Lionheart,
A system where transfer fees are involved also brings other things into play, like longer term contracts for players at current clubs to keep them, or maybe to cash in on them down the track. So it could also lead to greater stability and not have players move around the league like guns for hire, and always for free, which happens too often today. This brings down the overall credibility of the league.
In a sport which is incredibly bottom heavy, as opposed to other sports like AFL and NRL, it would make sense to build it and grow it from the ground up, because if you can get the foundations right, the stronger you will be especially in the long run.

I think it’s a question of timing. If the league keeps growing the way it has been from 11 years ago till today, then we may not need much or any foreign ownership in say 10 years from now. If things are done right, the TV rights money alone by that stage could be huge, and underwrite many of the costs not only for the FFA but for the clubs as well.
But as we know football competes in a world market, and as seen in the Premier League in England, a well run competition is also highly attractive to prospective overseas buyers.
The current City partnership deal is a good one for City and the league, as the old Heart probably would’ve folded by now, and badly needed the investment and the know how. As long as the FFA don’t keep bending the rules to let them do whatever they want, and maintain the competition’s integrity, which is something that doesn’t always happen right now, as seen by the ridiculous buy up of players by the City group (Brattan, Caceres) and then loaning them back to Melbourne. This is s pure accounting exercise that allows them by get around the salary cap restrictions and gives them an unfair advantage. Hopefully the FFA stays on top of it.
Being a Roar, you’d know what it’s like having terrible foreign ownership, so it can easily go both ways. Let’s just hope that situation gets sorted out quickly, and the fans can move on, and just continue to support their team, not their owner.

Spot on RBB.
Exactly my thinking when I write this piece!
At the moment the league goes into hibernation for 5 months per year, and that’s just not football.
Opening up the market, means big deals could be done between A-league clubs, and the offseason speculation and rumours would not only keep the game in the press offseason, but it would get people talking, and build excitement and hype for the season ahead, just like it does in every other country.
This notion of keeping all clubs on an even keel is hogwash, the big clubs shouldn’t be hamstrung, and as they grow, it’ll give the smaller clubs a bar to lift to. I could go on and on, but there’s just so many benefits, it deserves its own article.

Fadida,
I said this could only happen if a number of things were done right. Let me elaborate, it only happens with money coming in from TV rights and sponsorship to help underwrite travel and accomodation costs, and being a semi-pro league at the start to help keep the costs down.
I know for a fact the bigger clubs in NPL Victoria are currently able to raise around $500k in sponsorship every year, that’s serious money, let alone if they ever got back onto the national stage again, I’m sure that would easily increase.
And you ask any current NPL player out there baring very few, and most would be very happy to play for $30/$40/$50k a year training 3 nights a week and playing on weekends, while still being able to keep their day jobs. With careful planning and keeping to budgets it could be done.

Onside,
I’d love it if this was the FFA’s Wishlist, but I’m not sure if that’s the case, as there’s absolutely no communication.
On the financial stability of clubs, we were always gonna get to a stage where the TV rights money would hold everything together, and even paper over the financial cracks of some clubs. I think we’re just about at that point now with the upcoming TV rights. It’s just a shame the game has lost many football people and good people along the way who could no longer put their hand in their pocket.
Hopefully after this upcoming deal the search for foreign ownership becomes the exception and not the rule.

Good read Mid,
The COE is coming up a treat, and it needs to do so, to bring much some needed and consistent cash into the Mariners. I disagree on the title of the article, as I think that all 10 clubs are just as important as each other to grow the A-league overall. But obviously I know the Mariners have the toughest task of them all, in terms of survival. However, if you look at the pure numbers of members and crowds they pull in year on year, the Mariners deliver consistently, even in their lean years on the field, they still do ok considering their population base up there. I wish them the best this season, I actually think the squad that Walmsley put together before he got the flick, is one of the better teams they’ve had in a while. Let’s see how Paul Okon goes up there. Good luck Mid, it promises to be a great season.

Mid,
I’m a general sports nut, and there’s not many sports that I dislike. I enjoy American sports, dont mind the odd NRL game and was an AFL club member for a number of years. I can talk footy with the best of em, and still have a passing interest in the sport. But I no longer watch full games or spend entire weekends watching AFL games. Unlike many people, I believe that you can actually watch and enjoy multiple sports!
But Football is in the blood, I used to attend NSL games back in the day, as that was the highest level of Football in Australia at the time. But as soon as the A-league started, I got behind it 100% and I’m a foundation member, not only because I love the sport, but I knew it’d be very tough to startup a new league in the Australian sporting market, and for it to survive.
And while there’s still many issues within the sport and its definitely not all roses, I can see how much its already grown and also the huge growth that its still has in front of it if it can get things right internally. It has absolutely nothing to do with the other codes, either positively or negatively speaking. Our sport plays in a worldwide market in every sense, not just for players but coaches, potential investors and owners, TV audience and TV rights etc. The sky is the limit.

Mate,
Even with all our internal issues and politics to date, we’ve become what we’ve become in the last 12 years. Even blind Freddy of the business world can see that if we can keep growing the game, and minimize our internal issues, the game’s potential is truly massive in Oz. I know its always been called the ‘Sleeping Giant of Australian sport’ but the last 12 years is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to where this sport can get to. It just needs investment and the right people to steer the ship.

Rick,
You grow the league to a point where you’re recruiting a high number of quality imports, pay them well, and keep improving the local Australian players and the overall standard lifts dramatically. When this happens across the competition, (yes it could take another decade at least) but why couldn’t you have all 5 or more games on FTA??

The EPL in the UK is a bad analogy in this case, as they dominate everything including life itself in the UK. They’re not on FTA TV, because they simply don’t have to be. They can basically do what they like over there, and a lot people will pay whatever it takes to watch the matches. A similar thing over here is the biggest sport, the AFL. Yes they have all games live on Fox and have their own channel, but they still have many games every week on FTA.
I think if they went only onto Fox, they would lose some customers, as there’d be some sort of backlash, but they’d also have many more fans follow the sport and sign up to Fox or wherever they went. But also, being in one of the most competitive sports market on the planet pretty much rules that out from ever happening, as the AFL probably wouldn’t be that stupid, as they would potentially lose customers and market share to the other codes if that ever happened.

I hope you’re right Rick.
I definitely think the FFA is in a decent position, compared with the many doom and nay sayers out there.
At the end of the day, DG and the FFA have a product that has a huge growth potential in Australia, and has already done very well with an extremely limited budget. Sure, there are many issues within the sport that need to be fixed, that’s for sure, but so have all the other sports. What the A-league has become over 12 years, without much money or love from most of the TV networks is incredible. FTA is where its at, you get a product on that train, and the product explodes. Is the A-league ready to be a FTA 5 game per week product? No, not yet, but its not that far away. Most of it comes down to resources and know how.
If they can manage to get more cash from this coming TV deal, then you increase the distribution to each of the clubs, which minimises their losses and gives other clubs more cash which can be used to invest in either people or infrastructure. The standard of players coming in lifts, as does the coaching, and the overall on field product improves, which is great for the league and the sport. Of course more money doesn’t automatically guarantee that each club starts making profits or that no club will go bankrupt in the future. Some people will still struggle to balance budgets, and of course sometimes people make mistakes or they’re just simply not good enough for certain roles, and they’ll get found out. But what it does is it entices more investors into the clubs/sport, either right away or in the future, if they can see that they’re being looked after by FFA HQ and not hung out to dry. The overall business model becomes a lot more attractive to prospective buyers/investors.
I’ve said all along that I think they’ll get a good deal, not sure what that looks in money terms, but they’ll improve on what they get right now. And also the exposure needs to improve. Being stuck on Fox and SBS2 no longer cuts it, especially for the Socceroos. Personally, I’ve signed onto Optus for this season specifically for the Premier League. I, like probably many others didn’t want to do it, but I made the sacrifice like many other mates I know, to be able to watch the games live. I now have Foxtel purely & solely for the A-league, and I’m eagerly waiting to see what happens with the next TV rights.
If Fox loses the A-league for next season, which I really cant see happening, but if it happens they will lose me and many people I know that are in the same boat as customers. From a business point of view, I don’t think Fox would lose their biggest and longest summer sport, a sport they’ve actually bankrolled and allowed to grow to what it is today, unless there was a very good reason for it, namely a competitor smashing their financial offer out of the park, or a strategic change, where they ditch Football and go hard at another sport at that time of the year, of which there aren’t many all. Lets see what happens. I hope DG is ready for it!

AZ,
The numbers look drab, but its still early days. Many members sign up either just before or within the first couple of weeks of the season, so don’t despair just yet. Also, as the NRL and AFL Finals get into full swing, there’s no advertising or marketing of the A-league just yet. I’d say there’d be some this year as its become the most important season to date.
Brisbane is the big concern, but don’t take those numbers as gospel. Last season, their memberships were also pretty low (around 5k I think) but they still finished up with over 13k average attendances for the year, which was a huge difference from their membership numbers, but it shows both the size of the market up there, if they ever get it right. But it also shows that people will still show up if the team puts in, regardless if they’re members or not. But the FFA really needs to sort out the mess that is the Brisbane Roar ownership.
As for the membership numbers overall, they’ll keep growing, they may not reach last year’s figures, as Brisbane alone may be down almost 10k. But I don’t think they’ll be disastrous.

We’d all love perfect sized, club owned stadiums. Of course we would!
But we’re nowhere near that space at this point, not while the competition itself still has at least 50% of the clubs making $1m plus losses. At best right now, all our clubs can do is secure the best stadium deals possible, and the FFA should be driving and really taking ownership of the negotiations between the A-league clubs the corresponding state governments, and really helping their franchises become financially healthy, much like a McDonalds or Nandos HQ would do.
What needs to be taken into account is the 2 biggest factors in Australia which wont allow private investment to happen. One is the cost of living here, which means that our housing/land are some of the most expensive in the world. Also building costs are sky high, a 20 million Euro or Pound build in England in 2012 probably costs $150m AUD or more in Australia in 2016. The other major factor is the government, they would never allow privately owned stadia in the big cities as this restricts their revenue streams. This is why there are rules and laws in place against that. In the MLS, owners and potential investors are welcomed and given incentives and tax breaks to invest in stadia which benefits the community. Not so in Oz.
I think once the league is capitalised properly and extremely secure it can then venture into stadia, but for now all the clubs number 1 priority should be their own training base and academy, where they can build from and grow revenue.
The idea of this article is spot on, but realistically we’re probably 15-20 years away. We need to crawl before we can walk.

Football is never gonna get the rub of the green with the media, it’s as simple as that. If while the Olympics were on, Dane Swan from Collingwood was going to announce his retirement, the AFL-loving media in Melbourne would’ve made time to cover the story, and they’d make sure it was gonna be plastered everywhere in Victoria for that week, Olympics time or not.

For our code and it’s administrators, they are dammed if they do, and dammed if they don’t. They can’t win, they’ll always be seen as evil. The fact is that Tim was in Oz, he passed his medical and he needed to start training with the squad, to start getting into preseason, so they had to make the announcement that day/time, end of story. This author’s article has exactly the same theme to it as many so called ‘sports journalists’ in Melbourne recently, who’ve been spruiking the idea on radio, that the A-league season has to start after the AFL has finished, and it has to have its Grand Final before the AFL season starts just to get traction. It’s a load of hogwash!

The people that matter, football people know that Tim Cahill has signed for City, and even the people that have a passing interest in either the sport or Tim Cahill also know that he’s signed for City. I’ve said this for a long time, but our code needs to stand on its own 2 feet, and it needs to start running its own race, particular in terms or its schedules and timetables, and stop worrying about the other codes and what they’re doing.

Both codes currently do, can and will always coexist, that’s just a fact.
Football has a long way to go in Australia. Yes, since the John Aloisi penalty back in 05 things have really changed for the better for the sport, it has grown exponentially in every aspect, no doubt about that. The A-league has gotten better year on year, the Socceroos and the Matildas continue to grow, making successive World Cups and generally doing pretty well on the world stage.
The fact that Football is the number 1 sport played by kids in Oz isn’t a suprise, it’s been the case for at least the last 2 decades. The challenge for the FFA now is to convert that into support of the A-league and its clubs, which has always been the toughest task.
All Football can do is continue to grow, and as it does, it’ll automatically take market share away from another sport or sports, be it the AFL or others, which could be millions of dollars. In Victoria the A-league has actually done very well in the last decade, with Victory and now a properly capitalised City with Tim Cahill sure to continue the growth of the competition in Melbourne.
In Sydney, the introduction of the Wanderers was not only a necessity but a masterstroke, as it transformed the league. NSW is where the next 2 A-league teams should come from IMO.
At the same time, the people on here who know how football truly works in Oz, know that it’s still a heavily fractured, super bureaucratic sport, with way too many mouths to feed, and way too many people happy to keep sucking the sport dry.
Until that gets sorted, it’ll never challenge any sport as #1 in this country. And I’m not convinced that’ll ever happen.
Not many people would know, but the money in football in Oz is staggering, easily making it a billion dollar industry, however this money goes in 1000 different directions and/or pockets.

The AFL on the other hand is a mammoth organisation and competition. They are firmly entrenched, particularly in Victoria. In SA and WA they’re also top of the pile, but as there’s only 2 top level clubs in those states, you could argue that it’s easier for any other code, one being football to gain market share. They’ve done incredibly well to get to where they are today, and they have friends in all the highest places, be it corporate, government etc. Their tentacles spread far and wide.
Also, the fact that they only look after 1 competition (approx 1000 elite athletes) makes their job that much easier than a complex, under resourced, and wide ranging sport like football.
AFL will be the number 1 sport in Australia for at least another 50 years IMO.

Off field it’s a great move by City. It’s exactly what they needed. And it’s also great news for the entire competition.
Gallop is licking his lips, as he should be. Cahill isn’t the best player to come to the A-league, but he might actually have the biggest impact on the crowds, TV viewers and memberships than ever before, because he’s an Australian sporting icon, and Gallop knows that this move might give the sport a bumper next TV deal. If not, at the very least it’ll get him a seat at the table with the big boys from the networks. Personally I think the A-league has kept evolving each year, the product, the players, and the games are now better than ever. IMO the next TV rights are worth at minimum 50% more ($60m pa) as the game has grown, and every sport has grown TV rights heavily in the last 5 years, even tough some have gone backwards or stagnated in ratings.
This plus inflation alone should mean the sport gets a bigger payday.
On field it’s a different story for me. Cahill is turning 37 soon, niggling injuries are starting to creep in, and he’ll be playing in our summer, on hard pitches, against big strong defenders who are solid in the air. I dont think he’ll dominate at all.
I actually think this move could backfire on City if they’re not careful, as the pressure is all on them and on Tim to deliver, and I don’t rate their coach JVS at all. How he gets the best out of Cahill, and his partnership with Fornaroli will dictate how they go this season.
To me Cahill is a gun, a legend, but I think if he doesn’t play well, set up or score some goals, the fanfare will dissipate quickly.
In many ways I hope I’m wrong, but at the same time it’s a great thing for the A-league, it’s been a long time coming, perhaps too long, but he’s home now and it’s fantastic. Rumours are that Brisbane are looking at Diego Forlan, and that City have another European marquee ready to go, so it’s all great news for the upcoming season. Can’t wait!

Let’s face it, the ICC tournament in a Euro/Copa America or World Cup year is a farce!
They should call the tournament off during those off seasons, as fans aren’t stupid, they won’t pay exorbitant ticket prices to see the big clubs’ C or D teams come out to Oz. As for the poor attendance the other night at the MCG, what did people expect;
Weather – crap
Juve squad – crap
Ticket prices – crap

I rest my case.

Tower,
All good points you make, which is exactly the reason why I wouldn’t be raising the salary by more than CPI every year. You’ve still got the same quality domestic players running around, but you’re paying them way more money, which does nothing to raise the standard of the league, it just deepens their pockets. If the FFA has extra funds available, that money is much better spent on grassroots, female football, pathways and programs etc. The average A-league salary is currently $111k ($2.55m salary cap by 23 players per team), I’d say that’s adequate for this league. If I was a club, I’d be spending more money on quality foreigners who can make the difference rather than the other way around.

Mooy is class, and yes I’ve also heard the rumours about him going to the SPL, but that’d be a joke for me.
This guy is the best player in the A-league, IMO too good for a newly promoted SPL, albeit knowing that it’s Rangers. I just think he’d be wasting his talents and his time in that league, not to say that he should be going to the EPL or to La Liga, but he should be going to a top team in a mid level league, Ajax and Club Brugges have been mentioned. Either of these would be a great move for Aaron.

Onto City, they’re still an enigma for me. They just haven’t got their market right. They barely advertise themselves, which by all reports is how Man City wants them to operate. That’s all well and good, but Melbourne isn’t Manchester. Their management team needs a total cleanout and new ideas, nobody ever hears their CEO, and it’s just not good enough. The Melbourne market has huge potential, even though they started 5 years after Victory, that excuse is now wearing a bit thin. Success is always helpful, but with or without Mooy/Fornaroli/Novillo next season, they need to perform well and replace the players that leave with even better players if they want to remain relevant.

Their coach is also surprisingly still in a job. I would never have re-employed him, as I don’t rate him as a coach. IMO he’s still living off his playing day reputation, having done zero as a coach to date. To me, the A-league is well past those days, and particularly a club like City, with not only all the resources, but the know how and contacts all over the world to help this club improve.
The league needs 2 strong and well supported clubs in Melbourne.
Let’s see what they dish up next season…

Fuss,
What the FFA should actually do is strip the rights off SBS this coming sesson, by getting a commercial FTA channel to take in the rights, even by paying SBS out of their final year, and part subsidising this next season, which further removes any risk for a commercial FTA partner.
Yes they’d prob lose the current $5-6m that SBS pays, but they’d make the product make more accessible overnight, and with some decent ratings next season, they’d be up for an even better payday the season after.

Cameron,
You’ve sparked a good debate, and realistically, all were all doing here is purely speculating, as nobody can actually predict what’s gonna happen! But as I said, the relatively small increase in TV ratings for both the AFL and NRL in the last 5 or so years, does not give correlate with their gigantic new TV deals that they’ve both signed. So it’s clearly not all about TV ratings!
Yes, the FFA has dropped the ball a bit in the last 2 seasons, and allowed small issues to fester and grow, I don’t think they’ve done a good job, they haven’t kept their eyes on the A-league, which hasn’t helped with growing interest in the league, but I think next season you’ll see a turnaround on that, with things like the ‘marquee fund’ and being a pre WC year for the sport, hoping we qualify!
The league is still a novelty to many people, as most commercial FTA channels have only given it lip service, so it does need some love from a network. But if you look at what’s happened to Netball today, that’s exactly what football needs, not just the cash, but also the exposure. And even if we get a little more coin than the current amount as ratings haven’t grown, inflation alone tells you that TV rights values have grown from 3-4 years ago. Plus as I said earlier, competition.

Yes they are, and it’s great they’re showing the Euros.
But that’s a competition that only comes around every 4 years. And the Champions League final is also played on SBS every year, so people don’t need beIn or Foxtel for that. I’m actually really enjoying the Championship playoffs to get into the EPL next season at the moment!
But as I said, without the EPL, the A-league is now the vast majority of Foxtel’s football customers’ number 1 product.
If they lose that, they’ll lose many customers, who will follow the product, as the A-league is the highest rating football league on Fox. Sure the Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga are great to have, I grew up watching those leagues weekly over in Europe, and they’re also great leagues to watch, but they’re still not a must have in Australia.
What would you do if Fox lost the A-league rights next season?

Disagree with this article.
I get the viewpoints and all the numbers, but subscription TV isn’t all about ratings. It’s about growing or at worst maintaining their current customer base. The loss of the EPL rights has cost them some subscribers, I’m sure of that.
Optus has actually helped out Fox, by making it super complicated for people to jump ship, as you have to be an Optus customer. No doubt that’s put heaps of people off. The acquisition of the beIn Sports channels, and now getting Chelsea, Man Utd and Liverpool channels is a good move, which will appease some people, but in reality, it’s the absolute least they could do! It was a damage control measure.
Many people, myself included are only holding onto Foxtel for another 12 months because of the A-league, which actually rates higher than the EPL. So if Fox lost the A-league rights in a year’s time, IMO they’d lose heaps more customers.
I know I’d cancel my subscription and I know many others in the same boat. Channels like beIn are a great add on, but thats about it, they’re not the main event, and they’re not enough to keep people engaged.
So don’t overestimate TV ratings as a guide, as if this was the only measure, neither the AFL or NRL would doubled their last TV deals, as their TV ratings have gone up by no more than 20% in the last 5 years.
A need for live, domestic sports content, played in primetime, and competition from other players is just as important.
So yes it’s not all roses for the FFA with these upcoming rights, but they have a good product, which is improving every year, and it’s now worth a lot more than what it was 3-4 years ago, and the competition will dictate that.
They’ll be just fine. No panic stations whatsoever.

Fuss,
That ad still sticks in my mind when I think of the A-league, it was a great campaign to start up the competition. I actually agree that the league should sell itself regardless of who we have playing in it. It’s a good standard and improving every year. And I’m one of those people that doesn’t need to have ADP here to love the local league. But now that the FFA are incentivising clubs to go out and get ‘better’ or well known players, the clubs need to use that to their advantage. As I said its all to improve the hype, buzz and excitement around the league which in turn should improve eyeballs and interest for the upcoming TV deal.

Was,
This wasn’t exactly my original headline, so I get what you mean.
But having said that, the clubs need to sign their foreign recruits sooner rather than later in preparation for next season, so they get those players into preseason ASAP.
I get the part about economics, but the FFA and we all saw what happened a few years ago when ADP, Ono and Heskey came in, the buzz around the league was incredible, not just to diehards like myself who will watch regardless who’s on the park, rain hail or shine, but to mainstream Australia. And the FFA need some of that buzz to come back next season, to help with their next TV deal. And as I’ve said in the article, we’re picking from a worldwide pool, so there’s plenty out there, at all sorts of price tags.

Yawn,
Pound for pound, Paul Ifill was right up there, a top quality player, and a great bloke too.
One of the best imports ever in the A-league, and by far and away the best import to play in NZ.