Could Melbourne City derail Sydney FC's title challenge?

My point was about how effective it can be for player development and how its helped some of the world's best players development years, and not so much for futsal as a different pathway to play it solely as a profession. Every kid these days play SSGs up to age 12, imagine if we can combine futsal in the summer along with the outdoor stuff in the winter. Australia needs to work towards a year round envionment when trying to compete with the rest of the world, i beleive futsal would go along towards this filling the gap which exists once the outdoor stuff ends in August/September.

No problem jb. Although it doesnt confirm what you heard in “gossip” but that’s what the gossipers would have you believe. The U12-U19 Academy will be fully funded by the club. No funding comes from parents or any other clubs. As you say, the cost is about $600k. The preparation academy is separate to this and the estimated cost of around $400k will be funded by partner clubs. It’s that lower tier of U7-U11 where clubs will pay a fee to Roar. So the gossip in not correct if it doesn’t distinguish between the two. The upper academy is free to participate. No funding from any club other than Roar. The lower/preparation academy will be funded by the partner clubs contributing $30-$40k each year. And here kids will pay their usual fees to the partner club (not Roar) which for 75 kids would be: @ $500/each = $37,500 @ $2,000/each = $150,000 Only now Roar provide the TD, other coaches and the kit. So basically I recon a partner club will come out saving money out of this ... which is why clubs are reporting their fees have gone down this year compared to last (bet you didn’t hear that in gossip lol). Furthermore, as a partner club a certain amount of places on the development squads have to be open to parents who can’t afford to pay, presumably via a means test, which is novel. You have to remember the disruption this has caused jb. Several clubs demanded Roar charge kids to be in the academy and became very upset when it was free. So check where your gossip comes from - the numbers suggest Roar, partner clubs, players and parents are better off with this arrangement. But people will still gossip.

It’s the development squads that cost 10x that where the problem sits; supposedly the very best kids should be in development but instead only the parents who can afford to put kids through development will shell out $2k.

$250 for 16-18 year old girls to play NPL in Victoria at certain clubs. It takes parents wising up to what they’re getting for their dollars and making informed decisions to fix this. If parents weren’t willing to pay/didn’t see the value, they wouldn’t pay it.

The issue with futsal is that it has progressed in such a way that the state federations or the FFA can’t regain control. Private enterprise holds a monopoly and as it is so unregulated it makes it hard to regulate. Private companies make ridiculous amounts out of social and semi pro futsal and the federations don’t have the power to reverse this trend. In a system that is trickle up rather than trickle down, it is only when money can be pushed up to the federations to improve quality and make legitimate competitions with reasonable funds that the game will grow. Until then, futsal will mainly exist within school gyms and factories. Watch Vic Vipers in the AFC last year. They got absolutely outplayed. And they’re supposed to be our best.

Waz - Thanks for the detailed explanation.You have actually confirmed what I had heard in "gossip" that it is in fact other clubs who are involved in the financing of this project. My individual thoughts on matters like this go back a bit further than yours and this is not the first time Lions/Roar has got mixed up with other clubs .I'll leave the outcome to history. However my original fear still stands, ultimately who will be supplying the means and wherewithal to finance this project for inevitably it comes out of junior parents pockets?. Thanks again Cheers jb.

I agree Nemesis, he looks like a quality player to me.

Only saw Pele play live once & I was a wee little boy, old films & stories about him. Yes I know it was tongue in cheek.

There is no debate on 11 v 10 players and if you don’t think players can dribble past other players today then (a) watch the EPL on Saturday nights where it happens a lot or (b) keep your eye on Arzani.

punter = Yes. and I saw Pele playing as well, but never , live or on film, saw him do what he described in the movie. Garrincha may have been able to pass a couple of defenders,as did Jairzhino, and Gento by sheer pace, but the length of the field and 10 opponents,???? Maybe Batman or Superman, but a footballer??? ----no way. Cheers jb.

QAS keeps going. The best kids should naturally go into Roars Academy but the QAS should still have plenty of talent.

Buddy There’s been the same resistance in QLD. Roar taking 107 kids out of the development pool represents a revenue loss of around $250k spread between the clubs concerned. I know Brisbane City lost a lot of kids go this program. And they’ve a right to be upset, it’s a big change. But the end to pay for play is necessary and long overdue.

jb The main Academy talked about here is for U12-U19’s and meets the FFAs requirements which I believe are compulsory for every A League club. The funding for this will come from the club/owners and not the participants. Below U12 are the “Academy Preparation Centers” in conjunction with (up to) 12 partner clubs. This is beyond the FFA requirements and seems relatively unique to Roar. This is under the same Academy umbrella but it is a different beast. The kids end up with dual-clubs, the partner club and Roar. I’m not sure how this will fit in with clubs normal development squads but I assume it replaces it in most cases? This (lower age group/U11 to U7) section is funded by rego fees to the partner club as usual and the partner club pays Roar an annual fee to participate in the academy prep program (Ive heard several different figures $30k, $42k, $48k mentioned which might suggest there is a different fee structure in place for clubs?). I’m not involved in any partner club organisation but I am at another junior club level, such a fee would represent 10% of our registration revenues each year which is not insignificant. We’re quite a large club so smaller clubs might find this in the 20-30% range, so they have to think this through carefully. These clubs are not “NPL clubs” but rather a combination of a couple of NPL clubs, BPL clubs, the Christian Church league and on the Gold Coast Roars own academy (ie no partner club). There’s a question as to whether this cost is passed on to participants, I don’t know the answer to that but there was a post from a partner club on twitter yesterday saying that rego fees for U7s had gone down as a result of the program not up. So? People also have to understand the economics of junior clubs as I’m sure you do; in the past junior clubs have spent $25k hiring in the part time services of TDs from Private Brisbane Schools or bringing in football coaching companies in at a cost of $10-$40k per season so investing this amount of money is not unusual. The third leg of Roar program is the RAP which deals with U6s. Not particularly relevant but 75,000 kids x $50 = $3.75m in revenues and although that has a lot of cost associated with it (coaching staff, admin, equipment, vehicles, insurance, travel) it’s not hard to see this generating profit to sustain the development pyramid. There is a great presentation on FB Live by Drew Sherman at a fan forum here: https://m.facebook.com/Brisban... (They’re not labeled unfortunately but it’s the 24th video from the top - press play and it’s obvious) Hope that helps. There’s a bit of FUD circulating within the football community as the A League clubs entry in to the development eco-system has not been universally accepted and there is some resentment.

jb. Free to participants means just that, free to participants. So if you are a parent of a kid going into the U12-U19 Academy you will pay $0 every year. It’s free to participate. The total cost of the entire academy, that’s U12-U19 plus the Academy Partner Club’s is supposedly $1m p.a. so I recon you’re on the money with the $600k number (with $400k required to run the partner program below U12). I’ll post a separate reply on this which addresses a bit more on how the whole thing is funded.

Nick very very very very very interesting

He’s at one of, or the best youth set up in world football at Ajax. My disappointed was ignorance in the comment

Will What do you mean re Pasquali?

Its a football game, not a political rally. They do that at all sports.

There's some serious issues with a number of rising Australian football players who are "not reaching their full potential". The latest U23 failure just tends to underline that fact. What's happened to our teenagers since the Golden Era of 2000 to 2006, who have gone overseas and on to starring roles in the EPL, Seria A and Erdivisie. We're falling behind Asia and the rest of the world. Junior football development is yet another area of Australian football that needs some serious investment. Their playing style and tactics look somewhat naive and embarrassing at times as do the results. Melbourne City are a good team and very impressed with Warren Joyce and the way he has put together a team with some consistency. I also appreciate the way he stood up to people who were there for mainly their own benefit, who we shall not mention. Ross McCormack seems like a handy player and a team player who Joyce can trust. With Fornarolli to return and the way the team is starting to play for each other, they certainly will challenge for the Golden Toilet Seat. Then again, the way SFC played this weekend, anyone could unseat them.

I agree Griffo, it’s a great shame the FFA don’t see the value of futsal enough. If you look as to the likes of why Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and middle eastern are overall technically better than us is through sheer amount of playing football and a lot of it is through futsal. The late Johnny Warren was a big advocate for futsal for a long time but I suspect a main reason why futsal is catching on here is through globalisation, given how popular it is around the world. I’m surprised it’s not an Olympic sport yet for that reason. But it’s good some here have recognised the value in it with there younger guys