The A-League is living through a credibility crisis. Or maybe a whole era of diminished credibility in the eyes of the football community in Australia.
There’s a long history of distrust between Australia’s large football community and the people running the professional level of the local game. Plenty of clubs have risen and fallen. In fact, we are one of the few countries that have had to re-build their national leagues from scratch.
But when we use the word “league” what are we talking about? The organising body that arranges fixtures, manages TV contracts and referees?
Or a league as a collection of competing clubs engaged in ongoing “co-opetition”. We really use both, and switch between meanings with ease. Unfortunately, that linguistic sleight of hand can lead us to missing problems that are right under our noses.
Fans are not mugs. We see and hear things very easily in this hyper-connected world that we live in. Fans are attracted not just to on-field success, glamour and history, but are correspondingly put off by instability and changing identities.
Although the historic narrative about the NSL’s failure surrounds the question of mono-ethnic clubs, the league was also filled with clubs that regularly hurt their relationship with fans through shifting home grounds or the clubs’ very identities.
Who can forget the South Melbourne “Lakers”? Or Sydney Olympic who never found a spiritual home in Sydney across the decades?
I argue that the NSL was unstable because its constituent clubs were unstable and had difficult relationships with their potential fans. Unfortunately, we’re now living through the same difficulties with the majority of the existing top flight clubs.
If we were to run our eyes over the twelve existing A-League clubs to see which have a reputation for stability (or at least minimal periods of instability), as well as generally making good decisions around recruiting coaches and players, we really only have four candidates: Sydney FC, Melbourne Victory, Melbourne City and Adelaide United.
Only four clubs have credible reputations with their fans.
Adelaide United and Melbourne Victory offer stability. (Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images)
Then we have the Problem Children. All of these clubs have something deeply wrong with them that harms their credibility with their existing or prospective fans.
They have chronic off-pitch issues that alienate fans. None of these clubs are reaching their potential.
Macarthur FC have actively alienated their relationships with fans in the region through high ticket prices and a fractious relationship with their own active fans.
They have shown minimal interest in developing a large, thriving fan-base. This is what happens when you sell a licence to real estate developers with no prior experience in football.
Western United have very similar structural problems to Macarthur, with the aggravated offence of not delivering on any of their promises to develop a training ground and home stadium in Western Melbourne. Arguably they bought their way into the league under false pretenses.
The owner of Perth Glory, Tony Sage does some things well, but undermines his occasional good works by undermining public confidence in the Glory. Semi-regularly talking about moving the club away from its spiritual home to other less impressive stadiums in Perth damages the club’s image of stability.
As does floating ridiculous thought bubbles about an impossible to implement league with South East Asian clubs.
Western Sydney Wanderers’ board has a high tolerance for incompetence that has allowed several consecutive seasons of mediocrity.
Fans have well and truly had enough and stayed away in droves. Some competent off-field and on-field leadership can bring the success that will bring back the red and black bandwagon.
Newcastle Jets have no money, and are owned by a consortium of other A-League club owners who are keeping the Jets on life support. This is nice, but there’s a distinct lack of local leadership and investment to get the Jets back up in public consciousness in the Hunter.
They are just hanging on.
CCM have an owner who is keeping the club at its lowest viability with minimal investment. They have the odd good season and a knack for giving valuable opportunities for good young talent, but the club is just not built for sustained on-field success.
Brisbane Roar also have ownership problems, compounded by bad decision-making in moving the club to a small outer suburban home instead of its central home at Lang Park.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
Remember, a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a club that moves its home grounds gathers no consistent fan-base. Don’t be like Sydney Olympic. Cheap-skate decisions like that also harm the public confidence in the club’s future.
Wellington Phoenix have a good relationship with their fans, and probably shouldn’t be on the naughty list. Being exiled to Australia and thousands away from their fans for the last two seasons is in no way shape or form their own fault.
However, they have been a lame duck, and that needs to be acknowledged when assessing where the A-League is at right now.
Every league is the sum of its parts. So we have a serious problem where only one third of our clubs can be considered to have adequate credibility with their fans.
Does that mean we are really operating at one third capacity? It’s probably worse than that because the inadequacies of the majority of clubs are dragging down the overall image of the game, and harming the competent clubs as well.
So what’s to be done? Unfortunately, this is where governance and politics kick in. Dry subjects to some, but critical to understand if we are to embrace success.
In better leagues, the competent clubs heavily outnumber the incompetent clubs. And they also have mechanisms for enforcing standards such as promotion and relegation. In franchise leagues, the League headquarters also tend to have step-in powers.
For example, the NBA forced the sale of the LA Clippers when its owner brought the league into disrepute with some off-court issues.
When the FFA ran the A-Leagues they had too high a tolerance for badly run clubs. They only ever stepped in when the very existence of a club was in doubt.
Any harm to the overall reputation of the league, and the sport more generally, was ignored. We can’t live like that anymore. We must enforce off-field competence standards in order to rebuild the credibility of the game.
So the question for us can the APL enforce standards on the recalcitrant clubs? It’s not just a question of legal power, but also of politics. Wellington aside, if we have 7 of 12 clubs deserving to be penalised for bringing the league’s reputation down, they’re not going to vote against themselves. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas after all.
Wellington Phoenix fans (Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images)
Perhaps Silver Lake owning 1/3rd of the league will actually be a saving grace. As an investor with its eye only on return on investment they will hate the idea of a cabal of incompetent clubs continuing to drag down the league’s reputation. Maybe ViacomCBS will use its 2% voting rights to weigh in as well?
At the time of the unbundling of the APL from Football Australia, FA advised it will also “retain ‘good of the Australian game’ rights in respect of the Professional Leagues, which apply to a variety of matters that are aimed at ensuring the ongoing growth of the Professional Leagues”.
We don’t publicly know what that means in detail, but perhaps Football Australia has some residual power here too?
But one thing is for sure. The APL needs to start exerting power against the recalcitrant clubs that are holding the game back. It will be very interesting to see how this off-field political dynamic plays out as the league begins its recovery from COVID.
Anthony
Guest
The A League has no hope in this country with the current management! It is run by invisible people with no clear vision, commitment or direction! Compared with the AFL run by a proper CEO Gillon MacLachlan and his team the A League is run by amateurs! They go on about a second division when they cannot manage the growth of the first division. By now we should have a 16 club A League with record crowds .. instead we have a stuttering mess that limps from one season to the next without any direction, hope or vision!
Grem
Roar Rookie
A new week and the NRLW are joining in - female NRL player being investigated about her offensive post about The Queen. Don’t worry the male NRL players feature too - Roosters player out of jail on bail over an extortion attempt on a businessman. They are the gift that keeps on giving!
Grem
Roar Rookie
And this week Taylan May from Penrith issued with a breach charge in relation to his assault charge on a fan. They only have up to maybe 100 thousand players in 2 states only - they are an amazing code!
Grem
Roar Rookie
And a former player convicted of murder this week and it’s only Tuesday. NRL - the stories just keep coming.
Robert Pettit
Guest
A compelling reason for instituting an NSD is to give up and coming (younger) players more game time in a professional league. A fully professional NSD would likely, within a couple of seasons, be of a higher standard than the current NPL and in doing so put pressure on ALM (and eventually ALW) teams to raise their standard of play. There are a lot of pluses in introducing a NSD.
Robert Pettit
Guest
The Australia Cup, over time, will help raise the profile of football. Watching games at Bentleigh and Oakleigh from the closeness of thecfence surrounding the respective playing field sure beats the AAMI Park experience. The inroads of football into the Australian sporting consciousness is glacial, though at least progressing. Tipping points are occurring and a big one should arise from WWC23 even if the inept Gustavsson remains as coach. Overdue for a women's Australia Cup.
Robert Pettit
Guest
P/R is essential to disciplining the current AL clubs who appear to favour a closed shop. P/RC means there is no hiding from poor club performance on and off the field. Bottom club relegated and second last faces a two legged play off against the side finishing second in the NSD. What theatre this would create. Also 7 years after a NSD launched the trapdoor is opened for P/R all the way from the grassroots to the ALM. This will promote, over the longer term, club excellence both on and off the field and promote additional spending on football infrastructure. Similar scenario, though, on an extended time frame for the women's game. Also extend the home and away season to at least 33 games to create more playing opportunities for all squad members and to raise the standards of both the ALM and ALW. Short sighted to have an ALM of only 26 home and away games. Football supporters are conditioned to long seasons. Why are we short changed in Australia? As the article alludes too the APL, as currently constituted, has been hindering the development of football for a considerable number of years.
Grem
Roar Rookie
Football is a world game played in virtually every country there is, with many, many players – you found an English player up on an offence. The NRL is basically a 2 state game with not many players and guess what – it’s only Monday and we’ve got Curtis Scott on assault charges against his wife. Tomorrow?
Grem
Roar Rookie
Another interesting NRL week coming up. Monday has an NRL player on an assault charge against his wife. So how was the women in league round 2 weeks ago?
Gogo Barz
Roar Rookie
Macarthur honestly is the worst run club in Australian Football history. Yes even including the corrupt NSL days.
David V
Guest
The Adam Johnson case anyone?
Tim Carter
Roar Pro
When was the last time you saw an A-League player in criminal court, or taking drugs, etc?
con
don't know how to explain the demise of the game recently but it seems that fa has done fa
Pistol
Roar Rookie
Cheers, yeah I enjoy all sports and the uniqueness each offer. I follow/observe football but cannot call myself an expert by any means. I have just always thought Aussie sporting culture is most similar to US (yet still very different) and from a distance the MLS seems to do pretty well considering the sporting congestion landscape there, again similar to here. I dont think A League or football needs to follow one particular way, thats my whole point I guess, do it the Aussie way and what fits/appeals in a general sense. Cheers and yes, great discussion. Enjoy the upcoming season :thumbup:
Grem
Roar Rookie
As Roberto said above – great discussion. Your points are really interesting and valid. I also appreciate you putting ideas forward without ever appearing to put down the A League, as others tend to do. The A League can certainly learn from AFL, the NRL, the MLS as well as football in Asia and Europe. I’m not a football purist, so I get the – let’s do it the Aussie way. It’s actually difficult to tell which sport you follow – you appear to be a general sports fan.
Pistol
Roar Rookie
yeah, I think I get what you are saying, so it would be similar in comparison to say NRL fans (equivalent to football fans) watching Queensland Cup or NSW Cup, or say AFL fans (again equivalent to football fans) watching VFL, WAFL or SANFL league (as in second tier comps ala A-League)? If that makes sense? :laughing:
Punter
Roar Rookie
This actually makes the gap bigger. O/S teams to A-League. Hence why I always say there is a big difference between football fans & A-League fans. I believe Australia has a very strong following in Sydney especially in Sydney, it would be 2nd to League only, but this is not A-League. Whereas Aussie Rules fans follow AFL & Rugby League fans follow the NRL, not even half the football fans in this country follow the A-League. So I think it’s far bigger than just novelty. There are lots of O/S football fans. here. As for your suggestions
Pistol
Roar Rookie
as per O/S teams, that's never been an issue, big clubs will always attract big crowds, just for the novelty more than anything (and of course support). A bit like NRL giving Perth?Melbourne/Adelaide SOO games, they get big crowds, but do it every year and the novelty will eventually drop away, just what happens in 'non-traditional' states. But does this actually strengthen the A-League's cause or actually make the gap worse? Not sure
Pistol
Roar Rookie
Yeah true, Victory at their best seemed to peak around 26-27k, (https://www.ultimatealeague.com/statistics/attendance/?season=2006-07) but that was a while ago now in the early A-League days and even then I'm not sure Melbourne is actually the best guide (whats the old adage, Melbournian's would turn up to watch two fly's crawl up a wall :laughing:) I guess the point is its one thing to initially attract crowds, its another thing to hold and then grow them long term, which seems to be the main point really. As per first past the post etc., why cant both work? I've always liked the top of the table team to be awarded like in Football/soccer. I've always seen AFL and NRL lacking in this respect where there should be greater award. Why not just make the 'finals' another comp to win (which is basically what it is now I know).
Punter
Roar Rookie
What other sport does this, I think you would find that football has done this. Melbourne Victory prior to the debacle of the in fighting that destroyed our crowds was averaging nearly 30K a game in Melbourne, not bad on a budget 1/10th of the either the Swans or the giants & especially in no 3-4 sporting competition in Australia. Then you get 70K, 80K & even 96K for some of the O/S teams visiting to show that football (not the A-League) is quite strong in this country. The A-League has the issue that it's not top tier football. As for traditionalist, my feeling is that in AFL & NRL, I would say that 90% of the time the better team wins. In football this is not always the case, hence why I prefer 1st past the post to shows who is the best team in the competition.