Football set for growth

Agree great story! And to think that academy with its limited resources has only really focused on the one community of Borroloola. This could easily be replicated across the NT. Get some funds and make it happen. And lets not mention all the other positive spin offs. Get kids into sport and engaged. Heck cheap than building new jails which seems to be a favourite pastime up here.

Hey Mid any reason why the editors seem to have buried your article? Never really got the exposure like some of the others...especially the negative football "articles". Roar? Anybody there?

You need to spend some time in Sydney (and Brisbane as well I suspect). AFL has virtually zero profile here. You don't see people playing it, people don't talk about it, and people aren't interested in it. Do you really think that you will get people engaging in AFL up north based on what? The Swans? Thats it? Do you think we are interested in Melbourne v Perth? AFL in Sydney starts and stops with the Swans. If you think there is anything else then you really are deluded.

@ chris 8.44am No, I make virtually no contributions to the soccer tab- except when false comments are made about Australian Football's participation numbers. I note midfielder has not tried to justify his deliberate falsehoods -he is usually quite voluable. "Propaganda"- best you've got, anything substantive to say? Perhaps you, or midfielder, may wish to comment on the Sydney Australian Football CLUB junior competition team numbers below, which cover the period from 2012- 2018. AusKick, for very young children, is not included here They also cover 2019, for the growing female team numbers for Sydney secondary schools such as MLC, Ravenswood, Pymble Ladies, Mont Sat'Angelo etc. They don't cover the other Sydney primary and secondary (state and private) school Australian Football competitions. You will note that the numbers have been increasing by 100-200%. http://aflsj.com.au/fixtures-results/western-sydney-fixtures/ Do you believe that League and Union journalists, sports' commentators, ex- League/Union/Soccer officials and players (including John O'Neil, former FFA Chairman, Melissa Barbieri, former female Australian soccer captain) etc., are also involved in an AFL "propaganda" campaign? They have all said community Australian Football and/or the AFL are growing in Sydney, and other non-traditional areas. Some of their Australian Football growth comments have been DIRECTLY cited and linked below. https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/a-third-team-in-sydney-its-only-a-matter-of-time.1136876/

Chris Agreed They do spend a lot on the football tab , spreading the propaganda. Reminds me of how Jo Beioke Peterson used to rave about Queensland. Don't you worry about that" "Goodness gracious, I know what you're trying to do." "Just you wait and see." "Let me tell you, what is good for Queensland is good for Australia."

Excellent article and your final sentence sums up why football is still struggling financially today. As someone who is in favour of P&R I am also willing to wait for it to come in even if that is 10-20 years down the road. So long as there is a clear road map as to how to get there that's the most important thing. Agree wholeheartedly about regional areas being the future of the game as done properly a team in a community of several hundred thousand people can be more successful than a team in created out of thin air in a city of several million as people will feel more of a connection with the team. To develop a true football culture takes a long time and has to start from the ground up, not the other way around, and has to be viewed in a whole of society context. I read an excellent article the other day talking about football in China and the struggle they face to become the dominant force Xi Jinping wants them to. It talked about how in Chinese culture more emphasis is placed on academic achievements than sporting and that all extra curricular activities children have are geared towards that. So we need to ask ourselves how do we ensure the game in Australia is a) accessible to anyone who wants to play and b) how do we get people to play? for the good of the game the two parties you describe need to compromise for now and say for example no P&R for say 15 years, let's grow the game at grassroots and then after that 15 years is up, it's on for young & old. Throughout that time period though there would have to be constant re-evaluation to see how things were progressing with a view to maybe introducing P&R earlier. In any case the longer we remain divided the more the status quo remains. Link to the article - https://theconversation.com/china-cannot-spend-its-way-to-soccer-greatness-98540

We are definitely heading towards an MLS system, it's pretty obvious. Note that the FFA never utter 2nd division and P&R in the same breath. What is the MLS system? * closed league * buy your way in via significant license fee * look for geographic areas to have a club which do not impact on existing owners * slow, drip feed of licenses, indefinitely (MLS with 24 clubs and aiming to grow to 28 clubs, all in the same tier of competition) Clever people on twitter have described it as a Ponzi scheme, which I think is apt. At the end of the day, it's a game of pass the parcel, and you don't want to be holding the parcel when the license fee money dries up.

I agree Mid, I have been following football since the 1970s & today I'm watching more football then ever on TV & live (everything from World cups, Asian cups to champions league, EPL, Serie A, A-League to local park football). It's a football smorgasbord, the fact that Ronaldo & Messi are better known then Fyfe or Martin in Sydney or Thurston and Tedesco in Melbourne says it all. It's football, football football for me, but love my sport, Golf, love the PGA & love the majors, the Tour de France, test Cricket are also some of my passions. I also don't mind Int'l Rugby & tennis majors.

For a sport you don't think is any threat to your "biggest in the land" AFL, you sure spend a lot of time on the football tab bleating your propaganda.

Hi Mid, somewhere in the mix sits the FFA Cup, this season included 781 clubs from round Australia. It must be the biggest sporting competition in Australia. But dont tell anybody OK.

Football will never grow while we the football public sit on our hands and let the weak ,the uninspiring rule our sport, while the dynamic , intelligent and strong are left out, i am talking Craig Forster what a waste he is not our leader of our beautiful game

Yes Alice, great story, she just came on & got a huge ovation.

Thanks for the article Mid. With the traditional MSM platforms dying a death by a 1000 cuts, the money the traditional sports have enjoyed will eventually dry up. The big*otry and hat*red aimed towards football will die off as the dinosaurs who peddle this eventually disappear. Totally agree with the youth under 30 identifying with football. We did a round the table "get to know"your team members today at work. Interesting that out of 9 people in the team 5 selected soccer as their number 1 sport. Other sports mentioned were basketball and running. Not one mentioned league or union and certainly not AFL (I'm in Sydney). The age of most team members is around the early 30's.

Obviously a bit of a pipe dream but would love to see the NT have a presence in future expansion. Interestingly young Shay Evans will make her W-League debut tonight. Correct me if I'm wrong but she would have to be the first player from a remote community to make it?! Great story. The players and talent is up here - will just take a little effort on behalf of clubs.

Disagree and this is to do with soccer administrators utter GREED. I don't necessarily believe soccer will get all that much bigger and could go down in fact. Just look at the bread and butter of the game here, the A-League. It is near death. They want to take as much money from tv rights as they can get at the expense of eyeballs and the next generation. If it were not for FTA tv coverage of soccer I got in the 1980s and 1990s I would not be a fan today. Just keep going the way you are going soccer admins. Put the World Cup on pay tv and watch your sport crumble.

32 teams based on football ability not on some criteria set by accountants who are scared to the point of soiling themselves of upsetting Fox media! It will hurt short term, but if the sport is to be successful long term it must remain true to itself not the mighty dollar! People watch because of the talent on show, Television want the sport because people watch, but then they want to change it into a TV program, and then people no longer want to watch! Football needs Strong Leaders not television sycophants!

Well we sure can't hold you to account on that prdiction. I would suggest that back in the early 1900, sport was an amature passtime on the whole. We know the status of sport as it is today. We have generations coming through with shorter attention spans, and exposed to/prefer fast moving video graphics for entertainment which sports codes in this country are plugging into. The AFL/NRL/Cricket professional leagues were already in place before the huge growth in technology, and the expectations on entertainment that go along with it. AFL/NRL/Cricket for example were already culturally in the nationals DNA, soccer was/is not, so the introduction of the A-League when it occured was fine for dedicated followers of the game, however still a tad allien for the masses. May be time to take the emotional rants out of code discussions and hold clubs/associations and governing bodies to task on how to make soccer a MORE viable option year upon year.

Yes, yes, yes be patient ........... be patient my pretties.

Stu It worked for North Korea, why can't it work here?

Agree, Middy. One issue we must all face - and it's not easy - is to be patient. It's interesting to see the sports that are very popular in Australia at the professional level, absolutely soiling their pants as they realise their supporter base is dying - literally dying. They're now creating shorter formats on smaller pitches, because they saw how Fustal extends the football engagement. They're now starting women's competitions, even though their administrators, their media cheerleaders and their fans sneered at sokkah for being a sport for sheilas. They're pretending to have global reach, playing matches overseas; whilst at the same time trying to pretend it is a huge benefit to have a sport only known to Straya. Their strategies are now being created by thought bubbles on talkback radio & dictated by TV executives. If the TV executives want a rule change, the head office of the Mickey Mouse sports changes the rules of the sport. Football, too, has fallen into this trap of trying to change for short term gains. We now have a new FFA Board who has made it clear that all strategic decisions will, henceforth, be driven by football. New League Working Group will table their report on 31 March 2019. That's going to be the most important document for Australian football since the Crawford Report.