Let's start a second division without promotion and relegation

Instead of full on club mergers, is there any merit in NPL clubs coming together to form JVs in geographic areas to operate National Div 2 squads? The NPL clubs have history, identity, resources, fans and are successfully developing juniors so this layer should be preserved as is. Rip out some of these teams to form a Div 2 and the metro NPL competition becomes affected. A JV between a 2-3 NPL clubs could: - Own, operate and equally fund a licence for Div 2 team that can seek to be promoted to HAL via performance - IE Run a full squad + coaches + support staff - Leverage each of the member NPL teams' colours/emblems in an agreeable way - Leverage each of the member NPL clubs resources in the short/medium term - grounds (rotate) facilities, medical, etc but in the long term establish own facilities when commercially viable The NPL clubs would have buy in to this model - they would be highly incentivised to make the JV work in order to receive a dividend from commercial activities, including player sales - jerseys, tickets, TV rights etc. In time the JV's could be sold partially or wholly to private interests should they progress to HAL via promotion and gain substantial value. In addition, the JV's would not be allowed to invest in juniors, they just run the senior squad. So it's all upside in theory for the NPL clubs - their existing juniors revenue base is preserved, and they have the opportunity to build value in a potential HAL team. Also, there is suddenly a direct pathway to Div 2 or HAL pro football for juniors at a NPL club level. How good would that be? Apologies if this idea is already posted somewhere....

The second division is the biggest pipe dream of the totally deluded. The FFA cup would end tomorrow if the FFA did not pay for all the travel expenses and the officials.

Not interested not a fan of 2nd division at all, we already have the NPL in each state the population isnt big enough to have all these leagues and the money just isnt there either .It would dilute the A league as well . what i would like to see is a 16 team A league we need times from Wollongong and Canberra and another WA team say fremantle another team from Queensland all teams that will give us derbys and where fans can travel .Expansion of the A league is a must before anything .Then I would love to see a national reserve grade comp and possibly an under 20 national comp with all three grades playing on the same day all under the A league banner .That would create more interest and more buzz creating a national reserve grade and national under 20s comp will give juniors a platform they would aspire to play in and give them the exposure on a national level for the national teams coaches and possible national team selection, sponsors would come on board because it is a national comp should create a buzz and bring in the crowds on game day with all three grades playing .

Strikers will be in the A-league before the NRL has a 2nd Brisbane team on the field

Last time I saw him he was in a real state.

A national 2nd division and a revamp youth league or reserve league should go hand in hand. I fear the aleague clubs won’t want a 2nd division as pro rel will come from that in the long term which is why they are pushing for a reserves league for aleague sides and NPL clubs. The biggest winners in all of this would be the players and the coaches of course.

They've lost momentum so it's hard to say whether they are here or not.

jb That’s a sad state of affairs and a blight on our game that so many things are run so badly and over such a sustained period of time.

It exactly is .... you can buy merit. Just like a private school is (often) better than a State school. Money.

What should they be called? 1) Fairfield United 2) Fairfield Rovers 3) Other

Mid - I still feel you are a bit confused. The "other" competition you talk about could well be the transition from "amateur" status to "semi-professional" status. This in fact meant a complete change of upper management away from "Association" management to "Federation" management. There is little doubt in the mind of anyone who lived through that period was that it was the so-called "ethnic" clubs that started and pushed for the move, for at the time the Association model was being run along the lines of the English Football ,and as such, had to side with FIFA when they asked that the importation of players to clubs like Prague,Apia etc ,without transfers, be stopped forthwith. At the time there was a whole host of players brought to Australia,some of them international standard, and their "new" clubs didn't have to pay a penny for their services. It was this "turmoil" that brought the Association v Federation "war"to a head and as you know the Federation people won that battle and as a result our top game moved from "amateur" to "semi--professional". Cheers jb

Waz & RBB I am pro P & R... want 2 division within a short period of time.... we have a timing difference on P & R and even that is more than likely under 3 years different .. But back to the MLS... the simple if not describable answer is the cost of buying a licence now 200 million and building a stadium of at least 20K capacity, and youth academies ... means that those essentially investing well over 500 million dollars have no interest in P & R ever happening... Currently as you would know the MLS has 28 teams announced with a further two be be announced they say before the new year... many say the plan is for a 36 team competition... with all but 3 I think in Football specific stadiums. Essentially thats the road that was followed.... P & R was over ridden by the desire to control facilities .. I hope we don't follow the same path...

JBinnie, there is plenty of money. It is just spread too thinly. From everything I read and hear, there are loads of NPL clubs earning and spending millions. It’s time the NPL clubs stopped trying to hold football back and either get serious about football or get out of the way of people that are serious and care about football.

JB I am aware of why FIFA banned Australia... but just prior to that I think some time in the 50's ... a second professional competition was set up and ran against the regional based competition we had at the time. The new competition was not at first approved by the then national body... but both the competition and the national governing body went broke and the new competition gained approval from the national governing body... Its all becoming a tad silly ... technically you and I could set up a new professional competition and comply with all FIFA requirements but if FFA did not approve ... FIFA would back them in all but extreme cases...

That team would be mega huge

Waz- Many years have now passed since I sat on committees dedicated to run sporting clubs in our game. I started off at a club where we existed on a dribble of money that came from raffles and functions we held with "acts" put on by the players. My next stop was an NSL club where despite that "dribble" becoming a steady flow I found very little difference as to how the club was being run at an administrative level. It was not that the people involved were any less keen but the motivation to create change was non existent. This I put down to the lack of knowledge as to how a professional body should be run and so it came to pass, for not only was "my" club suffering so it was in the rest of the NSL. You mentioned recently that the NSL" imploded" but in actual fact the troubles began to show long before the bitter end for first of all it came out that the most successful team in that comp. was being subsidised to the tune of $300,000 per year. In 1987 that team disappeared from the scene when the social club committee said "no more". By then I had left the NSL club I was at (realising I wasn't going to change much) and I moved to another "committee , the QSF, where, to my disappointment, I found exactly the same practices were in full swing, no dynamics, no discussion, no foresight. By now Brisbane was without an NSL team both City and Lions having fallen back into the local league The year was now 1989, 15 years before the NSL imploded. Having a young family ,both female, I decided I had had enough of football administration and took to watching and writing about our great game. I have seen many changes in that time mainly under the vision and leadership of the ageing Frank Lowy, but every day that passes ,and articles I read, I find the game drifting backwards towards those final days of the NSL. It is not a good feeling. Cheers jb

Nick - Isn't it noticeable that when statements like the one you have cited here as being used as a measure of interest, that, further along the track, those '15 to 18 submissions" had shrunk somewhat to around 1 or 2 and to be honest we are still waiting for those 1 or 2 to make their HAL debut. Maybe RBB (A) can clarify that situation. Cheers jb.

Mark -The ONLY thing stopping a fully professional second division is NOT the NPL clubs but the lack of that type of money in our game. In the HAL season we see teams struggle to exist being watched by crowds as low as 5000 (those figures have to be recognised as a measure of interest used when calculating the amounts paid by TV channels). As a comparison we have a nationwide cup competition now being played in which the method of "drawing" doesn't allow for NPL v HAL teams until the later stages and it is then we see the drawing power of NPL clubs when they attract 1500 to 2000 to these matches at their home grounds. That is where the real story lies. Talk is cheap, but when it comes to "action" isn't it amazing that the FFA have only managed to attract 2 "new" HAL identities in recent years. If we accept that today to start up a fully professional football team costs around $4.5 million in wages alone, and then a "licence fee" above that ,the question has to be asked ,how many NPL clubs have access to that sort of money. That is the real problem with expansion, do the sums and the answer will speak for itself. Cheers jb.

Mid - The time you talk about, the banning of Australia from the then world body, was brought to a head by clubs, not the local governing body , starting to "import " players of note from overseas without paying service to the then accepted practice of paying transfer fees and, despite many warnings, refused to stop the practice. Matters came to a head when a player called Willie Stevenson, a recognised international player with Glasgow Rangers, decided to "emigrate " to Australia where as a "fair dinkum emigrant" he would continue to play football for an Australian club. I believe Apia were the "interested" party. Stevenson, having lost his place in Rangers first team to Jim Baxter, did come to Australia but then the powers that be in European football decided enough was enough and ordered that a transfer fee had to be paid. No bids were forthcoming, (not surprisingly,) and eventually Stevenson was sold by Rangers to Liverpool for around GPB 15,000, where he had a long, distinguished career. Then ,and only then, when the ASF agreed to abide by the rules, were Australia allowed back into the world body. Cheers jb

Maybe I really like unwitting self-parody?