Earlier this week the Association of Australian Football Clubs chairman Nick Galatas gave an update on how things are tracking on the Championship, the proposed national second division for football in Australia.
Galatas noted to the Spider, Shim and so much Moore podcast that progress may seem slow from the outside, but Football Australia has a lot of work to do to align stakeholders in order to get the Championship off the ground.
A lot of informed speculation has been that it is the A-League clubs who are most opposed to the creation of another national league given other potential roadblocks, like the larger state federations, have already announced their support.
Most of the discussion about why the A-League clubs are afraid of a second national league has focussed on promotion and relegation, principally how scary relegation is for clubs and fans who have never experienced it. But relegation is probably off the table for the foreseeable future as the Frank Lowy-David Gallop administration extended the A-League licences for an additional 15 years as well as giving the two new franchises licences that guarantee them top-flight participation for a similar period.
So why would the A-League clubs fear the Championship if there’s no immediate prospect of relegation? The ex-NSL and current NPL clubs surely can’t compete with the brand names and big stadiums of the A-League clubs.
My personal suspicion is that Championship will deliver significant disruption to the A-League clubs’ ability to retain the talented players on their books. A-League clubs are currently hot-housing many of the best 16 to 21-year-old footballers in the country. We’ve discussed here at The Roar and across much of the football media that young players are not given the right opportunities to develop their talent. This COVID-affected A-League season has created a rare opportunity for a lot of them to be given game time that they’ve previously missed out on.
But the Championship clubs will be able to offer young footballers two things that they are not getting much of in the A-League: playing time and money. In 2020 Professional Footballers Australia published its Y-League Pathway and Workplace Conditions Report, which makes for pretty ugly reading for those keen to see Australia’s quality of football improve.
In short, our next generation of players are undertrained, underpaid and a constant flight risk from the local game or from the sport entirely.
The report highlights that our youngsters are just not getting meaningful financial support, which is risking their ability to stick with the game long enough to develop to their full potential. It states that 83 per cent of Y-League players believe a better wage is the most important factor to prolonging their football career, which is a polite way of saying they don’t feel they are being paid enough. And who can blame them when 82 per cent of them earn less than a measly $5000 per year? That income barely covers their out-of-pocket expenses, like footy boots. Even with income from other work commitments, 94 per cent of NYL players are living on less than $19000 per year.
Poor training volume is also a real problem – 67per cent of these players have said that they already do additional training beyond their NYL commitments, with 45 per cent saying that they train on their own a whopping three or more times per week. Why aren’t their clubs giving them those extra sessions?
These are young men, often boys, really, who are on very little money and are having to choose between football and other careers before they have reached their potential in their early 20s. Those who stick with the current system aren’t trained up to a very high level. Unfortunately this is what our talent pipeline looks like. This is how natural talent is wasted.
So this is the gap in the market that the would-be Championship clubs must be eyeing. Even a modest wage of $45,000 per year would be a tempting offer for an 18-year-old who fears getting stuck behind a couple of well-paid veterans on the depth chart. Why not move across town to play in the first team of a Championship club? Sure, the crowds will be smaller and the limelight less intense than in the A-League, but it’s a better development opportunity than being left in limbo in an NPL squad.
For the A-League clubs the message would be clear: use it or lose it. Players will choose to leave if they’re not given opportunities. Ultimately it’s the tougher competition for playing talent that A-League clubs may be most afraid of.
Fortunately for football fans competition drives innovation and excellence. For the good of the football ecosystem and our beloved national teams the Championship can’t come soon enough to give our under-utilised, underpaid next generation the chances that young players of the last 15 years have missed out on.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
They pay for the local NPL refs partially indirectly through their rego fees which Victorian clubs were complaining about and saying they were going to run their own comps but they didnt. The referees are paid more depending on how high the level is. So while NPL clubs pay higher rego fees to the states their refs also get paid a lot more compared to grassroots so I suspect they are actually subsidised to some extent. Once you start flying refs around like they do in the A-league and FFA cup the cost skyrocket, you add the travel expenses plus because they are travelling it takes more of their time so they get paid a lot more. The difference over a season would be 2 million between one option and the next. For a second division it would be a massive cost saving if they used the local refs. However if the FFA is paying no way would they want locals because the visiting team would argue they are biased. If they are paying for it they would probably go for locals.
Marcel
Guest
And the crowd was about 250.
Marcel
Guest
Just returned from watching Apia v Blacktown City.....lots of effort on display...but no-one on the park was ever going to make the run on side of an A League team. We need to stop kidding ourselves that there is a vast untapped supply of talent that has somehow been overlooked by the evil empire of the top tier.
Winter A League is Awesome
Guest
Same can be said for vfl games next to a golf course. Thanks for the insights.
Why not!?
Guest
The professional game here is cooked anyhow. Might as well completely finish it off so there is no arguments of what could have 'saved it'. Anyone who could be bothered to check their history would note that we had this 'new, super-duper proposed' system back in the 1980s. Now that went brilliantly. BTW, I was down at Albert Park(at the golf range) next to Bob Jane stadium and there were more people practicing their golf than watching South Melbourne Hellas play. Good luck.
chris
Guest
How good is this goal? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yCcLeplEp4
Winter A League is Awesome
Guest
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Super_League The proposed competition was designed to feature twenty clubs who would partake in matches against each other – fifteen of these would be permanent members, dubbed "founding clubs" who would govern the competition's operation, while five other places would be given to clubs through a qualifying mechanism focused on the teams who performed best in their country's most recent domestic season.
chris
Guest
Exactly right Punter. A better pathway and a connection to the huge grassroots playing base is whats required. Not a closed shop where only 12-14 teams exist and operate in perpetuity like they do in the other sports. Only the fear of relegation (and promotion) will make clubs, players administrators better. Instead of lining up like starving refugees waiting for the TV money to be handed out. We have the player base here to make it all possible. Even selling one player overseas could make these clubs profitable for years.
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
It depends on how they want to run it. I don't doubt that most clubs will want a salary cap (which will turn the Eurosnobs right off). But let's say there isn't one, so in addition to paying players, the main expense is going to be travel. Once again, how are they going to do it? The easiest way is to simply let each club sort itself out, but that's going to disadvantage the clubs outside the Sydney/Melbourne bubble as their travel costs will be significantly greater. But the clubs in that bubble aren't going to be happy about paying for (say) a Perth team's travel costs. How much do they pay? This stuff's not easy, and i'd be stunned if it's all been worked out already. How many games a year? More games, more costs. Importantly, if it has been worked out already, why not publicly release the model? (Hint: It hasn't been worked out already)
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
You find out who's in, make sure they have a home ground, and fixture it. Let them all work it out themselves how they get to away games. Easy. But it's about the money. They don't have any.
coolncold
Roar Rookie
"That is the European Super League Model" Do you mean European Super League? Is there a relegation system in European Super League. ESL? Is the ESL to be a mixed one? The ESL is comprised of elite clubs that never be relegated? If there is such a saying please let me learn. Please quote a link.
Winter A League is Awesome
Guest
A2 sounds good. APL 2 sounds good as well.
Popavalium Andropoff
Guest
Does it have to be called the Championship? Why not A2, like how the 2nd division in Japan is called J2? We could get sponsorship from A2 Milk!
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
Please - no conferences. Not long ago all time great socceroos keeper, Mark Schwarzer put forward a proposal to have three conferences across a new NSD. The thinking was that it would be cheaper to run. But one of the conferences consisted of clubs from Perth and Darwin - and that's meant to make things cheaper to run?! In all likelihood, a new NSD, should it ever eventuate, will probably start off with clubs from Sydney, Melbourne, maybe Canberra and the gong. The minute you start adding Perth, Tassie and Cairns in the very first season, may as well consign the NSD to the dustbin of history.
Buggalugs
Guest
There is no guarantee about Relegation, Gallop himself confirmed to FIFA https://i.imgur.com/swvhoTg.png https://i.imgur.com/a3nMYM8.png That is fake news , a rumour put about by those scared of Relegation It should not be regurgitated
coolncold
Roar Rookie
Ahh, TV revenue? Just get the 12 existing A-league clubs and FFA to fix an agreed ratio.
coolncold
Roar Rookie
Okay, I might have forgotten to think about how to apportion the TV right revenue. I will consider and study.
Winter A League is Awesome
Guest
The clubs already pay for the refs. I don't think refs would need to travel as there are already NPL refs in each state.
Winter A League is Awesome
Guest
My bad. In total, not per club.
Mark
Guest
NSD has to have an incentive for existing A-League Clubs to allow P/R. My suggestion is a smaller licence fee for NSD say $1M-$2M which goes to A-League to use how they see fit i.e if hand out to existing A-League clubs as compensation for their initial licence fee then so be it. I think NSD should be done in conferences like the USA and some of the larger South American countries second divisions to save on travel. West say WA and SA 2 teams each, South 3 Vic 1 Tas, East 3 NSW 1 ACT, North 3 Qld 1 NT. You could then run say 12 games each per year in the conferences. Then either playoffs for all the top teams in the conferences, or simply if an A-League team from that Conferences region gets relegated then the top team of that conference goes up. I would have two relegations per year. That way you don't have the situation where for instance say Adelaide United gets relegated and gets replaced with another NSW team