Should Melbourne Victory worry about on-field performance?

A lack off fans wasn't the problem. That's my exact point. City have the same problem now as before. Relevance to Victorians at large. As a global accounting fix, you never will. City know this and they are fine about it.

City are one of literally dozens of cost centres in a football portfolio which is itself one of dozens in the ballance sheet of an authoitarian, global, multi billion dollar petro chemical empire. Melbourne Victory, a club built and owned by Melbourne football fans (corporate and individual), who lost 5.6m over THREE years (1.8m PA on avg) the backdrop of a global pandemic and who just topped 10,000 members a week into their membership drive for a club finally rebuilding. Melbourne will dwarf City once by any meausre football fans care about again soon enough. To compare these football entities is meaningless. While the precursor to City was a huge failure, the transition to the new owners lost something important that Melbourne and it’s fans hAve in spades, even in the dark times. Heart.

Pushing aside your nuance on Winter football, although I am in favour of a 40 game season, Channel 10 and a lot of the clubs need to focus on creative writing in both their web pages and press releases.

Less midweek games would help aswell. It's a long hike from the Goldie.

As far as the clubs go it would depend on how their contracts are formulated with their coaches and players. e.g. are they paid per game or per year. I suspect that they are registered for the whole year with a retainer of around 50% of their expected salary and bonus depending upon where the team finishes in the A League and appearances made throughout the season. FFA Cup performance and Asian Champions League would also be add ons. That being the case extra games could be profitable providing the TV partners agree to pay for extra content because the cost of playing would be pro rata cheaper.

Chopper - Over the years this "solution " has been thrown up and discussed at length but seldom, if ever, acted upon. There are some "facts" that have to be faced. After 15 years of fully professional football being available it would appear we are still stuck with only 12-14 "identities" willing to invest in the programme, thus making the "play each other 3 times" a solution rather than an achievable aim for the game. At the moment ,covet aside, there are at least 4 teams out of the 12 that could be said to be in financial difficulties with another 3 or 4 nearing the break even line This all points to one fact, can Australia afford a full time professional football league? The answer to that question covers ,or should cover, any solutions to the problem that may exist, and it is in the way that the A-League clubs themselves actually attack the problem that will prove to be successful or otherwise. To date little had been done to realistically expand the league with fees and costs, continually on the rise, serving to frighten new investors, rather than encourage them. Every 3 or 4 years we go through the same routine with calls emanating from high places for "interested parties" to make submissions and this is usually accompanied with at least 10 submissions that ever so gradually decreases to 1 or no "takers" obviously frightened away when they hear the expected budgets for a year's existence. Is there a solution? Not on the present horizon though Auckland have shown the figures from a couple of Phoenix games held there as did Christchurch a few years back. Lowy's number crunchers suggested 15 years ago that survival in the A-league needed a 10,000 home crowd level and if we look at "averages " over the years few participants in the competition have managed that basic instruction. Were these "professionals" wrong,? it would appear not when one looks at the actual figures generated. Cheers jb.

Blood - Do no limit tour observation to Australia and New Zealand when in fact winning teams all over the world attract larger crowds while former "giants" struggle. Sometime clubs and coaches ignore this fact and play a brand of football that can only be described as boring. Way back in the 1960's this thinking nearly put an end to the Serie A as we knew it ,as the clubs appeared to accept defensive football as a good means to an end. It wasn't long before the "numbers crunchers " at the top clubs put an end to such nonsense and ordered a change in thinking. I sometime wonder if we are in the same vein after recently watching the Matildas playing at least 12 crossfield passes between centre-backs in an effort to use up time. The fact that seems to be being ignored is that football is an entertainment. Getting back to your observation ,attacking football usually means more goals and therefore bigger crowds. Cheers jb.

The Rule in Australian and New Zealand is if you want people to turn up you have to be winning

As the A-League is in world football terms still a child, what Victory don't want to become is the 1860/Espanyol/Torino/Notts County etc, known as the other club in the city, because once you start falling behind on the field, you will eventually fall behind on off the field as well.

jb the major problem with the development of the game in Australia is the lack of games. Our A League only plays 22 games before the finals in a 6 month season. That's why the younger players get limited game time. The answer is to play each team three times as the Scottish Premier League once did therefore giving the A League 33 games a season. Increased games = increased squads and more of the younger players getting a chance because of injuries to first teamers. Without game time our youth cannot match the rest of the world.

A bit like Darwin, I would love to be up in Darwin during an Adelaide winter season. I would be walking around in shorts and a T shirt while the locals are rugged up in jumpers and coats.

I do love you two exchanging banter. You'd be great at BBQ with a few beers in you.