I would work away as a supporter if we ever went into another country such as Singapore or Malaysia.

I’m a Sydney FC fan and respect their decision totally, even though I was pissed off for a good 12 hours after missing out on tickets. Wanderers fans and their club deserves the opportunity to play at their home which is Parramatta Stadium. At the end, it’s a ground that has brought their community together and as stated by melbourneterrace was one of their principles set by all their members. At the start of the HAL and through the last few seasons, many Sydney FC members and myself were quite annoyed at how Sydney FC were run and that all principles that many supporters had voiced on how to connect with the community, connect with the fans, improve services and attract new fans were all just waved away. However things at Sydney FC are also slowly improving which is good to see. I respect that the Wanderers have stayed true to themselves in staying at their only home ground.

2) I’ll continue to whinge for missing out on tickets but it’s part and parcel of football and successful teams will attract crowds where demand is higher than supply such as the Sydney Derby. In a few years the derby will out grow both stadiums and more people will be missing out than attending the actual game, but as stated earlier it happens around the world and it’s no different to Australia. ANZ is what has also killed rugby league games. I’m not a league supporter but many of my friends don’t go to games anymore as their local teams which they support play in an entirely different part of Sydney.

3) The atmosphere is pathetic at ANZ. You need 80,000 fans and it still feels weak compared to actual football grounds. It’s really hard to create any decent atmosphere within a stadium that can be configured multiple different ways like ANZ.

4) I’ve said this time and time again… ANZ should be exactly like Wembly… all internationals for all sports which are played in NSW are played at ANZ be it football, rugby or league. It should only host origins and grand finals as well. Use it as a marquee stadium for marquee events.

Agree Melbourne Victory could do a lot more with their return ticketing system that they currently have in place. Playing at AAMI means missing out on fans and missing out on profit, but it supports the season ticket holders which in turn support their own club financially. Introducing a proper ticket return system where fans can sell their tickets for up to 15% extra (for example).. covers them financially and gives them that extra incentive to return their seat to public sale.

In future I would like to see both a lottery system (same system for world cup tickets) for Sydney Derby games where only season members are guaranteed seats when their team is playing at home.

He has put his defenders on more pressure numerous times due to his crap clearances.

Ben Kantarovski is another example of a player who will fall out of the A-League in a few years like Pafata and co. You also do see why Munich did show him the door. He was a great player for his age when he came through at 15/16 but he has remained the same in the last 6 years or possibly even got worse. Idiot for choosing uni over football as a uni degree can be completed later in life and most a-league clubs encourage players to under take part time study…

Cheers mate

“I’ve compiled a list of current A-League players who at one point where destined to become great players or more was expected from them when they were signed by their current clubs.”

Never said he would become a great player but a lot more was expected from him by Brisbane Roar to challenge Theo. He is 29 at the end of the day and he should be putting in better performances than 19-21 year old keepers. He isn’t, which means he is under par.

Decent player at AU, think he won the young player of the year award as well. Great runs, confident young player and something most coaches look for in youngsters when they introduce them into the team. All that has now disappeared.

I’ll throw Duganzic in there, Velaphi, Kantarovski,

Players in danger of not fulfilling early potential; Caceres, Goodwin, Birighitti, Duke

Agree with all but Birighitti. Think he has plenty of time to develop considering that keepers usually take a bit longer to fully develop.

Wouldn’t kill off anyone mate. Clubs like Mariners and Perth would get rewarded for putting in the hard yards. To be completely honest Perth has being run like shambles and are now starting to get their act together by the look of things. Mariners on the other hand seem to have completed a 360 and appear to be in shambles. The Mariners haven’t signed a marquee player and haven’t really done much to improve the match day experience for fans. For a region such as the Central Coast they should be easily attracting over 10,000 fans to each game with Sell out’s for games against WSW, Sydney FC and especially Newcastle. No marquee, no real drive to attract top talent and continuous rumors that they’re in financial trouble with a possible relocation. How about the owner/s actually put up an sizable investment and effort to attract top talent and you’d see average crowd figure return to what they used to be and even higher.

Season is going to be the best ever, but in the future would you want it to be remain with 10 teams, player salaries capped, playing at shared grounds which are too large or too small and for our league to keep following a similar model to the NRL which revolves around securing the largest possible T.V. deal, while screwing over fans, having clubs play in a number of different regions and having 3-4 home grounds or would you want A-League clubs to follow a more professional culture and structure and truly establish themselves within Australia’s culture?

Don’t get me wrong the other sports in Australia all have a place but football is going to be a medium which will allow foreigners to invest in Australia and establish businesses in Australia similar to how football is treated by companies throughout the world in a decade or two. Trust me! Also as our results indicate, we need to improve our football system… we just don’t have young players falling off a conveying belt available to step up and play A-League football, let alone our national team.

Hey Adrian,

Yep you’re right. US$48million in revenue for the Seattle Sounders last year with a net worth of US$175. That is still three times our highest club Melbourne Victory (Chivas their lowest, have the same revenue as Melbourne Victory). However I am also against A-League clubs spending $6-7m on one player while having the majority of their squad on $100k or so.

If your prediction about our economy is right and it does increase significantly I can see football really getting ahead of NRL in this country and being considered as a respectful league around the world.

Statistics like that are flawed as both countries didn’t even have a professional league beforehand and without doubt should experience growth. However I do believe that the MLS will be one of the strongest leagues within the next 15-20 years, obviously behind the EPL, La Liga and Bundesliga but I can see it being a stronger league that the dwindling Seria A. The A-League won’t follow the same route as our countries population is 10-15times lower and the market for Nike and Adidas is the most marketable in the North American region (and most likely the case for other sponsors) with the MLS always having better sponsorships than us. Some of their MLS teams have in excess of $140m in revenue yearly which is more than any AFL club in Australia as I’m aware ‘soccer’ in America is probably the 3rd or 4th most followed sport after NFL, Baseball and NBA.

Read up for my comment on WIN!

WIN Stadium is hopeless and for a first world country, after numerous stadium accidents and the nanny country we live in with all these building codes and fire safety regulations I find it amusing that a professional sports club are allowed to play at a ground with a ‘hill’ and that people are allowed to sit on that ‘hill’.

The thing with WIN Stadium is that it was placed in a completely shit location, right next to the beach and right around streets without proper planning by the looks of it. Where in the world are stadiums built with the view of only having one grandstand in the near future? No where that I know of anyway. With the construction of a stadium near the water, maintenance costs are also increased as structures and general wear and tear is increased due to it’s proximity to salt water among a host of other things.

This is quote from Wikipedia; “In October 2009, the NSW Labor Government announced $28.9 million in funding for the construction of a new western stand, under a revised plan.[1] The new western grandstand will be a much simpler design than the original “hotel stand” but will result in a much larger ground capacity. The new stand will seat 6,170, taking WIN Stadium’s ground capacity to approximately 23,750.” To emphaises my point further I suggest you do a Google search of “Groumpna Arena” which was built in Hungary and is a far better stadium that WIN is and could possibly be and the construction for the arena was €40 million, which with Australia inflation and higher costs we could presume that a stadium of a similar statue in Australia would cost $100m for 23,000 seats. So for 6170 seats at a cost of $28.9million I still believe that the people of Wollongong were rightly ripped off and they are still left with a stadium that doesn’t have a grandstand on all four sides and isn’t an all-seater. Also we are left with a stadium in Wollongong that would be laughed at by the AFC and FIFA to host any possible internationals while the “Groumpna Arena” is a UEFA 4 star (the highest rating for a European Stadium) while WIN Stadium would be a category 1. So in the end we lose in terms of dollars and value. Do your research on stadiums around the world, not just Australia before you think WIN is great. It’s not!

Yep I also refuse to have a league where money guarantee’s success and think that the field should be open to all clubs or as many clubs as possible. However I still do believe that Brisbane were punished with Berisha success more than anything. There has to be some introduction of some lee-way where current clubs can offer their players after 3years service 10% of their wage outside the cap, after 5 years service 20% and after 10 years 40% as an example. As much as I don’t rate John Hutchison as an overly great player he still does a great job for the CCM and as supporter of Sydney FC, I feel he is a great part of their history just like Thompson is to Victory. I feel that players with long service and significant contributions to their current clubs should be able to reward their own players while giving other clubs the opportunity to also gain their services but at an added cost. So for example when Victory came in for Berisha last year, we’ll assume he was on $300k at the Roar and Victory offered $400k a year, Brisbane would be able to re-offer him a 10% increase a year for the next two years and offer him $330k a year while affecting their salary cap restrictions the same way as before. I agree with you to a complete extend but you can never create a perfect equilibrium as it limits teams that are performing on and off the field while supporting the clubs that are in shambles with their recruiting and structure. Imagine university courses couldn’t fail students and you had to share your marks to pass as a class, that would suck, well that is what the current model encourages to an extent.

Yep, special Asian marquee spots for all clubs 🙂 I believe that is where the majoirity of our T.V. revenue will coming from and if all A-League clubs could sign Iranian, Iraqi, Japanese, Chinese internationals it would open up new eyes to our league and interest in those parts of the world. Park Ji Sung’s signing for Man Utd opened up so many revenue streams for them in South Korea and interest in the team increased significantly.

Have systems in place such as the German Bundesliga where clubs can’t spend in excess of what they make a year through gate re-venue, sponsorships, price money, grants etc. For example you can’t walk in as a rich owner and buy Newcastle and turn them into the Real Madrid of the A-League without a long, sustainable plan which would take 5-10 years to achieve at best and would still be challenged week in, week out.

“The writer lists 6 things he’d like for the A-League but does not mention:

1. the estimated COST for each change; and
3. the proposed funding for these changes.

Without these 2 essential bits of information, no change proposal is ever to be taken seriously.

There is no one on earth, who would not like to dream of changes to improve their lives. But, once you become an adult, you realise dreams require funding”

I do realise that such wild dreams require funding, however certain enterprises such as sporting clubs usually involve much higher start up costs than normal local businesses or e businesses etc and in the case of professional football in Australia is mainly a monopolistic enterprise with one team representing one area. I can’t put down an exact cost on construction and operational costs as the size and complexity of such facility would highly be dependent on those costs however for a basic training facility, a club would easily be looking at $10m-$15m.

However, building a training base that also hosts training clinics during the holidays, features a swimming pool and gym which is open to the public after 3pm (after the players have finished for the day) and possibly mini turf fields that indoor competitions can be staged on at night under lights, gives the club a new possible revenue stream to repay their facility. Government funding would obviously need to be secured in the extend of a few million and the issue of securing land is still there. With the FFA’s intention to host future tournaments and host international teams having clubs train at Marconi Stadium, Lambert Park is laughable with such high intention when professional clubs such as Liverpool and Manchester Visit and is a reason why clubs should be encouraged to look into building such facilities. Also, with the addition of a training facility, it is more than likely that administration management would also be housed at the facility which would eliminate the facilities clubs are currently renting.

True supporters will turn out to support their city. Local state teams still get 500-1000 fans and some teams get more.

You’re an idiot mate. At international level we are 2nd best to Japan. Chinese teams are only good because of their over paying to international players. Lippi is on like $13M a year in China LOL.

Agree with the statement above completely. The clubs should be founded 2-3 years before they kick off in the A-League. It will give the club enough time to hit most nails on the head.

The salary cap is something that must be looked at by the FFA. Even teams will never exist no matter how much effort is put into the salary cap. There are way too many variables. We are only holding back the growth of the league with the salary cap. For the league to be successful we will have to adopt a philosophy of big teams and small teams existing.

I’ve pretty much stated that the A-League should invest how the MLS owners have invested into their own teams. There are many differences between the two leagues and I do believe that the A-League in terms of their spending and how old the league is, that in fact it is better than the MLS was when it was 8 years old. I haven’t suggested we follow one entire league, I’ve just suggested we follow bits and pieces of different leagues. The German league has an excellent spending cap in place and every team must comply with it to compete in the Bundesliga.

In the end we should be looking overseas to other football markets to bring back and implement the good bits into our own league, not be looking over at the AFL and NRL on how they handle their business.

The only thing missing for the A-League is a bit more professionalism (plastic seating chairs, parks as training fields etc ) and money. Once we combine the two it will be without doubt sooner or later be the best code in this country.

Yes I agree if the Gold Coast had owned their own stadium they would probably continued to play in the A-League. What killed the Gold Coast apart from Clive Palmer was there crowds. How can a club be forced to fork out $2.5M on their squad while only averaging 5,000 people a game. Clive Palmer wouldn’t be that wealthy if he wasn’t a smart businessman and he noticed that a plug somewhere had to be pulled for the club to remain sustainable. The first plug he pulled was closing the grandstands, therefore reducing the stadium fees and the second plug was pulled once the FFA got involved in a matter they shouldn’t of.

There won’t be a big daddy approach like we have in the EPL. Clubs will be rewarded on a number of things which will determine how much each club can spend. Some clubs may choose to develop players and offload them to overseas clubs while other may focus on marketing and ensuring that money is brought in from fans and sponsors.