j binnie – on another website, there was a very interesting article about youth academies in Europe. It linked to a European report on the subject which had a number of case studies of major European clubs who spend from 3M to 20M Euros per year on their youth acadmies.

Our clubs obviously don’t have those kind of resources available so we need to leverage what we do have.

CCM has lead the way with their academy, but the other clubs need to catch up.

Given that the A-League clubs take a huge chunk of the cash available to the sport, I think they have an oligation to help develp youth in this country, after all it benefits them to do so as well.

My preference though would be to see the clubs do more to asist local junioir coaches improve their skills than focus just on youth players.

There is a glaring shortage of quality junior coaches available in the country, and surely our problems stem from that.

I wonder if oversees coaches really understand what they are getting into when they come to Australia.

Most of the reasonabe football leagues have multiple teirs of professional clubs around them, with any number of players available to bring in to match their coaching phillosophy.

Foreign coaches also lack the knowledge of local talent that Australian coaches have.

In Australia, it’s very much a case of make do with what you’ve got. The opportunites to radically change a side in a short period of time are few. Our best players are drawn to other leagues. There are limits on oversees players, and atracting quality is an issue anyway. The salary cap, and limits on squad sizes also hamper attmepts to mould teams.

Culture in any group is always hard to change drastically as well.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that Postecogleu at Roar was basically able to start with an almost entirely clean slate, and Popovic at WSW built an entirely new club from the ground up, and that these have been the two most successfull teams of the past few seasons.

Ange has not had the impact at MV this season that he did at Roar, but was also less able to make the sweeping changes he undertook in Brisbane.

I’m not suggesting foreign coahes can’t be a success here, but it will really takes one with some outstanding qualities to make much of an impact on our rapidly developing league.

Um, where to start?

I was born in Australia, and so were my parents, and I’m happy to call it football or soccer.

Seems somewhat bigoted to suggest that a name used by most of the rest of the world should not be used in Australia, simply because you are not used to it.

In fact, in my part of Australia, football is played by two teams of 13 or 15 men, depending on which school you went to, running up and down a rectngular pitch, and AFL is something that only southern migrants play. Despite the word football being an inherent part of the name, I never heard anyone while I was growing up who regularly refered to AFL as footy. People were equally as rude as you when others suggested that it should be. That has changed a bit now of course, but it only goes to prove we can live in a progressive society that is open to new ideas, unfortunately just not all of us apparently.

While the World cup bid may have been poorly executed, I can’t seriously beleive that anyone in the country, including yourself, would not have been excited by having the World Cup here. Or are you suggesting that Australia is not capable of hosting the biggest sporting event on the planet? We’ve had the Olympics, the Rugby World Cup, numerous Commonwealth games, Cricket World Cups (not to many AFL International events that I can recall), but the world cup is beyond us apparently.

As for del Piero, he plays for Sydney FC, and they pay his wage. Given that SFC’s crowds have jumped by almost 7000 per game, I don’t think they’ll be having too hard a time paying his wage.

Finally, I’m pretty sure all of the A-League clubs pay rent on the stadiums used, and most at fairly high premiums. AFL and NRL were happy for huge sums of money to be spent upgrading their stadia for the “silly” proposed world cup. In fact, I’m not aware of too many major stadiums that any football code has developed on their own. For the most part they have been heavilly subsidised by governments. Apparently my tax dollars can support your football code, but not my own.

Please keep watching the EPL. I respect the AFL, NRL and ARU, as well as the FFA, it’s just some of the less intelligent followers of those other sports I have an issue with.

As I said earler, “it all seems a bit odd to me”.

Now it turns out that the story is only half right, and Andy Harpers credability as a journalist takes another hit that it can’t really sustain, if he ever really had any to start with!

Once again, don’t beleive everything you read, it’s not always right.

Especially on the internet!

Oh the humanity!

More to the point, would Rio Tinto let a BHP exec help them? Of course not.

This is totally different.

You are asking a man who has no vested interest in the outcome, but with exceptional experience, to assist with something that has absolutely no bearing on his current employment.

Or is the AFL really that scared that a successfull Adelaide United will cause too much harm to the Crows and Dockers?

365,000 for 9 games in an AFL competition running for over 100 years, compared to 93,500 for 5 games in an A-League competition running for 8.

Add in that 6 of the AFL games are what football would consider to be “derby’s”, against 1 A-League derby, and do you know what? I’m more than happy with where the a-league sits at this point in time, thanks very much.

I don’t think I really need to dream that much at all.

Interesting article from the SMH, but I would like to point out, if you look at the 7 remaining founding teams, and replace NZK with WP, their crowd average per match is 13058, placing it second overall.

That is with Phoenix having its lowest crowd average ever and coming from a city of about 400k compared to NZK from a city of 1.4M.

I think the figures stack up fairly well against any season.

I don’t quite understand how the AFL has the power to do this anyway.

It’s a voluntary position, and the guy isn’t emplyed by the AFL but by a club.

What business is it of the AFL what anyone does in their spare time?

Seems a bit odd to me, but nice way to generate the impression that the AFL is a big bad ogre trying to bully little Adelaide United.

I can’t imagine too many AFL fans were even aware of the issue, or would now be in favour of how the AFL has handled it.

Maybe the AFL isn’t aware of what an own goal is, but they seem to have kicked one this time around.

The thing I remember most about Perth’s NSL succees was an interview with Nick Tana.

When asked “How have you made Perth so successfull?”, he replied, “We study what the rest of the NSL is doing, then do the exact opposite”.

I think the weekly attendances in Perth, and the Strikers Grand Final crowd, really proved the potential that Football has in Autralia. Perth indirectly exerted more pressure on the NSL by showing up its failings, hastening it’s demise, and demonstrating the way for the A-League.

I can’t see them reaching this years GF, but I do hope the club increases in strength, and realises the potential glimpsed in their early days.

I was at the game. SFC played in typical Farina style, lots of huff and puff, without huge amounts of tactical awerness. Credit to them, they gave it a red hot go, but weren’t up to the task. Nice to see a team come to Brisbane and actually try to play for a win for a change rather than park the bus and look to counter.

Brisbane looked good in patches, but most impressively for me defended well most of the night.

The difference for Broich is his work rate. Previoulsy well down on possessions, compared to the rest of the team, he’s been getting the ball a lot more in the past couple of weeks. It was obvious last night that the goal from last week has also given him confidence to shoot, something he has been missing for a while.

While some may have been writing Brisbane off all season, fact is apart from the one game against Heart, they have not lost by more than a goal all season. It’s been a 95% effort from the side all year, but in the past couple of weeks they’ve finally found that missing 5% and it’s making all the difference.

With none of the other top 6 in particularly good form, I’m guessing there’ll be a few nervous looks north of the Tweed by other coaches.

Yes, the standard of players produced in the Asian and middle eastern countries is “inferior”.

Hold on!

Didn’t those “inferior” players from Oman almost beat us last night, and haven’t we consistently struggled against all comers in this WC campaign?

Haven’t a-league teams mostly struggeld in the ACL?

If our players were good enough, they’d be playing in Europe. It’s not like most of them have had the option and turned it down.

The fact is, the situation in Europe was different 10-15 years ago when the “Golden Generation” was making a name for itself. Previously, many of the Ausises had cultural links to the countries they played in which made it easier for them to get playing visa’s. Changes to immigration and work laws in Europe have allowed more players from all over the world to go there, so competition for foreign spots has gotten even tougher.

Even the number of Asian players has increased dramatically, despite coming from these “inferior” leagues.

It is the way of the future. Get used to it.

Nordster, if the wage floor is a problem, there is nothng stopping clubs from employing less players.

It is also my understanding that clubs will receive the equivalent of the full wages cap as from next season thanks to the new TV deal. If they don’t reach the cap, I have heard of nothing stopping them from spending the balance on anything else.

I really don’t see what your continuing problem is with this issue.

nordster, the floor in the salary cap is there for a reason. The HAL is a full time professional league, not semi-professional. As such, the players deserve to be recompensed at a minimum level. Decreasing, or eliminating the wage floor would have a negative effect on the playing standard of the league.

We all live in a similar system thanks to the government enforced minimum wage.

In the case of the HAL and it’s “redistribution” payments, much of the leagues income goes straight to the FFA, eg TV rights, finals income, and certain sponsorhsip arangements, amongst others. Until the FFA relinquishes control over some of these key revenue sources, they will always be making such payments, and I have no problem with those payments going where they are most needed, if it helps to maintain or increase the current level of the competition.

jbinnie, while I don’t dispute that the standard of australian players in general needs to improve, I would argue that del Piero has made many players look sub-standard through out his career.

Second, while I have always considered that more teams would dilute the playing standard of the A-League, I have yet to see any evidence of that being the case.

GCU made the finals 2 years out of 3, Heart made the finals last year, and are at least competitve, and I would argue that NQF did well in their first season, but understandably struggled in the second, more because of their off field issues, and the geographical problems of trying to attract players.

WSW as you yourself pointed out, were able to assemble a good team in a matter of months.

The issue then is not that there are not enough Australian players capable of playing at an A-League standard, rather that the Australian standard is not high enough.

More teams give more opportunities for more players to become professional, and raise the standard of those players.

I therefore do not see player quality as an issue curtailing future expansion. There are many other issues far more important.

“in the days of the NSL, Sydney was the engine that drove football, both on and off the field. The game’s administration was centred around the Harbour City, and Sydney clubs dominated on the field.” I might like to disagree with this statement.

While it is true that Sydney teams dominatd the first half of the NSL winning 10 of 14 titles, they managed only one in the next 14 from 1991 to 2004.

It has also always been my belef that it was the vested interests of the Sydney Cub dominated former adminstration that held back the growth of the sport in Austraila for so long

Yes they are to be congratulated for having the vision to create the NSL in the first place, but when a man like Frank Lowy walked away from the sport beasue of the club politics pesent at the highest levels, you knew something was wrong.

Further, despite the success of the Wanderers this year and the ADP effect, I will always contend that it was the success of Brisbane Roar over the past two seasons that arrested the slide of the A-League. It really caught the national attention, and changed the way football is played in this country, hopefully forever. Without their succes, I doubt this season would have been anything like as successful as it has.

While ADP and Wanderers may have increased “the Buzz” in Sydney, there was a fair bit of Buzz in the preceeding two years despite SFC finishing 9th and 5th in those two years.

I beleive the idea that the sport must be successull in Sydney and Melbourne is antiquated and in serious need of review.

The true succees of the A-League is that it is a national success, and not one just confined to our two largest cities.

I think your estimate for the socceroos might be a bit high, but the interesting figures for me at the moment are the NRL attendances in Western Sydney.

Campbelltown – 9715
Penrith – 10882
Paramatta – 13351

West Sydney Wanderes – 12,029 av, WSW v Phoenix 15,809

Phoenix are one of the least supported away teams in the league, yet WSW still out drew the three local 3 NRL clubs, including Para at their own home. It proves the A-League is capable of competing attendance wise with the NRL, even if we aren’t there just yet..

Also, while the total attendance for AFL and NRL look daunting, it must be remebered they play a lot more games per season.

The HAL crowd growth over the past two seasons has been fantastic (50%), but even allowing for a much more modest 5% growth per year, over the next 4 years, that’s 20% and boosts us to the 15k average per game you are talking about.

The biggest issue I see is that it is the teams with the smaller crowds that really need to grow the most, and I currently can not see signs of that happening.

For me, the extended off season is looming as the biggest current issue to the continued growth of the A-League.

Forget the implications for the Natonal side and it’s WC campaigns. Fact is, the break is too long and new fans are in danger of drifting away and forgeting why they came every time the season finishes.

Previously, I would have said that we can not compete effectively with the other codes during their seasons, but I think this is no longer the case. Most clubs do now have a base level of support. and the season must be increased to both keep new fans, and improve income for clubs

A couple of points.

A Cup competition does little to substantially extend the season for A-League teams. Since it is by definition a knockout competition, most A-League teams are only going to get an extra 1-2 games, and at most probably 4. This is hardly a substatnital increase to the competitive season. I for one am not going to be interested in seeing a knockout comp straight after the regular season has been completed.

For me, an expanded fixture list is the best option.

Not only does it benefit the national team, it makes the clubs more financially viable. All staff, including palyers, are paid per year. Increasing the number of games, instantly decreases the cost per game clubs need to recover for wages.

This does of course rely on crowds not substantially decreasing in the overlap with the AFL and NRL, but I do not beleive this would be as big an issue as some might think. NSL crowds never substantially declined when overlapping with the other codes. I also refer to the 1997 grand final in Brisbane. The Strikers drew over 40k to Lang park that day, while the State of Origin game on the very next Wednesday night drew 33k, and far more than the Reds and Lions. (As an aside, I remember those numbers distinctly as it was the first time I ever felt football really does have the capacity to compete successfully with the other codes).

As already mentioned, playing surface quality does become an isssue, but I think that is a minor concern in the overall scheme of things.

How to expand then?

Two options, increase games, or increase teams.

Play every team home and away twice increases the comp to 36 weeks, or expand to 12 teams for a 33 week comp. I have no preference either way. The guarnateed oportunity to watch every team at home twice appeals to me, and short term, is the more likely option, given that there are isssues at the moment with expansion.

Apologies, I meant Roar and Wanderers.

I have no issue with having a finals series.

What I have a problem with is that more than half the teams in the competition are deemed good enough to compete in it, and that this years system makes the entire thing a lottery.

Some days, bad teams beat good teams. That doesn’t make the good team any less good, or some how any less deserving of being considered the best team in the country.

By the same measure, it doesn’t make the bad team any better, and should not be able to elevate them from mediocrity to being considered the best team in the country.

Heart have played and beaten the Roar three times this year. Should they meet in the finals and Roar win, does that make Roar the better team?

Why even boher to play an entire season if your performance during it has so little bearing on deciding who is the better side? Currently, it is feasible to reach the finals by winning as few as 8-10 games in a year. Why care if your team wins every week or not?

Either the results in the regular season are important or they are not. You can not have it both ways.

Fuss, you may think you were wrong, but I’m sure you are mistaken.

Fuss,

I would argue that most professional sporting teams world wide are not in fact clubs.

While I have a passing interest in English football, I can’t comment on other leagues, but I do know there is a growng push for more and more fan ownership in English teams.

Fans are sick of pouring in their hard earned dollars in the form of increaseing tickets and merchandise costs, and Pay TV subscriptions, only to see their teams ruined by poor owners.

Thanks for putting up the link to that fantastic article. The Bundesliga model is one I would love to see in Australia.

Yes my headline was First A-League Club

All football fans are delusional.

Sometimes, through massive coincidence, the delusion actually gets to match the reality.

This is not one of those times.