The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Are Red Bull about to give an A-League club wings?

5th March, 2017
Advertisement
Red Bull Leipzig: Already Germany's most hated team, in their first promoted season. By Werner100359 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25974559 Bundesliga
Expert
5th March, 2017
86
2160 Reads

Could one of the most controversial investors in world football be coming to the A-League? There are whispers that Red Bull might be looking to set up a club in Australia.

Rumours were rife at the start of the season that the Austrian energy drinks company was sniffing around the A-League, and John Stensholt confirmed in the Australian Financial Review this weekend that Red Bull was indeed “investigating buying or establishing a team in the A-League”.

So is it a good move for the A-League? It depends on how they go about things.

If they take an already-established club and try and wipe the slate clean as they shamefully did in Salzburg, Red Bull will only succeed in creating another pariah club hated within its own domestic league.

And if they buy the playing rights of a tiny outfit like they did with SSV Markranstädt, rebranding them ‘RasenBallsport Leipzig’ to get around the Bundesliga’s anti-corporate laws which prohibit direct reference to brands, they’ll simply create another club that can join RB Leipzig among the ranks of the world’s most despised teams.

But if they were to form their own club from scratch – and better yet build a boutique stadium – then it’s hard to see why the A-League would turn down Red Bull’s overtures.

Were Red Bull to take charge of an already existing club, it would probably look similar to the confusingly-named New York Red Bulls, who started out life in 1996 as the New York/New Jersey Metrostars before being bought and re-branded ten years later.

New York Red Bulls don’t actually play in New York – they’re based in Harrison, New Jersey – but crucially, the company helped construct the 25,000-capacity Red Bull Arena.

Advertisement

They also have a new regional rival in the presence of New York City, and you wouldn’t put it past Red Bull wanting to create a similar rivalry with another re-branded club in the form of Melbourne City.

The question is: where could they do it?

Would it be in a major capital, like Melbourne or Sydney, which already has a substantial A-League presence? Or maybe somewhere that could support a second team, like Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth?

Could it be in a city that already boasts a stadium but no A-League team, like Gold Coast or Wollongong? Or might Red Bull throw their support behind a region desperate to enter the fray, such as Casey-Dandenong or Geelong?

Whatever the case, Football Federation Australia has made it clear there will be no expansion before the 2018-19 season – and Red Bull’s interest may be little more than idle paper talk anyway.

Red Bull Leipzig Bundesliga

But it’s certainly an interesting prospect to consider, in a league where outside investment hasn’t always been easy to come by.

Advertisement

It was also interesting to see two A-League games scheduled yesterday, and both Melbourne City’s 3-2 win over the Central Coast Mariners and Brisbane Roar’s 3-1 defeat of Newcastle Jets were absorbing encounters.

The complexion of both games changed courtesy of a red card, albeit in dramatically different circumstances.

The Mariners were more than matching their star-studded opponents when goalkeeper Paul Izzo inexplicably pulled back Bruno Fornaroli in front of an open goal, earning himself an early shower when he should have just let the Uruguayan score instead of leaving his team a man down.

Stand-in skipper Jason Hoffman was more hard done by in Newcastle’s loss to the Roar, collecting two innocuous yellow cards that weren’t originally picked up in the Fox Sports commentary – with incredulous Jets coach Mark Jones subsequently getting himself sent to the stands for dissent.

In the end, the Jets couldn’t hold on against the fast-finishing visitors, but what was perhaps most noteworthy was the fact that both games were highly watchable on a day not exactly renowned for providing entertaining fixtures.

Two games on Sundays is something we should see more of.

But Red Bull in the A-League? The jury is out on that one.

Advertisement
close