Exactly, flights aren’t cheap, and then people with a fmaily have to but multiple tickets, accommodation, as I’m sure the final will be in the evening and then possible a day off work if they hold it on Sunday.
Can accept that if we didn’t earn the right to host it, like was previously the case, but you are now just expecting that off all non-NSW fans.
Also, the decision was taken in the middle of the season, after people determine whether to be members of not.

Stuart, as you say the issue is money. But what we need to know is “how much”. I understand the clubs make a loss, but if this is a game changing amount that I could see really help the sport grow, I may reluctantly accept.
However, if its a small amount of coin, yes I know its a eight figure sum, but that’s over 3 years for 6 grand finals, then we should be up in arms.
What is the A-League supporter getting in return for this sell-out? The terrible ideas they are floating doesn’t cut it. Tell us how much money!
I’ll be walking out after 20mins as a Melb City supporter who has followed the club since Day1.
Worse decision ever by the A-league at the moment.

You are arguing that $11 per hour is great value. However, what the article doesn’t talk about is where the money properly goes. Suggest a squad of 17 players, that means the club is taking in $187 per hour. You claim that this covers club licensing fees, coaches wages, coaches training courses, referee fees, ground hire, equipment, uniforms, utilities and other overhead costs.
So, coaches wages and referee fees we will say $60. I’ll give you $67 for the rest, so this leaves $60 for other overhead costs, or in other words, paying senior players in the mens NPL team.
As a comparison, my daughter trains only 2 days per week in Melbourne and the senior team does NOT get paid, her fees are around $700.
This is the issue, all OK in a free market to charge what you like but the clubs don’t state that x% of you junior fees are going to pay the wages of our NPL team.

Look forward to him bringing back his sons Gabriel and Kristian to play. Haven’t their careers soared since they left their fathers wing.

I agree that City didn’t have plenty of clear cut chances, but to suggest the goals were fortunate is a bit ‘over the top’. City’s pressure in the first half resulted in Roar have the lapses and thus creating the chances for City to score.
The 2nd goal was a clear demonstration of this, where 3 Roar defenders chose to track the overlapping player, as City had played that ball countless times during the game. This created the space required for Metcalfe to go inside and score.
I think the scoreline was a true reflection of the match.

People rate him as a coach as he took a team that had only won the FFA Cup to Premiership/Championship last year.
So your writing him off after one game which they won, and suggesting players are a shadow of themselves. City were very comfortable for 70mins, and really dominated the stats of the game. The game is over 90mins, not the last 10mins when Roar start throwing caution to the wind.

No, its not that simple. I hate Victory (City supporter) but WA has classified Victoria as High Risk or Extreme Risk, meaning there are very little reasons to be granted travel to WA to even then quarantine for 14 days at your own expense (not allowed to leave and hence train). The list of qualifying reasons, playing sport would not count. 100% agree that other sports have been given dispensation, but surely its the onus for Glory to get the WA government to provide this dispensation. Trying to suggest Victory are not “coming to the party” is a bit rich.

Agree that normally NoMates is pretty quick to quote the Bledisloe games as a reference to Socceroo’s games played at 11pm or 6am in the morning.

Website tvtonight.com.au had the metro figure at 447,000 and the 10th watched show the the night. News and current affair shows take 7 spots, and Home & Away and The Chase Australia also in top 10.

Considering 10News and the the Project are at around 270,000 I reckon Channel10 will be happy with those figures.

JayMac? Are you referring to Jamie MacLaren who didn’t play?

Sydney FC look to youth?? You have the oldest squad in the ALM, at 27.3yrs. Next closest is Macarthur at 26.7yrs. 9 players older than 30. Only 6 players young than 21yrs. Every squad has ‘young’ players like you have listed. Corica has only signed those players to fit into the salary cap given the money being spent on the older players in the squad.

Not sure where ‘big spenders ball firmly in the court of Melbourne City’? Average age of Melb City squad is 25.1yrs and phoenix smash it at 23.9yrs.

So lets name the openly gay players in male football at the moment, ah, that right, there are none. How about AFL, League, Union. Also none. You can’t honestly say to me there are none, but for whatever reasons they are currently choosing not to be “open” in that environment, when in the rest of society people can talk about their sexuality. Therefore, it is “courageous” to be the first. Its already been discussed in this forum by AdelaideAndy about players he felt left the game because of it. Hopefully, the others will feel empowered to choose what they want to do and soon it will be mundane.

Not trying to “cancel” your comment, just responding in a polite way, as I assume that’s what a comments section is about 😊

“Jamie mac hasnt even played a minute yet?” So, the ALM is in off-season hence you suggest we forget that he has scored 53 goals in 58 appearances for Melbourne City, golden boot winner last season and has scored 6 goals in the last 10 games from the Socceroos.

However, stats can lie. What you don’t mention is whether he will fit into the style of play that Arnie is looking for.

Anyway, to your point, I think we have a lot of better options for 3-4 strikers than Cummings.

Why??? People seem to forget that the Socceroo’s have been performing without A-league players, whom will strengthen the squad. MacLaren and Leckie as 2 examples. Obviously Cummings sounds like a person whom would be a good story from his antics, but in terms of quality, I think there are many many players above him.

Since you decided not to mention it, I will. Do you have any issues with Saudi Arabia owning your football club (yes, I know is through PIF)? You try to justify PIF’s involvement as an investment. Do you believe its an investment to make money, or to try an slap some respectability onto the regime? I don’t think Man City or PSG are actually making money from their investments.

You talk about an abusive relationship with Ashley due to him ‘wanting to change the name of St James Park’. Do you have any qualm’s about the new ownership? If so, you never mentioned this.

I’m talking a bit from a glass house, I’m a Melbourne City fan, since Day 1 of the Heart. Am I glad for the investment into our club, Yes. Do I try and avoid that the owners are maybe not the greatest people, NO. Its tough, I still very actively support Melbourne City but I’m happy to acknowledge that the owners could treat their population better. Why has PIF (Saudi Arabia) bought the club. If its an investment, they won’t be pumping billions into it and have huge losses like you hope. If its for good PR, then they probably will.

Who is officiating the match, I thought the A-League refs were on strike. Are some NPL refs going to cross the picket line?

If you listen to the Football Weekly podcast (by The Guradian) they talk about the list and focus on the 20 Premier League Players (one from each club). They follow them for 5 years to see how things pan out.

Essentially, being the Top Junior Player at a Premier League club in 5 years time results in:
– About 1/3rd still play in a top league in Europe
– About 1/3rd play in the lower leagues
-About 1/3rd they can’t find (i.e drop off the radar).

Just goes to show how difficult it is to translate being a talented youngster to a professional. I’m glad I was never talented enough to make me think I could make it.

There is a difference between people not being happy about things and there being a “professional, inclusive and supportive” culture in the team. I don’t think you can link the two personally, especially since the output of the confidential survey is not known.

However, people seem to be inferring here that the current Matilda’s cannot be trusted and they are merely puppets of the FA. Why do you believe De Vanna and not the current players? Surely both voices can be correct and heard?

What do you want the Matilda players to do? What is the first, second and third questions the Matilda’s will get during the upcoming friendly matches to be played in Australia. It will all be about this issue. No where in their statement did they dismiss or contradict De Vanna. They simply talked about their experiences. I find it hard to believe those in the team wouldn’t be willing to speak up considering this issue was supported during the recent matches in the WSL in the UK (where a lot of the players play), and that (and I’m assuming here) people at the centre of De Vanna’s claims aren’t part of the set-up as she seemed to be talking about Senior Players when she was younger.

Tigertown, both Lisa De Vanna and the current Matilda’s can be correct with their views/experiences, especially given the timeframe that I believe Lisa is referring to. You can’t simply assume that the current Matilda’s are protecting things, just the same way you can’t assume that Lisa is ‘blowing up everything’ due to her disappoint with what happened at the close of her career. As I have stated previously, ensuring we have the systems and processes in place is the most important thing we need to ensure from this episode.

Maybe, but then these types of issues across many areas of society have been in the public space for the past few years, so as a senior player she could have decided to speak about them at that time.

However I suspect some people will state she didn’t want to rock the boat and once out decided to do it.

I have no idea but if her only motive was the well being of the future players I’m not sure she has been as effective as she could have been with her timing and method of delivery. That said, Football Australia are doing something so maybe she has been.

Goo article Stuart, and I agree that a lot of people in the past have had poor experiences, from simply bullying up the scale to things that people go to prison for a very very long time (or they should).

If it is true that De Vanna tried to make these complaints but couldn’t, then that is worrying. However it does appear (at least reported) that the PFA (her representative body) also didn’t have a formal complaint so I’m not sure whether this is correct but I only see what the papers say

I think the important part of this story is whether Football Australia now has the systems and structures in place to deal with these issues. It is pleasing to see Football Australia partner with Sports Integrity Australia to set up such a process. Speaking about the club where my daughter is a player (U11’s), it was pleasing to see that topics such as this were discussed at the start of the season with the Teams Managers and steps the club had in place to deal with these issues.

I am pretty certain there is a big dose of sour grapes in the way De Vanna is handling this, especially the timing and how she has reported it. However that doesn’t mean we should not take the issue seriously, make sure we have the systems and processes in place to deal with these issues, and also investigate and make sure if there is serious misconduct, people are held to account.

Glory get next to no coverage in the local paper ‘The West Australian’ and like most papers is more focussed on the EPL. With his background being from Liverpool, this should at least raise the Glory’s profile for a period of time. As with most things, will depend on how much they paid as to whether its worthwhile. Is he counted as a “Designated Player” or will that already be filled by Castro and Fornaroli?

I think the decision is great. I’ve had that conversation with my 11yr old daughter, who happily goes to both A-League & W-League games (using the old names) and asked, why is it called the W-League and my only possible answer “because they are women”.

Totally agree that in a few years we won’t even notice. Took me a while to get use to A-League. Having all under the same banner and then a Club Championship, great ideas.

Ah NoMates, keep banging that drum. There have been 2 FFA Cup games so far:

15/09/21 FFA Cup: Gold Coast Knights d Edge Hill United Barlow Park 1,946
14/09/21 FFA Cup: Brisbane Roar d Peninsula Power Moreton Daily Stadium 2,905

4 AFL crowds in 2021 were lower than this, AFL is in crisis!

5 games in the NRL in the last 40 lower than this (can’t be bothered going back further), NRL in crisis!

Can’t remember who the commentator (but he was good) was but Nick Meredith was special comments and did a great job. Showed good knowledge of the Qld NPL and gave some insight, rather than just restating what you are watch on TV, which is what I could do myself!

NoMates, your not even a glass half empty Guy. If I gave you a free Beer missing 10%, that’s all you would be commenting on.
I would have thought the crowd would be closer to 2K than 1K, on a Tuesday night for an NPL team isn’t bad. Game shonw live on 10Play was great (rather than hidden on FoxSports) with good camera angles etc).
Honestly, how many people would watch St Kilda vs Port Melbourne (Aussie Rules) or Cronulla vs Newtown (League) if similar games were held.
I thought the coverage was good, enjoyed the commentator and Nick Meridith and will probably tune in again.
Not saying it was 100% perfect, but not a bad start to life under 10/Paramount.