representing or selected by Members; (v) tours overseas by teams representing or nominated or selected by FFA or teams representing or selected by Members; and (vi) participation in international competitions by players representing Australia; and (k) to co-operate with other bodies, including AFC and other member associations of FIFA: (i) in the promotion and development of interstate, international and other Football competitions; and (ii) otherwise, in relation to Football, the Statutes and Regulations and the Laws of the Game.

"we can condense it into one sentence “Show me the money”..." Perhaps. But what we can really condense it down to is: - David Gallop has failed miserably. This announcement is a plain admission from Gallop (and Lowy) that the CEO has been utterly unable to grow the game and it's revenue to support the next phase of its life. Don't get me wrong, this is excellent news for soccer in Australia, but Gallop's tenure has basically ended with selling the business.

sounds a bit like the FFA's entittled attitude when it came to the world cup #18 #22 bids

Perhaps the FFA have been reading this article about "Cold hard cash investments in the MLS from TWG. http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/blog/2017/02/28/major-league-soccer-shows-way-forward-australia

Sydneysider I feel you may be correct. Unlike the MLS where domestically the US is full of financial heavyweights, there is no such luxury here. Doesn't matter in the end whose trousers the long pockets are in, as long as the League is not controlled by or at the whim of one or two individuals like Big Clive.

Whilst the sentiment of this FFA article is correct after debacles with 3 clubs now on the scrapheap, we can condense it into one sentence "Show me the money", As TV money is obviously not enough to grow the League , obviously only one alternative to add to further growth, Private investors (as per the Financial review article recently) . If delays in expansion due to this induce bigger and better investor(s) in the A-League, that can only be positive.

"The FFA’s analysis found that expanding the Hyundai A-League by two teams under the current model would result in net losses over the next six years. This is because grant distributions to the new clubs, and the increase in costs to FFA for operational matters such as transport would be greater than the additional revenue the clubs would generate through broadcast arrangements and sponsorships. As the FFA is a not-for-profit organisation that redistributes all of its income into the clubs and other parts of the game, such losses are not sustainable." Such losses are not sustainable..... interesting.... Looks like FFA are looking for foreign investment into the league. Money from either Europe or Asia to help build facilities and training academies as well as possibly investment into stadia. I always felt that foreign investment was the only way to access millions of dollars to build infrastructure for football.

BREAKING.... Football Federation Australia (FFA) will this week begin the detailed work with Hyundai A-League /Westfield W-League clubs to develop a new ownership and operating model for both leagues. Full story: http://www.a-league.com.au/article/ffa-starts-detailed-work-on-ownership-models-and-expansion-for-leagues/1otukx2xpe3421aryw0fr7t09m This content of this release is very insightful. The FFA has now committed to expansion (not before 2018/19) and it admits expansion cannot occur under the current ownership & operating model. "A corporate advisory firm has been hired to develop alternative models for new ALeague & WLeague structures and to provide advice on the financial aspects of expansion."

Sq. N -One has to be very careful when using the NSL in it's "last legs" with the HAL of today. There are many NSL aficionados who would love to point out to you that in their 9 year sojourn in the NSL, Sydney City won the league 4 times,finished second twice, and got a third place in another. season., by far and away the most successful team in the comp. South Melbourne in the 27 year history of the NSL also won it 4 times,2 of those when the comp. was on its"last legs". That takes us to another area of your article. When the NSL finished there were only 2 teams from Melbourne in the league so it could be expected that those "last season " figures would be higher than previous years. That in itself takes us to another area for comparison, for when we go look at seasons 84/86, when the ASF in it's wisdom increased the NSL to 24 teams, allowing all and sundry to participate,.we find the experiment was an unmitigated disaster. Why this was an unmitigated disaster for the game is demonstrated by the fact that in the "Southern Conference" we had 8 out of the 12 teams based in Melbourne and, as an example ,a sample of South Melbourne's figures in those years will show they averaged about 4,500 per match, a big drop from the later 7000 you correctly calculated. If you peruse these figures you may just get the reasoning behind the FFA's thoughts on expansion and "created derbies",,not so much on ethnicism ,but more on past experience. Cheers jb.

No thanks, I'll leave it to the good football fans like Stuart.