A third Sydney team coming into the A-league is a no brainer. However I question both the timing and the timeframe. It takes at least 12-18 months to get a club off the ground, not just the off field stuff like branding, staff, selling membership and sponsorship packages etc, but also getting the football department, coach and a playing roster scouted and assembled.
I’m not an expert on the Sydney market, but I’ve heard many people’s views on where the 3rd team should go. I just hope they don’t stuff it up. But I’m completely against losing the Wellington Phoenix, at least in the short term. They need to be kept around for at least another 5 years. Have 11 teams and a bye for a coupe of years, no big deal. That’s much better that kicking out a club that’s actually been pretty stable off the field.
Sure they could bring more to the competition, but so could most of the other clubs, especially Perth and the Mariners.
I understand they only bring in $180k in TV revenue, but that can only grow. Their crowds aren’t great but by no means dismal either.
The FFA risks once again destabilising the competition by kicking out the Nix.
For me, keep the Nix around, bring in another Sydney team if you want to in the meantime, but they need to grow the overall pie in the Sydney market, not take away from the other 2 clubs. That’s the biggest question mark for me…

This is a nothing story, and yet another example of just how poor our sports journalism is in Australia.

Anyone with a clue can find out what Timmy was earning in the U.S. when he was at NY Red Bulls, as in the MLS just like any other sport in America has to publish player salaries. I can tell you that he was on $3.5m USD plus a small bonus of a couple hundred thousand extra. That’s almost $4m USD, which in our currency is between $5m-$6m AUD, and that’s annually!!

Now depending on what you read, ADP was on $2m-$4m per year. Even if he was on $4m, Sydney FC quickly realised that they wouldn’t recoup their investment, regardless of how many extra people they got through the gates, as the wage demands were just too high by Australian standards. I’m pretty sure that he’s on that sort of money and more in China.

And tbh, yes Timmy Cahill is an Aussie sporting icon, but he’s also approaching 36, and is no ADP in terms of playing ability! Regardless of what you paid him, he would not completely dominate the A-league.

So in a nutshell, his wage demands are just way too high, but if he can get that sort of coin elsewhere then good luck to him. And I also feel like he wouldn’t want to jeopardise his reputation by coming back and not killing it, as he’d be expected to do week in week out. The pressure on him would be immense, as he’s a legend, and the massive pay packet would make that pressure even worse.

Mid,

As you know, we’re our own worst enemy, because of the state federations interests vs the FFA and all the different hierarchy there is in football administration in Oz putting their hands out for cash. There’s more politics in Australian Football than there is in Federal Parliament in Canberra. It may take us another decade or so to get all the administration and structures right, with the right people in charge, but I think we’re getting there in that regard.

And as I said, once we do get our house in order and the whole sport is pulling in the same direction without any distractions, then things like the current media resistance towards our game will vanish, and they’ll all want to get on the bandwagon. I see this happening in the next 5-10 years. That’ll also start with the next TV deal. I also see that we don’t have much pull with state and federal governments, and can see that also changing as our administration improves.

Just not because of the money Mister, as there’s never been as much money in the game as we have today. But they’ve do it for the love and devotion of the game… Respect!

Mark,

Why do you think the media do that? It’s not because they hate our code or they have an agenda against us, contrary to many people’s beliefs. It all comes down to $$$ and their own vested interests.
For example, channel 7 has the AFL rights, so why would they talk about our game? Even on their news bulletins, there’s never much on there. The way they see it, it’s out of sight, out of mind. They don’t want to give our code a leg up, when they’re spending hundreds of millions of $ on AFL. Everyone knows that football with its huge participation base, is a huge threat in the long term to any code, once it gets its act together. Not that we’re gonna take over the land from AFL or anything, but for example if we grow by 5% and the AFL drops by 5%, were talking about millions of dollars in revenue.
Channel Ten does the same, as they pump cash into the Big Bash, and Nine does it with the cricket. So why would these channels give football a heap of airtime?? It just goes to show how strong and powerful the media are in this country. They don’t tell you what you should know, they tell you what they want you to know. Quite sad really!
But thankfully, we’re now getting to a stage now where the A-league is big and popular enough to be wanted by the big networks. And once this happens down the track, we’ll see the true benefit of the media and what they can do for a sport.

Mid,

The A-league will be fine. There’s been a heap of negative press in the offseason, some of it justified, like the Brisbane Roar issues and the FFA election process. But other stuff like the pay dispute, and the notion that the season won’t be any good because we have no genuine worldwide known marquee players is all hogwash! I don’t buy any of that! The pay dispute was always gonna be sorted sooner or later, which it will, it’s just a shame that the Matildas got dragged into it. And the whole marquee thing is irrelevant for me, as long as our clubs keep recruting better foreigners every year and the product keeps improving, that’ll keep it moving forward. And they’re getting better at that. A big fish like an ADP costs a lot of cash, and can potentially still destabilise our clubs financially at this point in the league’s journey.

There’s many things that need to be fixed within the game, but that’s always been the case. Hopefully this season we can sort out the ownership issues at the different clubs, stabilise the Roar and complete the sale of the Jets. Steven Lowy will come in, I’m sure he’ll do a good job for the sport, and hopefully the other new board members they bring in have contacts in the right places, which I’ve heard they do, and can help the game, not only on a commercial and business level, but also in government.

But back to the raw numbers, we had over 14,000 tonight at Wonderland, and we’ll probably have about 25k for the Adelaide v Victory game tomorrow and another 20k for Sydney v City. This season will also have over 100,000 A-league members, slightly down on last year. Victory was this week the first club in the league’s history to surpass 25k members. In ten years, wow that’s crazy!
And I’ve said this before, but we don’t need to compete with measures of any other code in Oz, I know that’s a hard thing not to do. But that comparison will never be apples v apples, because of the sport’s history, and the age of the A-league. We need to consider that 11 years ago the A-league was purely an idea on a piece of paper, and look where it is today! We just need to keep improving and growing, that’s all you can do. And frankly, that’s enough for me as a football tragic. As long as I see progress, I’ll be happy!

The league just needs to keep improving, stabilise its clubs, as there’s 2 years left till the next TV deal. I’m sure they’ll be able to secure more money in 2017, which will mean better players coming to Oz and more teams in the competition, which makes a much better league overall. The FFA Cup is going great guns and will only get better.
The game is still on a huge upward curve, no matter what some people tell you or what the media feeds you.

I’m really looking forward to this season. Not sure what all the hooha is about. Sure the FFA hasn’t had a massive marketing campaign this year, but there’s so many storylines that I’m looking forward to following. Some of these include?
– can the Wanderers do well this year after so many squad changes?
– can Perth bounce back after the salary cap scandal?
– can Victory go back to back without Millsy their skipper?
– can the Roar with a decent squad actually put their off field dramas behind them and perform? Will their ownership issues be resolved?
– can the Jets finally soar? Their signings and preseason results certainly suggest to me that they can.
– can the Mariners improve from a poor year last season?
– can City finally deliver? Their offseason signings look impressive!
– can Arnie take FC to the title? They’ve required well enough to win it.
– can Amor continue on Gombau’s great work and take Adelaide to the next level?
– can the Nix, my dark horses perform without Nathan Burns? I think they can!

These are the stories and headlines that I’ll be looking to get answers for this season. This is what makes it such an exciting season for me!

I think this season, the on-field action promises to go up another level, as you’ve got many decent overseas recruits, all with a point to prove, and a few good Aussie players coming home to prove themselves and get their careers back on track.

All we need now is the FFA and PFA sort out the pay issue and start advertising the upcoming season.
I can’t wait!!!

Gallop makes a good point about our game having the most to gain from getting an increase in the next broadcast rights deal.
You would see a considerable difference in the quality of the product by putting more money into it.
If we got say $80m per year, we could get 2 more clubs, which would increase the number of games in the competition, increase the salary cap and the size of the playing rosters, and most importantly afford better overseas players, not just the very high level marquee players, which would do wonders for the league but better everyday visa players. I’d argue that even $60m per year would vastly improve things. This would all help increase the overall popularity of the league, it’d get more people through the gates and more eyeballs on TV etc, and it’d also give the FFA more money to either invest in youth development or invest in Football infrastructure.

Fuss,

As a staunch MV fan you’d know that AAMI Park has always had serious ‘ticketing issues’ every year, which for many games has turned people away when in fact, as we all know there’s always plenty of spare seats. So by having a stadium with only 5k more seats than your membership base number, plus the numerous ticketing issues and turning people away wrongfully, it’s no wonder more people don’t come to games! IMO I think MV has already outgrown AAMI Park. I agree with you about the atmosphere, but clubs also need to put money in the bank and grow, and I think AAMI is now starting to stifle growth. Plus there are 3 other clubs and 3 sporting codes that play at the one stadium, with City, the Storm and the Rebels all calling the place home.

But if we’re talking purely on the numbers, I think Victory will get to 26,500 members this year, which is their cap. And that only leaves 3500 to 4500 (I’ve never seen a 30,000 plus figure at AAMI) available seats per game. If this happens, nobody else will come to the games, as they’ll think they’re wasting their time and that they won’t get a seat. I think Melbourne needs a bigger rectangular stadium ASAP. If Victory played at Etihad every week (which I’m not in favour of, just making a point) then I think they’d get 6-7 games per season well over 30,000.

Justin,
The Vic government actually wanted the stadium to be no bigger than 20,000 capacity initially. This is when Melbourne Victory membership numbers were already up towards 18,000. Victory had to kick and scream (show the facts) to get it built to 30k. I have contacts who were involved in the building of the stadium, and they’ve assured me that the foundations of the stadium have been built for possible future upgrades of up to 45-50k capacity. But the decision to put the super expensive roof on it has killed that idea, as it’ll add at least an extra $50m to any upgrade just to remove it.
Etihad had a deal in place back then with the Vic government, that said AAMI couldn’t be built any bigger than 35k capacity, to not lose future games or events and therefore decreasing their business, so this is all about vested interests.
Now we’re already at a situation where MV is already too big a club for that stadium, and they’ve already capped membership at 26,500 because of the capacity. IMO they will reach that number this season. This place needs to be upgraded or we need a new 40-50k rectangular stadium in Melbourne. The government knew this when they built AAMI. The conspiracy theory is alive and well my friend…

I was hoping for 35,000 plus, but this is still a great result for the Wanderers and the A-league!
Now the club can keep growing without having to turn people away from their home games. I just hope they’re not gonna build this stadium with a super expensive roof which then becomes too expensive to take off and increase capacity one day. But I don’t think the NSW government would do that, as they see the potential in the club and the sport, and want to let it grow, unlike their Victorian counterparts, who made a decision, either on purpose or otherwise to stifle the future growth of the sport by effectively making AAMI Park unable to ever be upgraded in the future due to a roof that cost over $120m.
Good to see that ANZ Stadium is going back to a rectangular configuration, but I’m not sure why that changed in the first place.
Also, not that Sydney FC need the extra capacity at Allianz at the moment, but that ground was becoming a bit old and outdated, so a brand new 50,000 seat venue will be awesome for any Grand Finals and for future Sydney derbies.
Good news all round, now bring on the start of the A-league!!

I think we’ll prob get somewhere between $60-$80m per year.
And although most of the commercial FTA channels already have a major sport onboard, I still think there’ll be some sort of competition for 1-2 games per week on FTA. People need to remember that the current deal, despite plenty of speculation and innuendo, still has 2 full seasons to run, so there’s plenty of time to cut the next deal. The Big Bash in summer is great for ratings, but because of the international cricket calendar it cannot be any longer than 8-9 weeks. So there’s plenty of room for A-league on TV, as its 6-7 month, predominantly summer competition.
And especially while the Socceroos are bundled into the same deal with the A-league, much to the dismay of some people, the game should always be ok. Nobody should be looking at the recent AFL and NRL deals, as they have nothing to do with the next Football deal, neither in dollar value nor in their cycles. The NRL has now had at least 3 large TV deals, been on FTA for decades, heavily backed by channel 9. Likewise the AFL, who’s probably had 4 large TV deals in the last 15 years, heavily pushed by channel 7 for the majority of that time. For a bit of context or closer comparison, people should look at what those 2 sports got in their TV deals roughly 10 years ago, or 2-3 deals ago, as that’s roughly where football sits.
I think we’ll be fine, TV ratings have dropped on Fox last year by about 10%, but SBS ratings were actually about 20% up.
Marquees are needed, but they’re not as necessary as many point out. What the league needs is better quality players every year, which improves our local players and the entire league. We need better quality management of all clubs to add stability to the league and to prevent the current fiascos at Brisbane and Newcaslte. And youth development pathways and competitions need to grow and strengthen so we have a direct pathway from under 6’s all the way to A-league level. And I’m happy that the last point is slowly changing in a positive way.

I wouldn’t say that it’s worrying times at all. We’re never gonna compete with the U.S. market on much, particularly finances, so we shouldn’t worry about what we can’t control. All we can do is keep raising the standard of the game here by bringing in quality foreigners at a value price which also has a positive flow on effect with the local players.
In 10 years time, if the A-League is still growing and has mega dollar TV deals and sponsorships, that’s when we may be able to compete a bit better with the likes of the MLS and the Chinese Super League on wages to attract real marquee players.
And I take your point about the average sports fan, but when you consider that only about 20% of the participation base in grassroots football actually come to A-league games, there’s your first port of call, that’s your bread and butter, the diehards who already know and love the game. The average sports fans are great, but they’re a slow burn. They’ll switch off your sport quicker than they switched on when something else comes along.

There’s one logical way to look at this…
Football needs to stop worrying about the average sports fan who may watch 1 A-league game a year, and concentrate on its bread and butter – the football public! We need to convert more of the participation base to go to A-league matches. And for people who play and know the game, there’s only 1 way you get them there, it’s not through fanfare or gimmicks, it’s through quality. It’s not by bringing overpaid, old & slow players over, which will cripple our clubs financially. ADP was a one in a million player & personality!

Football people want to see quality on the pitch, a game they can watch and enjoy. That’s only going to happen by bringing in players like Broich, Berisha, Ninkovic, Finkler, Keogh, Khalfallah etc, who enhance the domestic competition. The punter wants to get his money’s worth, he doesn’t care so much about the names on the back of the shirt. I think the first decade of the A-league has been about consolidation, but now clubs are slowly getting craftier with their recruiting.

Financially speaking, there’s great players right now playing in Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Portugal and even 2nd divisions in France and Spain earning €2000-€3000 per month who would dazzle here. They’re the sort of players we need to get better at scouting and attracting. The ones who will better the game here whilst still being affordable. And this will happen with time, it’s already started.

Thanks for all your comments guys.
By no means am I saying that ‘we’re there’ or that ‘we’ve made it’ as a sport. Quite the opposite, I mentioned that we’ve got a long way to go as a code. But I just think that we’ve got to give the local clubs credit where it is due! The local clubs haven’t won a game yet this preseason, but they’ve matched it against quality opposition, and haven’t looked out of place. For a bit of context, Adelaide United regularly trains at 4 or 5 different grounds throughout Adelaide because they don’t have a regular home base, but they’ve just had 52% possession vs Liverpool at half time and doing well.

I just think the Football media needs to help set the agenda, as the AFL media does with their sport. They’re the ones they make the AFL industry tick, it’s not just what happens on the field, much of that is pretty bland, particularly in the last few years. But there’s always more stories to tell, more issues to address, made up or otherwise, which either puts down or pumps up certain players, clubs, coaches, which in turn puts the entire sport in the headlines, good or bad.

I agree with many of the comments on here, that these preseason games are still a necessary evil these days. Still not sure how much it actually does for the domestic competition, particularly the ICC when no local sides feature. But the game is growing and improving here, there’s no doubt about that. This should be celebrated.

Sharks Fan, there’s 2 major parts to this;

1 – Any form of advertising costs, especially on the scale that you’ve mentioned in your article, costs way too much money, well into the millions! This is way too much cash for the FFA to part with, especially year in year out. Particularly at this stage of the game’s development, this money is way better spent elsewhere, like on top notch marquee players for example. Their names, just like ADP did, would do all the advertising for you!

2 – As for the amount of NRL and AFL advertising in the market, this is also known as ‘contra’, and it’s in their contracts with the TV networks, Radio and Internet broadcasters etc. Just like the last AFL deal for $1.25B, now I didn’t read all the detail, but I assume that at least $100m of that total figure was in the form contra or advertising spend, so not physical cash.

And remember…

And our kids are still paying minimum $400 to $2500 per year to play football at junior level compared with $80 for Auskick which is heavily subsidised. Imagine if all junior football cost $200-$300 per year to play??Junior league and Aussie rules clubs would be shutting up shop every week…

Good article Apaway.
I think the finals are a necessity right now, I think for at least the near future, as we’re not ready to give up finals in Oz for a couple of big reasons. The fact that we’ve only got 10 teams, and only a 27 round season which is really short for our code, plus the fact that the Australian public just isn’t ready to let go of a finals system just yet. I think in 10 years time with 14 teams or more, over 30 rounds in a season, plus an FFA Cup competition which a huge profile by then, which has breaks in the A-league season to play the cup comp, we can then have a first past the post winner and let go of the finals system. But at least for now Finals are a must as they’re a complete necessity for many reasons. I think a First past the winner would also work well in our code, as that’s how it’s done in every other league in the world barring the MLS.

Thanks for all the comments guys.
As for the existing salary cap, I don’t think it should be scrapped, but it definitely needs tweaking. Perhaps a luxury tax which gets distributed back among the other 9 clubs is the way to go, it’d also help keep certain clubs investing extra in the game if they can afford to, and also help clubs to keep their better players from being cherry picked from overseas.

As for TV rights, and I’ve said this many times before, the A-league gets 1/3 of the AFL average TV viewers per game on Fox, and about 1/4 of NRL viewers. Crowds are even closer, as it gets about 80% of the NRL attendances, and roughly 1/3 of AFL crowfs. But disparagingly, it gets $40m per year in TV rights, while the NRL & AFL get $200m and $250m respectively. And if you believe the current rumours, the AFL is looking at a new $1.6-$2b TV rights deal next time around, meanwhile their TV viewership hasn’t dramatically increased from where they’ve been in recent times. The key here is competition. Sponsorship is another important metric, and a greater FTA presence would do wonders for more sponsorship dollars, and that’d increase almost overnight.

The A-league at the moment needs a commercial FTA station to show 1-2 live games per week. SBS 1 or 2 just don’t cut it. I think if they switched to secondary channels OneHD, GO, GEM, 7TWO or 7mate, that would be a great step forward, with an ultimate view to get on 1 of the big 3 channels sometime after that. These things take time. But we’re on the right track.

Mid,
This season has been an anomaly in every sense. I’ve said this many times on this site and others. We’ve had many distractions this year and its been hard to get back on track with this A-league season. And the figures have shown this. I think you’ve covered most the reasons for this drop, IMO these have been;
– the Asian Cup break
– the cricket WC in Oz right after the AC
– ownership issues at both the Mariners and the Jets
– now the salary cap scandal at Perth Glory
– only the top 4 of Victory, Sydney FC, Wellington and Adelaide having good seasons
– a huge points and quality disparity between the top 4-6 and the rest
– terrible but necessary rescheduling of games, many midweek fixtures which kill the numbers

I think the metrics this season have dropped, but for legitimate reasons, not because the sport or the league is on the wane.
IMO everything will pickup again next season when we go back to a fair draw for all teams, no midweek fixtures, the ownership issues at some of the clubs gets sorted out and we can see some new exciting players in the A-league, both returning Socceroos and new quality overseas marquees. And obviously within the next 2-3 seasons we see expansion to 12 clubs which will be great.

Good article Mid. We are on an upward curve, but it’s gonna take longer than most of us would like. But good things take time.
IMO this season is an anomaly in many respects. We’ve had the Asian Cup break up the league’s schedule and momentum, we’ve had the Wanderers win the ACL which has had an adverse effect on this season’s already congested fixture. We’ve had a Cricket World Cup on home soil, right after an Asian Cup on home soil, which will never happen again.
And we’ve had both a great run in to the end of the season, with 5 clubs in the running for the title, and numerous owner issues and squabbles which have sabotaged at least 2 clubs’ campaigns. This is a lot to have happened in one single season!
Crowds have continually dropped, no doubt affected by all of the above, and also because of the fact that the top 6 was pretty much settled with 4 rounds to go. Even 6th spot is pretty much done and dusted.
Conversely, the A-league’s crowds were so good earlier this season, that they were on track for a record as the league took a break for the Asian Cup. But they’ve decreased since. However we should still finish up as the 3rd best season in 10 years in terms of attendances, so it’s definetely not all doom and gloom. As I said earlier, it’s all about patience and managing expectations.
The pressing issues for the FFA to iron out right now are the Perth Glory salary cap saga, working with the Mariners to get them back thriving again, with or without their current owner, and taking back Tinkler’s license at the Jets. His ownership has single handedly hijacked that once great club. If these 3 issues get sorted, then we are ready for a great Season 11.
Commercial FTA TV stations are circling, any would do a better job than SBS, even secondary channels like OneHD, GEM or 7mate.
And expansion, or at least 1 more club from the Sydney market should come in 2 seasons time.

No arguments against these points Mister, not disputing that the AFL doesn’t rate.
They obviously do very well, which is why they get massive media deals.

A big reason why AFL related talk shows rate well, is because of how well the networks have helped to build the profile of the sport over the years, and of the characters within it. Football is a long way from this, but if a network takes a punt now, builds up the game, over time this can also be done.
Remember, Football isn’t asking or needing for a billion $$$ TV deal at this stage, or in fact does it need to be on the main channels for now.

Nobody is disputing the differences in ratings and revenues. But much of those large revenues that the AFL and NRL have secured over the years, comes from the very fact that they’re on a commercial FTA station every year. That plays a huge part in attracting large sponsors.

Perry,

Memberships figures are;

AFL circa 800k

NRL circa 450k

A-league circa 110k

But these are just topline numbers. It’s not drilled down into how many 3-game/interstate/pet and other non-game memberships. AFL has quite a few of these. NRL has many leagues clubs members that get included into their numbers. Neither are a 100% true measure of solely season ticket holders.

Many A-league have only been operating like true clubs in the last 5-6 years. The first few years was about survival. A few of them are still slowly learning how to operate like professional football clubs. Having said that they’re improving and so are most clubs’ membership numbers, which is a step forward.

Very interesting times indeed for football. I think it’s a win-win for the sport no matter what happens from here. Let the networks battle it out, regardless of who gets the rights and how much they show, it’ll increase the rights value, maybe double and allow the game to grwoth to the next level. Foxtel has been good for the A-league and vice versa. I think that partnership of 5 live games per week will continue. I think the FTA component, if we do get out of the SBS deal, could be either on OneHD, 7TWO, 7mate, GEM or GO. I don’t think the main channels will risk it with football just yet, plus all of channels 7,9 and 10 are all stocked up with summer sport already.

A brief look at the figures, and AFL gets $250m pa, compared to the FFA who gets $40m pa. Majority of both comes from Fox.
AFL gets over 6 times the FFA’s yearly rights. Fox rates AFL at approx 200k viewers per game, and AL rates approx 70k.
That’s just less than 3 times more viewers. Crowds are about 13k average at AL, and 32k for AFL. That’s 2.5 times bigger crowds for AFL. Sponsorship dollars are of course bigger for AFL as they’re on FTA and they’ve had that exposure for years.
The AFL gets 6 times more money than FFA.

Now let’s look at NRL. They get $200m yearly for TV rights compared to $40m for football. That’s 5 times more exactly.
They’re average crowds are around 18k compared to 13k for AL. Ratings on Fox are about 250k for NRL compared to 70k for AL.
That’s 3.5 times more viewers for NRL. Again they’ve got much bigger sponsorship revenues due to constant FTA exposure.
So NRL crowds are within 5k of AL, and the ratings are 3.5 times bigger, but they get 5 times the TV revenue.

So a few points to consider, IMO the value of the current TV deals in place for both AFL and NRL are slightly inflated, and not worth those price tags on the figures alone. But I guess that’s business, and I think that both the bidding between networks sparks competition, and both sport’s long standing business relationships with those TV networks definetely help them to get a higher value of TV dollars.

By the same token, I think the football rights are too low. But both AFL and NRL are now proven FTA products after decades on the main channels. Football if marketed well by 1 of the FTA stations, the rights are worth double the current $40m per year, with Fox once again paying the majority share of the moeny. But someone needs to be willing to take a chance on the sport as a whole, just like Packer did with cricket in the 70’s. And by the sounds of it, they’re all interested in at least having a chat about the rights.

Football in Oz isn’t what it was a decade ago, its gone way beyond that, and everybody’s starting to realise this including the networks. And it’s still has a long way to go, the growth potential is a large one.

I think the Nix will be fine!
I think this is all one big game, they wouldn’t have signed Merrick to a new 3-year deal if they didn’t know they were gonna stick around. There’s probably heavy negotiations in the background for a new TV deal in NZ. FFA is probably using this situation to get more cash out of NZ TV networks. Let’s not forget, NZ isn’t a huge country in terms of population. Any club that has crowds of up around 10k per game is a serious player in the marketplace. And they’ll get more through the gates when they make the finals.
I think this entire thing is all smoke & mirrors. I think it’ll all be resolved with minimum of fuss very soon. They can’t force the Nix out of the A-league, not if they didn’t do this at the very start. The only thing FIFA or the AFC can do is not let them play in the Champions League, which is the case already. Domestically it is up to the FFA.