Part of football’s issues over the decades has been its one-upmanship. The professional football community in Australia is polarised between various groups all thinking they have the knowledge to solve our issues.
It’s actually laughable, as most simply shout out slogans and have key attack lines towards other groups.
I can’t stand NSL folk almost willing the A-League to fall over. Equally I can’t stand people wanting the former NSL sides to collapse.
The truth is many, if not most, football folk in Australia see our issues as being easy to fix. Further issues can be fixed with simple ideas. We compare ourselves to Europe and South America. Anyone who even suggests our sporting environment is a tad different is quickly told we are not unique.
The very simple if unpleasant truth is the mix of teams in the NSL was never going to get mainstream support, no matter how successful.
We don’t have football community support in professional Australian football.
The world is in the grip of an attitude that says ‘you don’t need to understand to manage’. It’s specialists versus generalists. Each sees only the lack of their expertise in the other. The ancients moved in tribes because all skills were needed to survive. Industrialisation accelerated the way we could all work separately but together as a society.
Technology has enabled large numbers of people to survive without understanding how anything works while forgetting how each of us still relies on others.
It certainly allows senior executives to think they know what is going on ‘at the coalface’. The humble dashboard somehow became the Holy Grail.
(Photo By Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
Fundamentally the Australian Professional Leagues, Football Australia, and the state and federal NPLs use their power and influence together with corporate backing to bamboozle the football community. Failures are translated into successes or reinterpreted as events beyond their control. Ineptitude is just covered up.
If pushed, as in the need to publish annual reports, performance is measured against fast-moving goalposts instead of five-year strategic plans.
The victim is the football community, many of us stoically continuing to support both professional and community football. The community has no voice and is too geographically and demographically diverse to reach, key APL, FA and state and federal platforms and decision-makers.
The people running the game think differently. They’re all about the corporate image, branding, performance indicators, revenue streams, managing outcomes, profit yields, the corporate family, marketing – all stuff that is important to them, but you wonder what the relevance of it is to the rest of us. Professional administrators speak a different language.
Football in Australia doesn’t need saving, it operates and flourishes at all levels except the professional level.
Professional football in Australia at all levels needs to understand they need community football to support them, but they do nothing to attract that support.
As an outside reference, Major League Soccer in the United States has exploded from where it was in 2000. In part that’s because the MLS identified a number of major issues they needed to solve and then build around. Two they saw as critical were football-specific stadiums so that they could control their grounds and also a 32 or 34-week regular season plus playoffs. The season length is equally critical in Australia as well.
By taking a long-term view of where they sat and what was achievable, MLS and USA professional football in general have grown.
Our issues are many but fundamental to grow Australian Professional Football is to connect to the player base, engage the player base, and change the perception of how the player base views Australian Professional Football. This is neither simple nor does it have simple solutions. Community Football is IMO the fundamental base starting point to build from.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Football in Australia does need saving the only level that operates well is the professional level. Grassroots needs to be better funded, this guy from Germany was talking about his local club had great facilities including a sauna, what are you getting at the local level here house of horrors level dressing room or nothing. NPL is flourishing in terms of flogging off every position to parents and totally ignoring the job they are supposed to be doing. This is the main problem area, talent is being ignoredm and why the Socceroos have gone backwards. The A-league level if they had bigger crowds and more money they dont have many locals to spend it on , it would be mainly foreigners because of the NPL clubs.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
You go to the right hand side of the scores, and select Australia cup then it shows you the fixtures. The problem is the scores dont show up.
chris
Guest
I go to every SFC home match. The quality of the games are good. I can't drag people there. I also have no doubt that over the next few seasons things will get back to a normal type scenario and SFC will get their 15-20k average back. What I can do is counter people like you who get bored with their chosen sport (in your case AFL), who think it's their duty to stick the boot in whenever they can. What's your contribution apart from tr olling?
chris
Guest
And here you are yet again, tr olling the football blogs. I'm glad I have been able to entertain you.
AR
Guest
"Any comments on the huge turn outs for these friendly matches?" Isn't that the point of this whole discussion? Yes, people turn up for token mickey mouse matches once a year. But they don't turn up week in week out for the professional tier of football in Australia. That's the problem. You don't seem to offer any solutions other than to snipe and screech on online forums. Well done!
AR
Guest
Aha. chris, try to stay on point, without mentioning the AFL. Presumably you think that every team - even privately owned teams like WSW - should have wholly taxpayer-funded stadiums...yes? Here is the bizarre victim welfare-state complex laid bare.
Midfielder
Roar Guru
Without rating and crowds there will be limited media
Kewell
Roar Rookie
Make it rainbow coloured and people will be pouring through the gates.
Kewell
Roar Rookie
Midfielder, yes it is an important ingredient. But getting football on as much media as possible is also important. Of course this can be achieved by through getting more involved in the community. Things like helping charities , organising school training sessions etc, and getting that on local media.
Midfielder
Roar Guru
SWD Fully agreed when you said """" It has been blatantly obvious """""
chris
Guest
SheffW my kids are the same. But then again, they can only name and recognise a handful of players from the top Euro teams. Its not like they can list out players from say Brighton or Wolves etc. I drag them along to a few games a season and then it's up to them later on if they want to go to more. Mine didn't know the WC qualifiers were on either until i told them and still they didn't want to get up to watch at 4am lol.
Sheffield WesDay
Roar Rookie
I have been following all these comments and I have to side with the Author on this one. It has been blatantly obvious in recent weeks with the winter of Football delights being served up (including A League All Stars) that Australia have a huge following and love for football. And why wouldn't we, 80% of Australian population is British, Irish, Italian or German decent. That represents 3 of the "Top 5" football leagues in the world, it is in our blood, as is the generational support of these European teams. We seem to have the supporters, and we seem to have the players at community level, but there is no respect or support for the Pro game. I have said it before on this site, "we love football, just not our own". I do believe that PR is a vital cog in connecting our community to the pro game. I have often spoken about my son in NPL U13 and the experiences I have with him and his club as a parent and football lover. But I know for a fact none of his team mates went to see the Roar play Leeds at GC, but nearly all went to see Leeds play AV at Suncorp. None of his team watched the recent WC qual vs UAE (before the Peru game), they didn't even know it was on, and constantly play down both the Socceroo's and A League. These are our elite level juniors and none of them can even name more than 2 - 3 players from the Roar, but....they all want to be picked for the Roar youth as it is their only real connection to their ultimate goal of playing pro themselves (they irony of not supporting the Pro League that they all expect to be scouted for is completely lost on them). That is where the PR really comes in. If our local kids can see their local team progressing up the leagues to NPL Level, and then on into NSD and then A League, I reckon their attitudes toward domestic Pro football would change in a heartbeat. Surely our first step should be to harness the resources we already have and somehow start moving it all in the same direction.
Garry
Roar Rookie
depends on if you add in newly promoted.. teams have done so..Leicester & AND Manchester Utd to name a couple :happy: ..altho it was div 1 when Man Utd were promoted..
Midfielder
Roar Guru
RB P & R can't work without strong support from the broader Football community.... To get that support perceptions of Australian need to change at local park level...
chris
Guest
Hey Pip, you're a numbers man. Any comments on the huge turn outs for these friendly matches? You only seem to comment on the low ones. It's hard to change your spots I know.
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
At a minimum, we will always have the support we have currently, which admittedly is at an all-time historic low, but I honestly do believe this represents the floor for what is possible for professional football in this country. But even if we were to accept that this is what the game looks like going forward, well, that's not too shabby, as long as it's enough for the league to continue, that's all that really matters. I also personally hold the view that there is a benefit to the current low in attendances, it's an environment where P&R can seriously be considered because a club like South Melbourne, for arguments sake, could replicate those average attendances from day one, if it were to win promotion to the league.
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
Daigo Waap Firstly, let me congratulate you on your unusual name. I've never seen anything like it. When the socceroos qualified for the 2006 WC (doing so in 2005), they did it from Oceania and they were very much products of the NSL era. The move to Asia, the one truly big thing Frank Lowy achieved for the game, made qualifying for the WC as easy as pie. You say that the NSL didn't represent "areas like AFL clubs do". I'm not an expert on the AFL, but I do know that all the Melbourne clubs are located within a few kilometers of the CBD (that's 9 clubs!) Is that the sort of thing you are recommending for the A-League? Radical, it might well work.
chris
Guest
Who's abandoning it? And why do you even care? Has the AFL season finished already for you?
AR
Guest
'Professional Football in Australia needs respect and support from community to get going… i.e ratings, crowds, player development…. only then can you consider things like P & R…" Ok, so if football fans don't support professional football in this country, what then?
AR
Guest
C'mon chris...don't abandon your own argument so quickly. You say that each club should have its own colour-coded stadium with statues and changerooms and everything. Sounds amazing. Who pays?