AAFC releases plans for second division by 2022

At Work - Just to use some simple arithmetic let's look at your suggestion and cost it. First of all you have to have enough to buy a license - $15,000,000.Then before you kick a ball you have to sign up 23 players at let's say $100 -$150,000 a year. That adds another $2.850,000 to your cost. Then we have to have an administration,from head coach down to the office girl,Brisbane has 25 people in this area. Lets average them out at $ $90,000 per head,that's another$2,250,000, so we now have costs amounting to just under $23,000,000 and we haven't kicked a ball. Now let's look at the potential returns. First of all gate money at $25.00 a head. If a club can manage the proposed average of 10,000 spectators the return from 13 home games would come to $3,250,000 per season. The differential between that calculated return and the tabled costs (less the licence fee) is $1,850,000 ,so you see there has to be another source of income if a club is to survive. Now remember there are only about 3 clubs in the present league who are drawing an average 10,000 to their games,so if the income from media or sponsorship is lost,danger bells have to be rung. The A League is in fact a multi-million dollar business and as such almost demands a high standard of management., not voluntary committees, but professional businessmen. cheers jb.

Hey jb "...maybe a 10 team A League is all that our code can afford..." exactly right and the sooner the fan base start recognising this reality, the better. And what is wrong with a top tier made for media product ? Players, if they are good enough , will rise to this level anyway. Lets celebrate that the game in this country has many levels and stop being hung up on replicating Euro pro/rel structures.

Roger - How right you are. USA has over 10 times our population spread equally all across their land mass so the problem of running 2 "conferences" doesn't exist. Anyone with any common sense could tell you that that "conference" system adopted by the ASF was a futile attempt to feature more "derby " matches. From the word go it was an unmitigated disaster,with the 2 Brisbane teams having to travel every second week to places like Melbourne and Adelaide. This is the problem when "non-soccer" people are placed in positions of power. The incumbents,being told the system worked in USA,immediately assume it would work here. Hence we get this almost endless suggestion forum telling us what has to be done to improve. Brisbane Roar are a classic example.. of this type of action, In the season just closed they kicked off with 3 of their first 5 home games attracting over 10,000 people to their home ground,Suncorp. During that time the top management of the club went public and told the support they would play some games at Redcliffe at a ground that only holds just under 10,000. Doesn't that appear as a slap in the faces of the supporters who turned up to those +10,000 "gates. One would imagine the top management would be seeking answers as to why those "fans" didn't turn up to their other games, while at the same time seeking ways and means on how to INCREASE their attendances. Getting back to what you said.USA is the home of "MARKETING" and it is their expertise in that field that has seen the MSL go from strength to strength . We tend to moan and scream about lack of publicity. The yanks go out and buy that commodity and turn it in to more people attending their games. If you look up Vancouver Whitecaps on the net, you will see how their stadium, built to seat 50,000, is configured to handle a crowd of 25,000, with atmosphere,at no extra cost,using curtains,a fixture, to block off unused areas in the ground. So you get 25,000 sitting on the edge of the playing area. I could go on ,but after 50 years involvement in the game I fear for what is ahead. Cheers jb.

@Atwork, you suggest that we throw all the financial guidelines out the window and just allow the clubs with the best teams to play against one another and call it the A League. So no standards on stadiums? No standards on staffing levels? No standards on memberships or infrastructure? No clubs should be allowed to 'buy their way into the A League' once the NSD is up and running successfully, but they have to meet basic minimum standards before they can get there. If one of those standards is winning the NSD, so be it, but they have to meet the other standards as well. That's all I am saying. I think what a lot of people are saying, is that there should only be ONE criteria, and that is winning the NSD and nothing else applies to them. They can play in a 50yo ground, owned by a local council but leased to a community club on a pepper corn lease. Not have a playing surface that meets A League standards. Forget about lighting for any night fixtures, that may or may not be telecast. Not have a dedicated football club staff to answer every day to day questions from fans, members, supporters. Now I can hear you saying I am being 'bloody stupid' but why would a club need any front of house staff if all they have to do is win the NSD.

JB you are right in many of your points. If NSD clubs don't have the money to survive in a NSD [no matter how it is configured] then how can they be expected to be able to compete in the A League. I agree with you that the conference system isn't ideal, and hasn't worked in the past. It works well in the USA but their population spread is fairly equal on both East and West coasts. If our West coast was equally populated to the East coast [the West would of broken away by now] then a conference system would most likely work well. But we are stuck with this gigantic continent, we so few people. We have to find a way that suits us, that works for us. I think too many of the younger generation wouldn't know the story about 'Hakoah'. How good they were and their sudden disappearance. So many supporters of these older NSL clubs want to drink 'champagne but are on a beer budget'. They think automatically they are going to get 5, 6 or 7k to their games, when in reality it would be surprising if they got any more than they get now. Please don't misinterpret my intentions, I want to see a NSD and I want to see it succeed, all I am doing [I think] is raising the hard questions that need to be asked and answered.

Sorry my mistake, I thought you were referring to potential future the pro/rel between the N2D and the A League. Team Australia's comment about $10m is what made me think of that connection.

@Atwork - I think you may be confused by my comment. The money charged by the AAFC to enter the National Second Division [NSD] won't be or shouldn't be held by the FFA in general revenue, but by the management of the NSD who may well be those clubs involved. [nobody knows at this stage who that party will be] So after a club is relegated from the NSD back to their own State's NPL they are refunded the fees paid by the relegated club. So in effect the newly promoted club [the NPL Australian Champion] pays a fee to enter the NSD, that money or part of that money, is then used to refund the relegated club. I am not talking about P/R from and to the A League what so ever! That is another minefield that will have to be navigated in the not to distant future.

Team Australia and Roger - I think you can take it as something read that very few,if any, of the clubs mentioned in this extensive list of " interested parties",have a ready S10 to S20 million at their fingertips ready to be spent in attaining A league membership. The simple measure to prove this is that the FFA, since early days. have made no secret of the fact that they would like the A-League to be at least 16 teams "strong". Why after 15 years have we only got 11 with 1 of the 11 based across the ditch,leaving only 10 in this country???. It would also be true to say at least 2 or 3 of that "local" 10 are finding existence in the comp to be a financial strain. This scenario being discussed takes us back to the 2 "conference" semi-professional league set up by the then ASF when, after 2 or 3 seasons, there was evidence of the exercise sending clubs broke, thus vanishing from the football scene completely. Can you imagine the thinking going on behind the establishment of that farce when both Brisbane teams were slated to play in the "Southern Conference" !!!!!. The FFA have been trying valiantly to expand their showpiece league for at least 10 years and no cock and bull ideas are going to alter the fact that maybe a 10 team A League is all that our code can afford. So what to do? Lower the wages.? One way of saving money but also a surefire way of lowering the standard of football. Move our top league to winter? Yes, and risk going back to the crowds the NSL attracted, 3-4000 on a good day. Allow more clubs in who are totally dependent on finance from a social club identity?,.Yes and expose these football "arms" being supported in this manner a fate suffered by the NSL's best ever team ,Hakoah ,who were withdrawn from the NSL when a newly elected Social Club committee cut the "funding to the soccer club" from $300,000 per year to nothing in their new budget. The problems facing the A-League today have been amassed by some weird and wonderful thinking at the top level,and those same problems are not going to be solved by re-visiting the past. We can but hope some new thinking emerges from the "fog". Cheers jb.

But that's not the point of pro/rel, which is based on sporting merit and not whoever has the money to buy their way into the top division. By the time any pro/rel is setup the landscape will be different and the whole large licencing fee charged by the FFA would likely be long gone.

No, the FFA don't have the money to refund this. Plus I have read that part of the licencing contracts that there is a clause for pro/rel that could impact their status as a top flight team.

I have no idea, but not many, I'd think. So is the answer we lower our standards to accommodate them? If they don't have the money, should they be aiming to play at the highest level? I honestly don't think lowering our standards is a sensible way to go to grow the game. Direct P/R is still some way off, I would love to see how the NSD goes first before we introduce direct P/R into the A League, lets see how many clubs can survive in the NSD. Lets see how they cope with P/R into and out of the local NPLs. It is my experience that local clubs with a couple of thousand supporters often get their ambitions and capabilities confused.

Rodger, how many NPL/NSD teams will have, say, $20 million they can access for the licence and operating expenses for their first couple of seasons in the A-League?

If they don't should they be in a professional League? This is the whole basis of the P/R argument isn't it? There are some who say that the A League should be opened up to everyone and then complain because all these non-professional clubs want the standards to be lowered so they can compete. I say the opposite, by all means if you are good enough on the park to earn a spot, that's great, but you have to have the finances to do it. I live in SA and I can tell you that none of the Adelaide clubs mentioned have the finances to play at Hindmarsh Stadium. So what do the A League clubs do, (1) sorry you can't enter the A League or (2) lower the standards and say you can play at your local ground. Where there are limited facilities, no seating or covered grandstands, where they attract maybe 1500 on a good day. Is this what we really want for our A League?

Partnership of ‘30 teams’ for a second devision that would have perhaps 10 teams? Strange approach, the ‘plan’ to get these teams in agreeance? 2035 before there is a ‘real’ plan!

Do you really think a 2nd division comp will be FULL of clubs who will each have access to $10 million to pay for an AL licence?

That's a Yes from me. If they don't have the money they won't be able to compete .

And if the club who wins promotion don't have $10m sitting in their bank account do they forfeit promotion?

I know nothing. But I did keep abreast of early goings on when Rabieh Krayem had the lead. There were a number of bigger clubs, from Qld I guess they're the only ones I know or notice, that are no longer on the list. Begs the question why. Plus the original planning was to be coordinated with other issues, like P/R, broadcast and probably all those you mention plus many times more. But we just get this on its own, with no detail and no update on any of the other working groups. Have they all ground to a halt? has this one on second tier been coordinated with them? or is it a lone ranger? I suspect the latter, and add the absence of a number of clubs, causes me to worry that this is a breakaway group of sorts.

Also the relegated club from the NSD would also be refunded their fees that are paid to the AAFC

My immediate response would be a yes.