Hi guys,
Thanks for all your comments. Some have mentioned a second division structure on here, and for me it could all start as a semi professional competition, just as the clubs are now. Sponsors could come on board, and they could cover the airfares and accomodation for the players, and the second division could then start. A smaller salary cap could be implemented, lets call it $1m per team over 25 players (remember these would be part time wages – average $40k wage). Small TV rights could be negotiated (sush as 1 game per week, finals and GF) for a little bit of extra cash if any. I personally know some teams in the NPL today that have yearly wage budgets around $200k-$250k in the seniors, and if clubs were given a chance at a national second division, they could go and secure more sponsors at a higher rate, they would also get a spike in membership and attendances. Then potentially in 5 years time, if finances allow it, it could move into a professional setup.
So it’s not exactly pie in the sky stuff, it could work. The fact that the NPL clubs have started their own association on, tells you their intensions.

Mid,

A decent article, but I think we have way bigger fish to fry right now, than to discuss things like international breaks. They are just one dot point in an absolute essay of issues and errors that the game’s administrators have failed on. IMO heads need to roll at the FFA, and we need to have another very honest discussion around the state of the game (staring a new piece on this right now), where we’re at, and where the game is heading in Australia.
And to your other point, the whole of football report in 2105 by the FFA was an absolute farce, sure it had some glaring issues, like the stats you’ve pointed out in your article, but no meaningful and measurable ways on how to go about turning those numbers around and growing. All in all, it wasn’t much more than a fluff piece, and for me that’s all Gallop and Lowy have done, very forthright in the media in the last 12-24 months about how the sport wants to become number 1 and all this,other crap, but no legwork done in the background to work out future A-league growth via expansion – how, when and where, the brainstorming of a national 2nd Div, no talk of any football infrastructure on the agenda whatsoever.
I’ve given up on this administration and the constant silence we get from them on key items for the game, the constant pushing back of key dates and deadlines, and the lack of an actual plan to take the game forward in Australia. Which begs the question, what do these people actually do at FFA HQ?

Waz,
Unfortunately whether we like it or not, it is the FFA’s money to distribute, at least for now, and they can only give the owners what they can afford to. The owners have stated they want $6m each per year, but the current deal is only $57m at best. Plus as I’ve said before the FFA will not give 100% of the funds to the A-league clubs, as it has many more mouths to feed.
It’s like every other business deal in life, they’ve come into the negotiation asking do the top figure ($6m), knowing that the FFA will meet them somewhere in the middle. If the Salary Cap goes up to $2.8m-$3m, but every club gets $4m like I’ve proposed, I can’t see how that’s a bad deal from the clubs, as they’d be getting an extra $1m on top of the salary cap, to spend how they wish, which would either be on a marquee player’s wage, or on covering their running costs. That’d be up to the individual owners.
But IMO, the nutters can’t run the asylum, could you imagine people like Griffin, the Bakries or Tony Sage running the A-league? Please, the league would be broke within 5 years, and heavily fractured.
Sure, the current arrangement isn’t the best, particularly in the long run, but for now it’s the best solution.

Mister
Thanks for the reply, but these figures haven’t been officially substantiated. You’re going off an article written by Bonita, and while she has her sources, but these aren’t official figures, so they don’t count at this stage in my book.

Hate the idea of an A-League Cup, but would love to see a Supercup or Charity Shield style match to kick start the new season. That would be the winner of the Grand Final vs the winner fo the FFA Cup.

Mike, a good read, but you must either be on the take from the QLD tourism commission here with those opening paragraphs, or you’ve been smoking some of Brisbane’s finest! Give us a spell…
I mean, sure Brisbane is a great place to live, been there many times and always enjoyed it, but it’s far from being the best place to live in Australia, and nor are the Roar anywhere near becoming a juggernaught!
Yes the potential is there, but the fans aren’t stupid, we all hope this Kingsman bloke lives up to his words and brings back the Brisbane of old, but he and Brisbane have a long long way to go. First up, the bloke needs to last longer than 12-18 months in the chair to be taken seriously, the fans up there need to see some stability or at least perceived stability. The owners need to continue to pay their bills and their players on time, they also need to shut their mouth and not many ridiculous statements in the press, and the entire club just needs to keep its nose clean for a while. I’m also a big believer of concentrating on the on field performances, and on that side of things, the Roar are going very well under JA and Ross, but fans are people, and people believe the hype most of the time, both positive or negative, and all the Roar fans or any other A-league fan has read or heard about the Roar over the last 24 months at least, has been doom and gloom, going from one disaster to another. That’s gonna take a long time to repair, and I genuinely hope it does. But even in the Ange era, sure Brisbane were outstanding onfield and smashed all sorts of records, but they were really uncapable of translating that success into huge regular crowds, which they truly deserved. Their best crowds came in the first 3 seasons of the A-league, when they were regularly attracting 25k-30k crowds.
Grand Final sellouts are great, but they’re part of the Australian psyche, they’ll sellout around the country more often than not.

Wayne,
A decent read and a through the provoking article.
For me, an outsider who has a basic idea of the geography of the Adelaide CBD and its surrounds, there are 2 clear choices.
The first would be to update Coopers Stadium, which is a cracking venue for football, probably the best in the country, but it’s not in a great location and transport links are ok, but could be better. I’m thinking with about $100m they could upgrade the stadium to 20-25k capacity, upgrade and increase all the amenities, and put a roof to cover over 50-75% of the ground.
The other possibility would be to build a brand new football (rectangular stadium) ground closer to the Adelaide CBD. I’m not an expert, but have read in an article that there is a vacant block of land, either next to or close to Adelaide Oval. A new build would cost approx $300m, for a capacity of 30,000. I think this is enough for Adelaide at least for the next 20-30 years. A second club from Adelaide would also benefit from this, also the Socceroos as well as the 2 rugby codes, concerts, and other events.
For me they’re the 2 best options. Now the club and the SA football community and sponsors need to get behind it, and lobby the government hard for it to at least be given a chance to get off the ground.

Nemesis, interesting article.
I’ve spoken about this topic almost to death on this site, but I don’t think your idea stacks up, and I’ll tell you why.
The stadium amenities (toilets/concourses/walkways/food and drink outlets) are bursting at the seems with a crowd any larger than 26k-27k, even with an extra 10k and it just wouldn’t cope.
I think there is a business case for an upgraded AAMI, it was built with foundations provisioned for a 50k stadium, and it’s current capacity is already stifling Victory’s growth as a club and as a business. I go to every home game, and I know and speak to many fellow members and fans, and I can tell you first hand that many people don’t turn up on match days if they’re not members, in fear of being turned away and sent back home, or just unwilling to wait 1-2 hours in line to get tickets without any guarantees.
This is due mainly due to the small capacity of the stadium, and it’s quite ironic that the one club which the ground was built for, has now already outgrown its small capacity. Victory initially asked for over 35k seats, and that was knocked back by the Vic government, because of its contracts in place at the time with Etihad stadium, which stipulated that there couldn’t be any other stadium built in Melbourne over 30k-35k, as it would potentially take business and profits away from the docklands venue.
The roof is a very contentious point, I’m not sure why someone would build a 30k stadium in the so called ‘Sports capital of the world’ to then put a designer roof on it, which cost $150m?? For me, there’s huge question marks over that decision…
It’s almost as if the roof was plonked onto the stadium to block or delay any future redevelopment, when clearly the foundations were laid for exactly that to happen down the track. It’s as if nobody could foresee that Victory would outgrow this ground in a short space of time, when the club had 16,000 paid up season ticket holders by the end of Season 2.
Rail seats for me are a good idea, but we need to realise that football shares this ground with Rugby and League, so I don’t think those plans or ideas would ever pass. And could you imagine the ridiculous over policing at the ground, if those seats were ever put in place… Upgrade the stadium I say, long term it’s the only option.

Matt,
This really is an easy answer to your questions, or an easy combination of answers.
The reason why the clubs don’t develop enough players is because unfortunately the coaches stick to the players they know, and they keep rehashing old rejects. It’s a results orientated business, so clubs want/need instant success, and probably don’t believe that they’ll achieve that with players coming through. Also squad sizes are an issue, they’re way too small, and all 23 players need to be labelled ‘ready to go’ by the coach. And lastly and probably most importantly, the A-league clubs don’t have enough money to develop their own players just yet. Once all the clubs have their own academies, then I think we’ll see heaps of quality young kids coming through, developed by every club, but the game just isn’t at that stage yet. In another 5-10 years we should be there.

Nemesis,
A great conversation to be had here, great piece.
I’ve said all along that a 2nd Div, at least in its infancy (minimum 3-5 years) needs to remain semi professional for 2 main reasons.
Firstly, it’s what those clubs are today, and they’re still running which means they can sustain themselves as semi pro clubs. And secondly, this competition needs to survive and thrive, while sucking the least amount of money possible from the overall TV deal before it can grow in all areas. Keeping all the costs down to begin with, are a key to the 2nd Div success.
The stadium costs are not zero, especially when you add in security and other running costs for games that need to be televised, but those costs wouldn’t be huge either. Player wages, I’d say a salary cap of $750k per club per year ($30k each for 25 players – semi pro wages) is sufficient. That means for a 2nd Div of 12 clubs you’d need $9m per year to run this comp from any future TV deal. And if the recent rumours are true, that the next TV deal could possibly bring in $80m-$100m annually, then $9m per year for a 2nd Div isn’t too much to ask to add another layer to the Australian football pyramid, and by doing that you’d bring back another layer of supporter and fan back into the game, which would be great.
Also, I know some might say $30k isn’t much, but it’s not bad for 3 nights per week of training, and a game on the weekend, while possibly still holding down a regular day job, and showing off your skills nationally every week, sometimes on TV, where you could realistically be picked up by an A-league club and play football professionally.
Travel and accomodation would be picked up by sponsors, much like the FFA cup is run today with NAB, Westfield, Harvey Norman and a few others chipping in to pay for this costly part of running a competition.
I know of a few NPL clubs in Victoria that generate up to $500k per year in sponsorship today, while just playing in the NPL. Imagine if those clubs could get the national exposure again, I’m sure they could generate double that at least. And that money would pay for the coach and other club staff. Also, membership numbers would increase 10 fold at these clubs, if they were to compete in a national 2nd Div, so there’s more income that could be spent in other areas.
I’m not saying that this would be an easy gig to setup, and not all clubs would be in the same position or find it as easy to do, but giving some a chance to grow they’d explode back onto the national scene. It can definetely be done.
The FFA needs to get a better TV deal to pay for this dream of course, but it also needs to stop holding the game back and have the balls to make a statement like this. A 2nd Div is badly needed and would be awesome for the game. Even without P/R to begin with.

Can’t wait for the season to start. I think the football will go to another level this year.
Here’s my 2 cents on each side;

Adelaide United
– has lost too many good players, but has just recruited a few good ones in Henrique, Guardiola and Holland. They should have a good defence, and a lot will depend on how quickly their new signings adapt and perform. They should make the top 6 comfortably. But will be a stretch to win back-to-back titles, not likely.
Brisbane Roar
– ownership issues again threaten to ruin their campaign, but if they can remain focused, Aloisi has actually kept most of the squad from last season, which performed really well, and they’ve added Brett Holman. Semi finals might beckon again for the Roar.
Central Coast Mariners
– after a terrible few seasons on the trot, the only is up for the Mariners. With new coach Paul Okon now at the helm, and some decent signings to bolster their defence and goalkeeping positions, I think they’ll be more than competitive this season, and should be better to watch. Powell should help with goals, and they should be in the running for a top 6 place.
Melbourne City
– 11 new signings and a whole new feel at City. Cahill will bring in the crowds, but it’s a results orientated industry. Huge pressure will be on JVS to deliver. A new Danish CB has just signed, which is exactly what they needed, as their defence was their weak link. This City team will no doubt entertain, but can they win? Scoring won’t be an issue, but the question marks will come at the other end. I think they might get off to a slow start but will end up challenging for the title, due to their squad depth and overall quality.
Melbourne Victory
– the most balanced team IMO this season. With added strength in all areas with Donachie, Baro, Troisi, Rojas and possibly even Essien, adding to FBK, Valeri and Berisha and co, they’re the team to beat. The pressure will be on Muscat to deliver with this team.
Newcastle Jets
– the biggest unknown this season, but have made some astute signings with Hoole, Brown and Clut. But will losing their coach so close to the beginning of the A-league, and in such bad circumstances derail their season? Nordstrand up front needs to score 15 goals for them. However, regardless of the coaching situation, IMO I don’t think they have enough overall quality to make the top 6.
Perth Glory
– the biggest movers along with City in the transfer market. Once they click as a team, they’ll surely be up there and challenging for the title. Their CEO is a great football person who could run the A-league some day. After a long and very lean spell, the great times look to be back in the west. The Shed will be a great place to be this season. A serious contender. My only question mark is that without Diego Castro they look a much lesser side. He needs to stay on the park for them.
Sydney FC
– Arnie has gone away and corrected their faults and predictable flaws from last season, and he’s bolstered in all areas. With Zullo and Wilkinson at the back, Brillante in the middle, and Bobo and Bernie Ibini up front, they’ll be hard to beat. For me they’re up there with Victory as one of the most well balanced squads going around and with good depth. A definite contender.
Wellington Phoenix
– they’ve recruited well in the front third with Finkler and Barbarouses, plus and Italian defender. They may be the surprise packets this season, if Ernie can manage his squad, particularly during those dreadful FIFA international windows. Their future is now secured and both the owners and their fans can now invest dollars and belief in their team once again. A semi final spot is a realistic goal.
Western Sydney Wanderers
– the unknown quantities of the competition this season for me, I’m just not quite sure what they will dish up. Moving to Spotless Stadium due to the construction of the new Parra stadium, anticipation will be high from their many and colourful fans. Poppa has once again rebuilt his squad, with many new faces. Kerem Bulut should add plenty in the goals department, but I’m unsure about the rest of the newbies. Their defence is usually a strong point and they’ll need to be again. A semi final spot is probably their best outcome this coming season.

Bring on season 12! Can’t wait for Round 1, with probably 70k showing up at ANZ for the Sydney derby…

The FFA has just done a deal with Optus to show the rest of the Futsalroos games at the Futsal World Cup in Colombia live, along with the semi finals and the final. SBS had just televised the first game this morning, where the Aussies won 3-2!
And they’ll also be showing the Young Socceroos live later this month at the ASEAN U19 Championships.
A sign of things to come with Optus perhaps…
I don’t care anymore, I’ll follow the game wherever it goes. As long as they get the money they need to grow.

Guys, thanks for your all your comments.
It’s made for a very interesting discussion.
Cheers

I’ve read this article, some very interesting points made by a very high profile NPL level coach, and many that have been heavily discussed on this website before. And that’s another reason why I’ve always said that the salary cap doesn’t need drastic increases, as you’re only wasting money of average A-league players, who are already on $120k average salaries. Any more coming into the game is much better spent on many other areas a 2nd Division, women’s football, football infrastructure etc.

Good list RBB,
You’ve changed my mind. I’d actually spend $10m on a 2nd Division (10 teams – $1m each) instead of infrastructure. Having said that though, we also need to invest in community facilities etc. You can see what a tough job the FFA has, there’s so many mouths to feed, they really need to prioritise and get best bang for buck and a return on every single dollar that they invest. They cop a lot of flack, but I don’t envy their job.

Nemesis,
Refreshing article, good to look at things from a different angle.
However IMO, I’d say no to increasing the salary cap to $3.9m, as this would reward your run of the mill A-league players, who are on average $120k. By giving these players more money, doesn’t mean you improve the overall product, so in essence what that does is throw money down the drain, which could be much better spent for the code in many other ways.
I’d raise the salary cap minimally, to say $2.75m, but I’d raise the yearly subsidy to each club to $3m per year. And if the sport was to get $80m per year, I’d bring in 2 new teams within 2 years, so that’s a $36m expenditure in TV money for the clubs. IMO the salary cap only needs to increase by $50k-$100k per year.
There’s already the $10m marquee fund, which I’m yet to see it being fully utilised, but we’re already up to $46m.
W-league is certainly worth investing money into, I agree with you that the ladies should be on $40k as a minimum to keep the best possible players in our sport. A longer season in Oz is also a must. I’d also invest some money, let’s say $3m-$4m to attract 2 quality teams to Australia every year for matches against the Matildas, which can be highly advertised, TV rights sold for and heavily showcased, that could be against the USA and Germany in the first year. Brazil, Sweden, Canada and more could be down the track.
So that brings us to about $60m. Another $10m I’d spend strategically on infrastructure, patterning alongside state and local governments, to co-invest with them in grassroots funding into community football facilities. Say invest $2m into 1 club/ground per state, lets call it $2m into Perry Park for the Brisbane Strikers, $2m into Somers Street for the Melbourne Knights, and so on for SA, WA and NSW. The following year you’d do it with another 5 clubs nationally. The other codes do this well with government, nothing is stopping us from doing the same. Normally governments are more than willing to invest if they see private money being invested. The rest of the money is needed for wages at the FFA and marketing and advertising spend for the A-league.

jb,
What we do know is that most A-League clubs are able to attract between $2-$3m in sponsorships every year. As you’ve worked out, we know what the total revenue from selling tickets. They important bit we don’t know is their costs, like stadium, training site costs, staff wages etc, that part we’ll probably never know.
I agree with RBB, as the clubs shouldn’t have to spend 90% of the cap, the minimum should be 80%. If the next TV rights deal is greater than the last one, which I’m sure it will be, than that means a little bit more money for all 10 clubs, but depending on how much more that is, that shouldn’t automatically mean that both the salary cap and the average A-league wage should increase. That needs to be discussed between the PFA and the FFA.
FFA needs to grow the entire sport, not just A-league players pockets.
The other thing that I’m not 100% sure on, but I’m pretty confident that is happening, and it’s probably been happening for 11 seasons, is the fiscal mismanagement at certain clubs. Some people/clubs just aren’t good with their money, and a bigger handout from the FFA probably isn’t going to fix that.
From my reading of the tea leafs from last season, there was a few clubs that made a profit, the Victory, the Wanderers and Adelaide United. There may have been another one, but that escapes me now.
With a little more support from FFA HQ, and more flex on certain rules, I’m sure the clubs can become more sustainable. They then need to employ the right people in the right roles to make that happen.

Mid,
Your points are all well made, but I wrote this article on the basis that we get no communication from the FFA. I’m sure they’re working frantically behind the scenes, and all my points may well happen down the track, as they’re probably putting all the building blocks in place for that to happen.
I understand that they may not want to share their plans as this would alert their competitors, but that’s the part I don’t agree with. By not communicating with your customers, it leaves people wondering, speculation and innuendo festers, hell I wrote this piece because I don’t know what’s going on. And at this stage, with a huge 5 month off season, which is a terribly long period of hibernation, I’m not happy with that and I think things can be done better, which is why I wrote this piece.

Mid,
I have to agree with Stevo here. I initially thought the same thing, till I saw those same figures below a while back.
We have to be starting earlier, its really the only option. As I said in the opening paragraphs of the article, we need to stop waiting for this ‘clean air’ to come, as it never really will. Football has always been underrepresented in the media, and it probably always will be, we need to accept that and move forward. The media will always run their own agenda, or spruik the hell out of the sports that they either have current huge contra deals with, or they want to get into business with in future. Football has battled, has copped ridiculous, sensationalist reporting since the 60’s and still grown as a sport in spite of all this, particularly in the last 11 years.
Besides, what happens if both the AFL & NRL decide to lengthen their seasons by 4 or 8 weeks one day? The AFL has already added another week by adding in a new bye just before the Finals, and the NRL could soon have season breaks for their SOO.
My point is that Football needs to stop worrying about the other codes’ start and end dates, and do whats best for itself, its fans and its players. It needs to start running with its own agenda and driving the sport forward. The participation base is huge and growing every year, and its from there that the support for the A-league really needs to grow. This should be priority number 1 for the FFA.

lol, the cheque’s in the mail pal…

Squizz,
A 8 month football season which breaks for 4 weeks due to FIFA dates is still a longer season than a 7 month season with no FIFA breaks. Because it extends the domestic football calendar by an entire month, its in the media, it gets people talking etc. It means that we have a 4 month off season as opposed to 5 months. And even from a business sense it means that the FFA can talk to their customers 8 months of the year as opposed to 7 months.
There is a big difference.
Rest assured that this piece is my own, I’ve actually had it half written for 3 months. Sure I might have a similar chain of thought to something else that you’ve read somewhere else, but whether you like them or not, these are my ideas.

AZ,
1. Either or…
If the A-league is currently worth $36m annually to Fox Sports why couldn’t a National 2nd Div be worth $3.6-$5m?? By keeping the division semi-pro you wouldn’t necessarily increase any costs, they’re all semi-pro leagues now. Travel and accommodation costs would have to be looked after by TV money and leaguewide sponsorship, much like the FFA Cup is now. An online service could also be setup, but I think you’d get more $$$ from TV. This would all be ready for Promotion and Relegation in future. When that happens, then the 2nd Div would become even more important for TV, to build the story of going down or staying up, or vice versa.

2. Not sure where the teams would come from, they could be existing or new entities. They’d have to apply to FFA for a spot, taking into consideration many factors, like for example financial stability, level of sponsorship, crowds and support, home ground condition etc. How much did South Melbourne, the Knights, Sydney United etc care about the state leagues when they were in the old NSL?? It was fine then, it’d be fine now. There are many good local football clubs around that would love to take their place. This is not an issue for mine.

Waz,
An independent A-league is a hot topic for discussion, it probably deserves its own article down the track to be fair.

Nemesis,
1. At least respect the FIFA windows for now, which would lengthen the upcoming season by at least 4 weeks. Its done in every other part of the world. After expansion, logically the season is extended.

2. At the moment, the FFA Cup draw is rigged to guarantee 1 all-NPL quarter final match up, which then guarantees 1 NPL club or state league club into the Semi Final every season. I can understand bringing something like this in at the start of the competition to garner interest from the NPL clubs, I think now that’s in its 3rd season, it is passed that. That part of the draw is compromised and needs to be axed. A cup draw should be random and not doctored.

3. FifPro has been talking about this type of stuff for ages. I dont think they’ll get it through the EU, and if they do it wont be overnight. I still think a transfer system in the A-league would be mostly beneficial for the clubs.

4. Lets hope this happens, the sooner the better.

Squizz,
HAL players need to follow suit and play for as long as possible each and every year, just like every other professional football player on the planet. Football should be a 9-10 month a year sport, as it in all other countries. Anything less than that brings with it many negatives; as you mentioned national team players aren’t match fit for a World Cup or a Confederations Cup, players stunt their personal growth and development, and fall backwards in that department as opposed to their international counterparts who play 10 months a year. A 7 month per year football competition isn’t able to attract the best possible players, because of a 5 month off season etc etc. Football players want to play. If that means that in the short term just by taking a break for all FIFA windows I’m all for it. If that means playing FFA Cup games on those weekends, showcasing W-League games or Matildas internationals so be it. There are plenty of reasons to start our season earlier IMO.