Sorry, but I have to say Muscat can’t hide behind the injury of Valeri as the reason Victory didn’t do better. Unfortunate as it was, Victory underperformed massively from January and have only just started to play better. Given manager of the year is based off A-league achievements the ACL performance (albeit pleasing) does not factor in here either. Throw into the mix that A-league teams don’t take the FFA cup seriously in the opening rounds I think we have to remember that the competition is far from the best indicator of how well teams are going, many coaches just see it as part of the pre-season training.

Benitez is a seriously overrated manger. No need for more discussion…

Development of players occurs at various stages in their careers, the reality is Nathan Burns was coming off a career that had far from lived its potential. Wellington gave him a shot and he won the Johnny Warren medal. He wasn’t nearly as prevalent in the Socceroos squad the season before he joined Wellington to the season after. So how is that unreasonable grounds to say they played a role in developing him as a a player? Many players speak of how going to WSW they have developed further and learnt new things, Scott Jamieson springs to mind in this regard.

This is a decision that doesn’t better all either, there is a club that completely loses out here. This decision is not in the interests of fans or club owners. We are talking about two of the most important stakeholders in the game. To say that upsetting all of them for a decision that is not necessary, I find somewhat off the mark. I like many others am aware there are problems with Wellington, but why shouldn’t we try fix them?

It may not be Australia’s problem directly, but to say the Nix should go and play in that league effectively would push football in NZ back a long way. Believe it or not the nation has made progress, why should the FFA be complicit in the undoing of that? I don’t accept that the best way to approach the Nix is to axe them, the majority of fans don’t want it, the owners of A-league clubs don’t want it and the Nix supporters don’t deserve it. I’ve tried to prove that in terms of the metrics Wellington could be viable, but aside from that this is a club that has a soul and identity and actually represents a whole group of people.

Why is it that we should take that away? Football is definitely a game where money has a great deal of influence, but there is more to it than that. Passionate support exists for the Nix just like it does for the other clubs across the A-league. When the business side of things can still work for the Nix, which it can, the FFA should be no more keen to remove them from the league than any other club.

The Idea CG2430 would be that every club in the league could have as many NZ/Aus players as they wanted, there is no advantage to any club their. If anything the Nix may find it harder to keep their best NZ-born players at the club. Now I haven’t read the bit about Hutt Recreation, however if that is the case they should put in the money needed to make it available for permanent use.

Republican while New Zealand as a country does as well as or even better in Australia in many areas of its society, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help grow football there, especially when it’s in the FFA and consequently Australia’s interests. It’s not about patronising New Zealand or belittling them. It’s actually about improving the state of football as whole a stronger Nix means a better league-wide broadcast deal. If anything improving the Nix helps advance football in Australia.

Much to my frustration the FFA have stated they’re not interested in Canberra right now and would sooner be developing a team in Sydney or Brisbane before going to the nation”s capital. I find this particularly frustrating as Canberra could be a great location for expansion, along with Wollongong. I just think it’s close-minded to say axe the Nix develop Australian teams. Why can’t we have both?

Kaks, why can’t we have both the Nix and new franchises in the future? I accept that the AFC aren’t on board with NZ being part of the AFC right now, but the same was said about Australia before when trying to join Asia. There needs to be support from the FFA and lobbying to FIFA to make this change.

With reference to your point on proposed changes to the visa rules, I think it’s much more likely we would be creating more opportunities for Australian footballers. Already this season we have Blake Powell and Troy Danaskos over there getting games for the Nix. Andrew Durante a mainstay of the Nix was born in Sydney. Additionally I find it hard to accept the Nix haven’t developed Australian talent given the rise of Nathan Burns last season, just because he wasn’t 18/19 doesn’t mean he didn’t improve in his time at the Nix.

To the final point I did also say that NZ weren’t ready right now and you’re right to question how will two work. The idea is that when Wellington have established a very solid foundation to introduce a second team and hopefully create another financially beneficial fixture that the HAL needs.

The overarching argument has to be instead of just throwing away what has been created in Wellington, build on it and look at how to make it better for the entire league. I think you’ll find as showcased by the #SavetheNix campaign the majority of fans want them to stay too. Would it be wise for the FFA to take yet another action to put the fans offside?

I have to say nordster, in the long term that may be what they are forced to do, but the state of the NZ professional league is tragic. For now there are two key ways to grow football in the country – granted, this is only an opinion – the first is success of the national team for all of the population to get behind and the second is to have a successful club team that wins trophies. I would like to see a new Australian team in the next broadcast deal (though it seems unlikely, given Gallop’s message of consolidation), but it shouldn’t be at the expense of a club who was been part of the A-league since 2007 and still has something to offer to the league.

Personally I have the view that if it’s not criticised how can we expect it to change? These stories are coming from some of the biggest publications in Australia, not private blogs. Everyone has the right to an opinion and that should not be silenced, but when someone write articles for a paper that has a circulation of over a million people there is a responsibility to do proper research and justify an opinion without sensationalism or hyperbole.

Al, the point of that example is that it doesn’t represent AFL fans culture, it represent one moron’s culture. I did actually say that in the article.

Exactly C! often what happens is people find “difference” an issue, people look at football in Australia and they see a racially divers group of fans that bring a unique approach to support of sport in Australia and a lot of people (more specifically journo’s) take massive issue with that. Thus we have the situation we do now where parts of the media aim to vilify these fans.

Well my experience of the education system actually promoted a lot of tolerance, I think xenophobic mentalities are pushed a lot by media outlets. There’s no point in naming and shaming, but they do exist and that’s a problem, if a change were to occur with them, I think there would be a significant change in the way Australia treats people outside the Western-European migrant base.

I must say don’t have the same view of AFL or any other sports cultural value in Australia. I am a sports nut through and through and appreciate a great contest. One thing that i must say of Australia though is that our sports culture is a very unique one and one that should be cherished, however when we start putting certain sports on the margins in the media, ergo football. We risk alienating people in Australia. It does not seem like a coincidence that Football’s highly multi-cultural support base is also the one that is under the most intense scrutiny from the media.

To be honest I thought everything that happened with Adam Goodes last year reflected a lot about the White-Australian gaze of life in Australia. The logic behind this is that we saw many celebrities, media personalities etc. weighing on the issue saying Goodes should get over it. Rather than having only people within the sport defending the boos, there were people from all over doing it. To me, that implies it was a nation-wide issue, not just an AFL one.

“There isn’t a cultural problem among the fans who attend any of those sports. Sure there is a small minority (and it really is minute) who are there to get drunk, harass people, and do anything but watch that sport. But this behaviour exists in all sports, so why is the A-League the only one with a cultural problem?”

The idea of the above paragraph (and the article) is to debunk the myth of the cultural problem that is reported to exist exclusively in football. The examples used were supposed to reflect that these instances of dissidence aren’t indicative of a whole culture in any sport and hence the myth doesn’t exist. It seems though I didn’t do as good a job as I could. Sorry mate, hope this clears up my position.

Could not agree more, being a member of The Cove (Sydney active support group) I was amazed at some of the conclusions media outlets were drawing about the game and its fans. I think if you look beyond the headlines there is, in some instances, elements of racism. That is older Anglo-Australian journo’s who take issue with the sport because of its popularity amongst migrants.
Having said that I think that view is on the way out and a more measured approach in sports reporting is coming in.

The idea of the boxing Day Test example was to raise the fact there are offenders in every sport. With reference to the crowds there was over 40k at the Sydney Derby and yes it was a shorter game, but if we look at the comparison, regardless of the length of the game there was still anti-social behaviour and yet no question over the game actual culture.

I think the perception of football fans is in part to do with what you’ve raised, as well as the history of football in Australia that is one where there very tense ethnic rivalries. Prior to the formation of the A-league this was a genuine problem, but now we have a reformed competition where there isn’t a sense of extreme nationalism or serious risk of racially motivated violence.

Daniel, a thoughtful comment and believe me I completely agree with the FIFA issue. Corruption in the international governing body is only one of the many problems there, however this article is dealing with the apparent cultural problem with the A-league and its fans. My whole argument is about what is happening in Australia, rather than the state of football globally.

This seems to be a fairly objective assessment from someone with “SkyBlue” in their name, perhaps that’s just a reference to Manchester City haha.
The reason I singled out Piovaccari is for two reasons, 1) To say that every team was smooth sailing and didn’t need anything or rather couldn’t do anything to improved seemed silly to me and thus Piovaccari stood out as the weak link in a very strong side.
2) He’s a marquee! If you come to the A-league as a marquee player expect to be scrutinised. They’re one of the players outside the cap and need to bring something of significant value to the side!

Have to agree about Smeltz, he puts in the work and does a lot of stuff that seems to go unnoticed, but for me he’s become a bit like Bruce Djite – Not playing badly, but not scoring either – Ultimately the striker’s job is to score though, so I think if someone goes from Sydney it’s got to be him. In Brisbane they’ve used their depth in strikers to breed great competition for places between Maclaren, Borello, Henrique and to a lesser extent Solorzano.

Hopefully at least one team can bring in a big name for the January window, the league needs it this season. City have the cash to do it so we can only hope something good comes of their relatively new found wealth.

Couldn’t agree more, while many of us have a soft spot for nice guy Brucey, he just hasn’t delivered enough goals for the club.

Personally I don’t mind Sciola in Perth’s side, Fernandez on the other hand has been really average (when he’s not been injured). So to terminate his contract to bring in Keogh would seem wise to me.

Here’s hoping Fadida, despite not being a Glory, I think (As I do myself) most people want to see a competitive side out of Perth.

Well I think many from terraces of Stamford Bridge would have preferred Mourinho to stay and some of the egos departed…

Well I’m working on a piece about what every A-league club needs this January, hope that’s close enough 😛