Promotion and relegation needs to pave the way for the finals series to be scrapped

The argument for and against are really 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. The reality of a best team of the season relies on an absolute even home and away fixture. Without that - - then such a title of best team is compromised. Noting the AFL and NRL do NOT have a perfectly balanced H&A season. And the A-League.......12 teams goes perfectly into a 22 round H&A season (like the VFL prior to expansion). It doesn't go perfectly into 26 rounds. So until you solve that issue then the finals series is the best way to through a net over the best teams and give them a known and fair framework to determine the season champion. Yes - - you might dominate all year and lose a key player to injury late in the piece.......however - - you may also have a key player unavailable mid season that kills your chances for top spot. btw - the FIFA WC; the results previously don't matter once you hit the knock out finals. In a finals series scenario - - the season is the long drawn out 'qualification/seeding' process. A team can get so far clear that they take the foot off the pedal and ease up towards the end. In finals - you can't do that. It's not a flawed system.

i liked my idea a week or two ago, no finals, but replaced with a cup Tournament same with relegation, play-off format. just depends on growth to determine how also a mid-table cup which may include top 2 or 3 teams from second division ??? also, what people may be forgetting is that the clubs get very limited gate takings from final series. sure they get the food and alcohol money...but the lions share goes to the A-League I don't have a problem with that, for the good of the game...it must happen 2-3 end of season Cups/Relegation, allows more people/fans to watch live football...it can't be held in one place If money is what matters, don't you think having more people turn up to either celebrate a good season- champions Cup...develop for next season-mid table cup...or come out to maybe inspire your team, to stay in the top-flight Evolution is something Humans go through, very rarely does Evolution take a backward step?

This is where I meant to reply and why the other one is deleted. Great point NoMates. Making the top 6 is a success and the beauty is once you are there you could win the grand final. Wellington are capable of beating any team in the A Leagues.

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There are the ‘laws of football’ that govern how to play the actual game…and then there are the ‘customs of football’ which dictate how the game is structured throughout the world . You are confusing the two. There is no law saying that in order to be authentic you must only have a first past the post system. Football is what you make it. Our culture deems that we like a finals system - and crowd numbers and viewing figures support that. The NSL followed a similar mechanism when nobody forced them to..and tone the Aleague has continued that. Now whether or not we borrowed it from other codes doesn’t matter . It’s part of our football culture and we should embrace it. It’s even used in our semi pro state leagues which goes to show it’s not going away anytime soon.

This is not an easy question. Philosophically, I’m against a finals system as you are right, it’s not particularly fair that the winners are decided in one game, certainly not in a sport like football where you don’t get scores like 107-68. On the other hand, the grand final has given us a lot of excitement and memorable moments. And the English Football League do kind of do have a sort of finals. They introduced play-off systems for promotion in the lower tiers for the last promotion spot in 1987, ending up in the third placed team getting to lift a trophy (presumably saying ‘Congratulations! You came third!”) at Wembley. So I guess that’s another case of excitement, drama, more games, more hope for lower teams to get promoted and more revenue from tickets and and tv trumping a sense of fairness for the team that actually finished third. But I do always watch them. It could work not having a grand final if the Australia Cup (Geez, I hate that name!) had a bigger profile or the final was moved to the end of the season, but I think we may be stuck on the toilet seat.

That Man City scenario you refer to is a rare event. Let's look at some of the league tables as they stand right now at about the half way mark. SPL - Celtic, 9 points clear La Liga- Barca, 8 points clear Ligue 1 - PSG, 8 points clear Aleague - Melb City, 7 points clear with a game in hand The season would be over for most teams if we had a first passed the post champion. As for the ACL, unless they increased the prize money dramatically then it is proven nobody cares about it as much as they should. So qualifying for it is nothing like the UCL. Meanwhile as mentioned by Jamesb and others, removing the finals will be removing the possibility of having any more of those fantastic GFs that we've had in the past that are now entrenched in football history in this country.

If you make the finals "less important" then it will fail to attract interest. The grand final winner needs to be the champion for the finals to be relevant, otherwise what's the point? I say if it ain't broke don't fix it. The finals have been working for the game so leave it as is. This obsession with copying the Euro leagues is perplexing to say the least.

Attendance figures disagree with you.

Language is important, particularly when it's directly related to your argument. It's called the Premiers Plate (i.e. season winners are the Premiers), they're not the Minor Premiers. I somewhat agree, as I favour my team coming first over winning the GF. But I don't really mind the finals, I just think the Premiers Plate needs higher recognition. At least the 1 ACl spot is decided on by winning the Premiers Plate and not the GF.

Sorry Christian but I totally disagree with this article. I'm personally sick of people banging on about removing the finals series. The grand final produces the highest tv ratings (and boy do we need higher tv ratings) of any match during the year by far, attracts the biggest attendance and biggest media interest, yet you're saying we should get rid of it because it's the tradition in overseas leagues, what a load of crap! Everyone went nuts when the APL got rid of the "tradition" the game had built up over the years where the highest team won hosting rights to the GF so you're saying let's toss out the tradition of the finals as well simply because we should copy overseas leagues. Isn't the World Cup or the UCL a finals series? Is the World Cup winner the best in the world, no it isn't but they are the champions because they won the final, end of story, that's it. There's no argument by anyone saying we should change it to a league format and remove the world cup final because it isn't a fair way to determine the best country. We just accept it. So just accept that the finals may not be the fairest way to determine the best team but it is definitely the most exciting by far. Also, why does the introduction in future of pro/rel mean we can remove the finals? Why can't we have both? Excitement at the top and bottom of the league. You mention Melbourne City. Well, let's see, they are currently 7 points clear of the second team with a game in hand. It is almost certain, barring a major collapse in the second half of the season they will finish top. The season would be over. How boring!

Very simple. Put it to the vote. Fans need to decide if they need the finals series or not. We need consensus on any decimating going forward. More important is that we attract better coaches and players from overseas.

There is a good point , the clubs apart from Sydney FC seem to trying to let City beat them this season so the first past the post is a forgone conclusion. If a team has a willing group of teams prepared to lose to them then in that case first past the post is less valid than a final series. The big talking point about last season is City taking out first past the post but not beating any of the other top four. Then you add in Shaun Evans performance, Western United mysterious loss of form which just happen to reverse itself in the finals, when they had a big lead over City. The most genuine part of last season was the final series, every match was played at good intensity.