Football in Australia must be patient for change

Australia went from Semi Pro to Pro just 15 years ago which is a pretty drastic change in itself and technically the English 1st Division did not change to the Premier League rather the Premier League was a new top flight created from scratch and the 1st division was rebranded as the 2nd division and later rebranded again to the Championship AFC is way to big geographically and a solution needs to be found, it should be split into east and west with OFC being added to east The Pumas are the national Rugby team for Argentina the Super Rugby side is the Jaguares

Too right! I've made suggestions in a comment . I believe australian football needs a transformation similar to when the English 1st division changed to the EPL. I dont need to explain what happened. Something has to be done about the Asian Football Confederation. It is ridiculous that the national teams and clubs have to travel half the world to compete. I cant see why it cant be changed into 2 seperate confederations ,east aisa and west asia . Geographically and logistically it would make more sense. Australia would be in east asia. I reckon the quality would improve particularly at club level. Could australia engage with south american clubs more regularly. Super rugby has the the Pumas from Argentina . Could football have some type of southern hemisphere cup? The point is , football has to come up with some big ideas for NEXT season not for 5 years time.

I truly believe football in Australia has to change and start doing things differently to the other codes. One change, having a 2nd division with promotion / relegation looks like it might happen in the not to far future. The other change I think should happen is to make the premiership the major prize. I believe the champions of Australia should be the team with the most points at the end of the season. This would also align the aleague with 99.9% of the worlds competitions. Think about Liverpool , what is the one prize they want to win over all others. The EPL of course. We see around the world the excitement of fans when their club wins the league title. The thinking in australian sport has been , there must be a final series because thats our culture. And fair enough because the excitement of finals games can be amazing. But there has always been a bit of a empty feeling that the best team for the season never really gets acknowledged. They get the dull title of minor premiers. If they don't win the grand final they are seen as failures. I would suggest the FFA cup be played at the end of the season. And why not have another knockout cup played over the season. When the 2nd division starts maybe first goes up automatically and 2nd to 5th play off for the other promotion spot. Football in Australia has to start doing things different to the other codes to attract attention particularly, of broadcasters. We keep hearing broadcasters need content. Having 2 promotion /relegation would be a good start. Right now, football in Australia has nothing to lose.

Dolphin is simply to far from the Brisbane CBD (30KM) to be Considered a fulltime option

Sam I'n not going to quibble about a few hundred here or there. Currently its around 10k. Over the past few seasons a number of major crowd pulling clubs have had to endure a nomadic existence with stadium builds etc. This will continue on for the next few seasons. Plus the fact that 2 of the leagues biggest sides have had poor seasons.

Crowds have been falling for six consecutive seasons, a fact ignored by the FFA who in effect were locked in to a war with fans - a war they won at the expense of attendances. They can go back up again if the FFA change their attitude.

Interesting optimism Chris ...................... crowd averages below 10k in 2020.

Agree with all that. Although I think the suburban stadiums will be one of the pluses to come out of all this. I’d fully expect Roar to at least consider relocating to Dolphin with its new 11,500 capacity and 12.5k with temporary seating and fill it regularly.

Agree 100% Waz. The average 10k is very achievable as it seems to be around that mark that at the very least, the die hard football fans make up. With pro/rel and engagement of grass roots, that average will only grow.

Waz its called cherry picking data to suit ones argument. For some reason, Schwarzer has had nothing but criticism for football in Aus ever since he retired.

All good points, although we might struggle to get back to 10k+ crowds, especially as we enter a new phase of low-cost, no frills football at suburban grounds.

The one thing we’re really good at in football is beating ourselves up too much. The internet has made whingers of us all, a frustrated post on Monday turns to anger if nothings changed by Friday lol. There is no pro/rel in the A-League, that’s because we don’t have a national second division. Angst needs to be turned towards those clubs and administrators responsible for forming the division, not the A-League who aren’t. The A-League will survive this crisis and will be better off for it. It will be a smaller scale financially and may even have fewer clubs in it - but it will still average 10k+ crowds and still have a tv deal although different to Fox Sports. And we are producing more talent than ever before. Our club based academies exceed anything the AIS offered with better facilities, better coaching, more players in the system, and players receiving coaching from a much younger age. Sadly we view the “Golden Generation” through rose-tinted glasses and few of them would make Senior grade in Europe today. Times have changed. There’s a long list of things that need improving but equally there’s much that we’re getting right. We don’t need radical change and there’s nothing the bankrupt AFL can teach us, their model has run its course and that code will shrink rapidly in coming years as tv money evaporates and government handouts disappear. Football needs to do its own thing now and look to Football in Europe and Asia for inspiration, not NRL, AFL and BBL. we’ve tried that too often, we’re not “unique, we’re football.

If the AFL “centralised model” is so great how come their participation seriously lags that of football and the code just has to take on a serious debt of $600m just to survive? And let’s not mention failed expansion in Sydney’s west and the Gold Coast as well as the joke of a game in China.

Whatever our travails, the game will survive.

Dear Mark, soccer may find that the number of professional players will fall in Australia, if there is no money to pay them. You are assuming the TV money will be the same, that companies will bounce straight back from COVID-19, and the employment will be good too, along with real wage increases. That is a lot of wishing, whether soccer likes it or not it lives in a country that has fast forward its future in a direction it did not even dream of 3 months past.

You're right Alex. Anyone who calls for Football to regress to semi-professional in this country is NOT a fan of football. You will find that they are often NPL stooges who really only care about their social club, and couldn't give two hoots about the game of football itself.

Schwarzer is going against the tide in world soccer. In the US the clubs have become the dominant group in the organisation of the sport such that their US Soccer Academy closed. In other countries the same process has occurred, where lower age teams have been organised by clubs or regions and not the centre. The latter is seen as a facilitator, disseminator, or vetter [child safety, basic standards etc]. Given the geographical size of Australia, and its population distribution there has to be some state input, be that at any age level to foster, nurture and enhance soccer across the different gender, ages and abilities of participants. It may be at the fully professional level that input is reduced, and is more an 'influence' than an executive role. What COVID-19 has exposed in soccer, world wide, is the influence of money on the game, and the smell is not that good. Clubs being bought to 'sports-wash' a regime, wages reaching at all levels unsustainable levels while most peoples wages since 2008 have in real terms being static, football wanting to continue without fans to get money off the TV companies, clubs loth to cut season ticket prices for 2020-21 or even refund for lost matches. I note sports people giving time, effort, resources to support others, but the system they exist in, and wider society, needs to adjust what is 'normal'.

Nick...I read that article with interest as well. Particularly as so many contributers to this site were convinced that the decentralisation of power within the game would leave us with streets paved in gold.

1000%

Last week, Australia's most-capped Socceroo, Mark Schwarzer, told Optus Sport the sport was wasting millions on administration. "We have nine full-time boards in the various states and territories who are trying to govern the game in their own precinct, and that's all they care about," he said. "No-one wants to relinquish power. "The AFL receives double the [government] funding of football. Yet they have half the number of participants. "Why? They're unified. "The head of AFL goes in there as a unified organisation in control of the entire game, over the entire country. We don't." - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-26/foxtel-pulls-pin-a-league-may-not-return-after-coronavirus/12184472