I was mainly just looking for a way to bring in Wollongong, but keep the teams to 16 and CCM is always the one on the most shaky ground. I want the A-League to thrive and I’m always worried about the financial health of CCM; if this is sorted and CCM continue to have the support of the locals then power to Gosford!
I know we all want Pro/Rel (eventually), but we are in a massive country with a small-ish population and currently overshadowed by other football codes so with that in mind let’s assume we don’t be having Pro/Rel before 2035 (if not 2045). Therefore we could perhaps peak at 18 teams and include:
17: Illawarra
18 Northern Australia (Based in Townsville with matches in Cairns & Darwin).
IF Wellington and Auckland decide to play in a NZ professional league then the 16 Aussie teams above would be perfect IMHO.

Next lot of expansion teams should be:
2021/22: let the dust settle on the pandemic and new TV deal kick in.
2022/23: 13 – Canberra United (merge with W-League team).
2023/24: 14 – Tasmanian Timbers (play 1/3 of home games in Launceston).
2024/25: 11 – Western United become Western Victoria (move to Geelong).
2025/26: 8 – Central Coast become South Coast Steelers (Mariners finally fail).
2026/27: 15 – Auckland Athletic (Auckland City’s A-League team).
2027/28: 16 – Gold Coast United (should have another 43% growth!).
Better leave Perth & Adelaide with one strong(ish) team.

Next four teams/regions to expand in must be:
13_ACT, 14_Tasmania.
15_Illawarra, 16_SE Queensland.
Mariners will eventually go bankrupt and become Manly Mariners.
Wellington will eventually get over it, move to Joondalup and become West Coast Phoenix.

Macarthur Magpies (Black & White stripes).
Wyndham Hammers (wearing maroon & blue sleeves) or Western Villa, same colours 😉

Nonsense!
So what if it’ll be the 100 year anniversary in 2030? Athens wasn’t awarded the 1996 Olympics to mark the 100 year anniversary, but they got to host them two Olympics later!
FIFA should mark the 100th anniversary of the World Cup by going where they have never gone before. Australia can offer so much; they know that we will have the stadiums completed in time, the workers will be treated fairly with humane working conditions, the nation’s economy won’t be up the creek (a la Spain) and we are positioned in a great timezone for the all the Asian viewers, which will probably have increased three-fold by then! Oh yeah and since we’re an English speaking country we won’t have to translate everything to three different languages!

This is the way I see it, going back and forward 20 or so years:
1990 – Europe (Italy)
1994 – North America (USA)
1998 – Europe (France)
2002 – Asia (SK/Japan)
2006 – Europe (Germany)
2010 – Africa (RSA)
2014 – South America (Brazil)
2018 – Europe (Russia)
2022 – Asia (Middle East)
2026 – North America (USA)
2030 – Europe (England)
2034 – Asia/Oceania (Australia/NZ) 🙂
2038 – South America (Argentina/Uruguay?)

I thought giving Oceania an extra .5 spot means more games for the region, which ultimately means more exposure to football and with it, improve quality. We know that who ever finishes 2nd, will most likely end up losing in the next play-offs anyway!

Agree with your Asia comments though as long as we split Asia into East and West! I don’t think I can justify at the current quality of Asian teams to move to 7 entrants, but if FIFA really were lured in by Petro $$$ and had to have 7 teams then you could have:
Total sides: 43 (East Asia 23, West Asia 20, unless India plays in the West, then it’s 22:21 split)
East Asia: 10 best teams split into 2 Groups where the top 2 from group qualify = 4
West Asia: 10 best teams split into 2 Groups where the top placed side from each group qualifies and the 2 second placed sides play-off with the winner being the 7th Asian side in the World Cup.

I’m sorry, I can’t see 10 x 4 working in a 40 team FIFA World Cup.

It may create more quality games, but it will not be fair for those 4 teams who finish second in their group and miss out. If this was the case it’s almost as if each nation is playing against every other team in the other Groups and not just those in their own group! Then they’ll have to start thinking like this going into their third and final game, “Right, we have a loss and a draw, but the second placed team in Group C has a win and a draw with a goal difference of +2 so basically even if we get a win and they lose their last match there is no chance of us qualifying because they have a better goal difference than us”.

If they do go to a 40 team comp then 8 x 5 is the only option; the top two of each group qualifies and every national team will know, going into their final game exactly what they need to finish second or first! So you might get the occasional 4th playing 5th with no chance of finishing second, but then you might get some other games where 4th plays 5th where they can both potentially finish second and they will go into that game knowing that if they do finish second they WILL progress to the last 16! Then it’s not so much a lottery, “Great we finished second, oh wait – we miss out on progressing”.

On another note, where will the extra 8 teams come from? We don’t want to dilute the quality even more do we?

– Oceania: Grant an automatic spot for the top team and second goes in the play-off – This pretty much guarantees NZ a spot in every world cup, which would be great for the region (and the A-League) 😉
– Asia: We have 4 automatic spots and currently a 5th can qualify through further Intercontinental play-offs. Why not have the winner of the two 3rd placed teams qualify instead of playing yet another qualifier with South America?
– Africa: Currently has 5 automatic spots. The top team from the 10 groups currently play-off and the winners qualify for the World Cup. We could move to 7 spots by including the best 4 second placed African teams in the play-offs along with the top 10 teams – the winners from the 14 games qualifies for the World Cup.
– North America: Have the top 4 of the 4th round qualify automatically and instead of 4th placed side playing-off with the winner of Oceania have the 5th placed North American side play-off against Oceania’s second placed team.
– South America: Have the top 6 sides automatically qualify instead of the top 4 and 5th playing off with Asia’s 3rd placed winner. Asia’s 3rd placed play-off winner now qualifies automatically so no need for an intercontinental play-off or any chances of more humiliating 5-0 thumpings against South America’s 5th placed team…save them for the World Cup! haha
– Europe: At the moment the top team from the 9 groups qualifies automatically with the best 8 second placed teams play-off and the four winners make 13 teams from Europe. Maybe they can change it to the top 9 teams PLUS the best 5 second placed teams go through. The remaining 4 second placed teams play off with the two winners going through making it 16 teams from Europe.

Oceania: 1.5
Asia: 5
North America: 4.5
Africa: 7
South America: 6
Europe: 16
=40

I know there’s a heavy Europe representation, but let’s face it – there’s a lot more quality sides in Europe than anywhere else in the world. Maybe as the quality increases in other parts of the world they can start taking spots off Europe. Let’s say the quality of Asia picks up, then they can have the top 3 sides of each Asia group qualify making it 6 Asian sides and taking a spot off Europe.

…and once South Coast is eventually introduced into the A-League, South Coast will play against Canberra in Rivalry Round.
So the matches should look like something like this:
BRFC Vs GCU (QLD)
NJFC Vs CCM (North NSW)
WSFC Vs SFC (Sydney)
CanFC Vs SCFC (South NSW)
MVFC Vs MHFC (Melbourne)
PGFC Vs AUFC (South/West Aust)
WPFC Vs TasFC (Australia’s two island team! lol)

If there was a second team from New Zealand to join the A-League it should definitely be an amalgamation between Waikatere United and Auckland City = Auckland United.
If Auckland City can beat Central Coast, imagine what a fully professional team will do.

…and no Auckland Kingz/New Zealand Knights don’t count…an Auckland United team will be under different rules and circumstances and have much better support, advertising and connection with grassroots. The A-League has learnt a lot lately and in the last couple of years lifted it’s profile immensely so a new Auckland team will also have much more backing from corporates, fans and businesses.

Add in a New Zealand Derby – Auckland United Vs Wellington Phoenix and you have another successful A-League club 🙂

Anyway – not really related to the article – just wanted to add my two cents!

Olympiacos, Heart, Liverpool, (Sydney) Swans all the way mate 🙂

Would you two like a room? lol
Jokes aside, I completely understand where you guys are coming from, except my story is a little different. Having lived in Greece for the first 8 years of my life and embracing football and Olympiacos as my second religion, when I came to Melbourne I started going for South Melbourne because, well for obvious reasons. However once they were relegated to the state league and Victory became the only football club in Melbourne in the National League I felt like I didn’t have a team support anymore so I went back looking for Olympiacos news and even subscribing to Foxtel just in case I could catch ’em on ESPN in a UCL game!! However, once Heart was announced and I saw a picture of Aloisi wearing a red&white striped top – I was in love again; I found a (national league) team I could feel part of and have an emotional attachment to! Now the only reason I keep Foxtel is to watch Heart when they’re playing interstate! 🙂
That’s my story – thanks for listening…

He’s going to Sydney! Think about it, both Brisbane Roar and Sydney FC are probably the best placed clubs who can grow and make both the FFA, the club and Harry Kewell some money. If Kewell comes to Victory he risks more earnings since Victory already have the biggest base and only playing out of a 30,000 stadium!
Brisbane Roar and Sydney FC play out of a 52,000 and 45,000 seat stadium respectively! Who’s got more space to grow? Brisbane! Who’s more likely to grow with Kewell’s signing? Sydney FC! Why? Because they have a population of 4.5million as opposed to Brisbane’s 2 million! To add more incentive for Kewell to sign with Sydney FC is that he was born in Sydney and most his family still lives there! All signs point to Sydney FC – the original “Bling” club of the A-League 😉

2011/12 – HAL Teams: 10
————————————————
2012/13 – HAL Teams: 12
HAL Team No. 11: Western Sydney FC
HAL Team No. 12: Canberra Athletic FC
————————————————
2013/14 – HAL Teams: 12
————————————————
2014/15 – HAL Teams: 14
HAL Team No. 13: Illawarra United FC

HAL Team No. 14: Tasmanian Tigers FC
Major Sponsor: Cascade Beer (local co. and Tasmanian Tiger is also their logo)
Home Ground: Bellerive Oval 16 games + Aurora Stadium 16 games
Regional Game: Burnie – Cooee/Montello Recreation Ground

I agree, stay put, just concentrate and invest more in bringing the 20k+ crowds back! Whether that’s getting a marquee player like Harry Kewell, more advertising, cheaper tickets, better results on the pitch (this one’s a bit hard to do for Sydney FC. lol), etc.

I also agree that FFA need to put a Western Sydney team into the A-league too, not this season, not next season, but season 2014/15! This gives Sydney FC enough time to gather up more supporters because I think once Western Sydney comes in, it’ll be very hard for Sydney FC to hold on to a lot of fans…just like a lot of Melbourne Victory jumped ship when Heart came into the league. I think they need to bring in TWO teams in 2014/15, West Sydney and Canberra Athletic/United. Canberra are dying for a team and they already have a team in the W-League which will complement the men’s team well.

Also, bringing in two teams in 2014/15 will buoyed by the 2014 WC (if Australia qualifies) and even closer to home, the 2015 ASIAN CUP!!!

Schwab does sound like he could be FFA Chairman material.

There’s no way a Sage or Tinkler can take the top job – talk about conflict of interest – isn’t that one of the major reasons Soccer Australia failed? Too many head-honchos with self (club) interests in mind!?

How do you expect to win over any “old soccer” folk to folloow the “new football” clubs when these clubs will be directly competing against the Old Soccer clubs? …or have we given up on them?

Instead of directly competing against South Melbourne, Melbourne Knights, Heidelberg Utd, Oakleigh Cannons, etc you can create an affiliation with those sides and have them become your feeder teams. If you don’t want to have a one-to-one relationship, i.e. Heart with South Melbourne and Victory with Melbourne Knights, you can split the VPL teams in half.

For example, Heart can team up with South Melbourne, Spingvale White Eagles, Richmond, Dandenong Thunder, Oakleigh Cannons and bentleigh Greens (THE SOUTH/EAST) where Melbourne Victory will team up with Melbourne Knights, Saint Albans Saints, Green Gully, Northcote City, Hume City and Heidelberg Utd (THE NORTH/WEST).

The same way that AFL teams have an affiliated VFL team as their feeder/reserve teams, the VPL sides can act like the reserves for the A-League sides 🙂

Of course, if this happens “VTC Footbal” in the VPL will cease to exist…

Cho Chung Yun, Korea Football Association chairman will take over as AFC president….and at the re-vote of the 2022 World Cup bid, Korea will get the WC! lol

Why remove my comment? What happened to freedom of speech? What, you think FFA would get upset and cry overwhen I tell them how disappointed every Victorian is?

The Mirabella Cup was the best thing to happen in football in Victoria since the NSL became defunct (by the FFA) and since they’ve been lobbying for the old soccer folk to jump on board the A-League and reconnecting with grass roots, this decision to pull the A-League teams out of the Mirabella Cup is a Major Failure towards bridging the gap between old soccer and new football and huge step backwards in mending the frail relationship between the FFA and stakeholders, i.e. amateur players, grass-roots kids, A-League club members, VPL followers, football fans!

11mins to Beer O’Clock…it’s 3:49pm 🙂

The only reason my club paid our fee to play in the Mirabella Cup it was because we dreamed of playing one of the A-League teams…mind you we lost in the first round, but our sheer motive for joining the Mirabella Cup was because we were promised Victory and Heart as potential contenders. This is not good enough by the FFA. They’re doing more backflips than a dodgy politician.

They approved the Mirabella Cup with the FFV with the conception that Victory and Heart would participate – they should stick to their promises.

I think it’s perfect the way it is.

– The best teams of the best leagues qualify automatically in the Champions League, but UEFA still gives the better teams from the weaker leagues the opportunity to qualify for it.

– The second tier teams play in the Europa League (not sure why this changed from UEFA Cup).

– The teams that finish 3rd in each Champions League group stage still get a chance to compete in Europe with the better second tier teams, (Europa League).

– The teams which finish last (4th) in the Champions League groups gets eliminated and rightly so.

– The champion from both the Champions League and Europa League play off in the Super Cup to work out the best team in Europe. This is a bit weird because one would think the best team is the Champions League champion as opposed to the Europa League champion, but hey, why not? It gives the fans, viewers, spectators another quality match to watch 🙂

Agreed. Good response whiskey. Peter, you are not!

Good article whiskeymac or Dugald Massey? :-S

You’re just jealous! 😛

Correction: We CAN’T all be plastic! Oops! lol