If it’s a 12 team ALeague playing 33 matches each, it means FoxSports is getting 46% more content.

What additional fee has Foxtel agreed to pay when this happens? You seem pretty sure of yourself & you’ve been saying it’s virtually nothing.

Is it $4M? $6M? I know it’s not $10M extra.

And, it’s certainly not 46% more than the deal with a 10 team competition playing 27 matches each.

So, let’s say FFA tells Foxtel it wants the ALC & reduced HAL season as I’ve outlined.

We look for possible scenarios:

1) Foxtel is not happy. It refuses to pay the extra it had promised for the 12 team HAL. It says it will only pay the same price as it was paying for a 10 team competition and it will broadcast only 137 ALeague H&A matches (currently 140) & gets no access to the ALC content.

2) Foxtel thinks ALC is a great idea and also thinks a shorter HAL will be even more enticing. It embraces the model I’ve proposed & instead of 201 HAL matches with 12 teams, Foxtel gets exclusive PayTV broadcast rights (not exclusive streaming rights) to

137 HAL matches with 12 teams +
63 ALC matches

Total = 200 matches

Over the years on this forum you have consistently been a negative person & have zero ability to find creative solutions to problems.

If 2 parties want to continue a business relationship, creative & smart minds will always find solutions that can benefit both parties.

Thanks, Kangajets.

Must admit, other than VIC & NSW, I’m pretty clueless about the NPL level clubs from most Federations.

If you’d like a copy I can easily “find/replace” Broadmeadow with Edgeworth in my spreadsheet. 🙂

But, I think you’re pushing it if you think NNSW will get 2 spots in a 16 team National 2nd Div.

We currently have NPL matches being streamed live by Semi-Pro clubs.

We have FFA Cup matches being streamed live by Semi-Pro Clubs.

High quality HD broadcasts. Commentary that I find far more entertaining than we get on FoxSports.

Your ignorance might be accepted elsewhere by like-minded people. Football discussions require a level of background knowledge that will see you exposed very easily.

In Australia we currently have competitions with 18 & 16 teams. And without relegation, those competitions become meaningless for at least 1/3 of the teams by Round 10.

In fact, those competitions don’t even bother with the full 34 matches and 30 matches respectively, because there’s no point prolonging the season once the competitive tension is lost for most clubs.

So, for sure. I’ll be happy with 16 teams playing 30 matches each. But, without relegation, such a competition will be even more boring than those comps I just described.

And, no one wants that.

Thanks, Onside.

I’m fed up with the constant negative articles that just regurgitate the same writer’s criticisms every Monday – week after week, year after year.

We need solutions.

And, it’s been refreshing to read mainstream journos finally understand the main reason the ALeague has lost its vibe is because the FFA went chasing Casual Fans who have limited (or zero) interest in Football & have only contempt & ridicule for the ALeague.

And, to make matters worse, they chose strategies that alienated hardcore fans who love the Game & love the A-League.

So, as I think of possible solutions, I will write discussion pieces as a hardcore AUS football fan & totally committed fan of the Aleague. Hopefully, other hardcore AUS football fans can also come up with their own solutions.

I don’t expect any of these ideas to be adopted As Is. But, let’s get hardcore AUS football fans thinking about the issues and asking themselves: What is missing from ALeague & AUS football and what should be done to fix it.

Leave the whining & complaining to the Monday morning blogger.

I’m not in favour of bigger squads. As it is most coaches just use the usual XI unless there’s an injury.

The great Liverpool side of 1976/77 that came close to being the first English team to win The Treble, only had 23 players.

And this was in an era when pitches were bog heaps, travel across Europe was much more arduous than today, sports science was running laps & recovery sessions involved sinking pints down the boozer after training.

23 player squads are more than enough for a game that requires 11 players. Basically 1 regular player for each position & 1 back up.

“I ask why however why you would rate goal difference below both red and yellow cards in terms of importance… Is it due to the fact A League clubs may rack up some big scores and this will distort things?”

Spot on. The fixturing is random, so theoretically 1 ALeague team could play 3 ALeague opponents; another ALeague team could play 3 teams from 2nd Division.

In fact, I was going to leave out GD & GS completely & move straight to Toss Coin, but felt we might suddenly need too many coin tosses.

AD, thank you for taking the time to read, absorb & make contributions to the discussion.

My model will have each team playing 2 matches at home for the Preliminary 4 rounds. So, matches will be at small suburban grounds when the 2nd Division teams are hosting; and ALeague home grounds for other matches.

I don’t envisage Pro/Rel from Day 1 of the 2nd Division.

My vision would be 2019: 12 HAL, 16 Championship.

Then, for next 2 seasons, no Pro/Rel.
After 2 seasons of 2nd Division, the 2 teams who accumulated the most points over the 2 seasons will be promoted to the ALeague

At this Stage, we’d have: 14 teams in ALeague & 14 in Championship.

But, if we can at least get the ALC up and running right from Day1 of the 2nd Division, it will help narrow the gap between the 2 Divisions & may also give every 2nd Division fan a reason to tune in to watch at least 1 Aleague match each week.

The fact that I didn’t address anything you said besides “This feel good copycat English model” is because nothing you say makes any sense because you come to football discussions with ignorance and a tiresome, juvenile attitude to add nothing to discussions but disrupt and annoy.

Have a nice day.
And, please keep clicking

Thanks for the input, Square Nostrils.

All good points.

The only thing I’d say: Australia’s elite football landscape is about 100 years behind that of England. So, just because something might be losing its lustre in England in 2018, doesn’t mean we should automatically say no to it in AUS.

The FA Cup in England is not as prominent as it was 30-40 years ago when I started following it.

Doesn’t mean we should abandon Australia’s FFA Cup.

Australian football & English football are at totally different stages of the “Business Life Cycle”.
We are in our Infancy.
England is at Maturity.

Hey. I gave Qld 3 spots in the 2nd Division. Apart from NSW & VIC all the other State Feds only have 1 spot. NSW gets skewed because there are 2 State Feds within the NSW State jurisdiction.

Maybe, NSW should get 3 spots + 1 NNSW = 4 total for the state.
And, Qld can get 4 spots?

I’ll leave the Queenslanders & NSW people to argue about that.

I have enough arguments of my own to sort out. 😉

Travel costs are important to factor into any discussion, but I find we get hysterical about it in Australia. Maybe, because I travel interstate regularly for work, I know corporate/wholsale bulk deals can reduce costs significantly compared to tourist & retail deals.

We assume a travel party is 25 people (players, coaches & medical staff).

I’d budget an average cost of $25k per away trip. For most teams max 2 away trips. And, it’s possible the away trip for many will be $0 since they’re playing an opponent in their home state. To ensure no team is financially disadvantaged, all travel costs will be centralized & funded by the Entry Fee, Sponsorship, etc.

LiveStream all matches & raise revenue from targeted ads will easily cover the travel for the whole competition.

Scared of losing “fringe fan”? You’re kidding if you think there are fringe fans any longer in ALeague. There is absolutely nothing for fringe fans to watch in ALeague. If they exist, they’ve long abandoned watching our competition. ALeague now is only watched by the hardcore fans. We need to now find strategies that appeal to hardcore fans.

Fringe fans can go watch BBL, AFL, NRL & SuperRugby.

We are Football.

Some additional information that the editors deleted from the article.

1) Here is my vision for the 12 ALeague teams & 16 Championship teams.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/9FVLWxLpMyIMKvo63

2) 14 teams randomly assigned to 2 Pots using random picking software app

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Cg01xRCBPW0PKQAg2

3) 4 Match Fixture for the each team in the ALC – again using random picking software app … some juicy fixtures & Derbies

https://photos.app.goo.gl/isJo3piBT7NGVp7N2

Paul, you make fair point about a 16 team ALeague. As I mentioned to Waz (above), a 16 team ALeague will result in a huge number of utterly meaningless matches, unless Relegation is implemented at the same time.

We only have to look at the AFL & NRL comepetitions which have 18 & 16 teams respectively &, after about 1/3rd of the season, nearly 33% of teams have nothing to play for. And, both these competitions don’t even play the full 34 matches & 30 matches. They shorten their competitions because there is nothing to play for the longer the H&A season drags on.

So, yes. I’m ok with 16 team ALeague – BUT ONLY IF we have relegation. And, with 16 teams, we’d need the threat of at least 2 relegation spots. Or, maybe, the bottom half of the table is threatened with a relegation knockout system; like we have knockout finals for the top half for the Champions.

Thanks for reading & responding.

Your input is of no value.

If you think a League Cup is only played in England, it is amusing & highlights your football illiteracy even further.

But, keep clicking. Every click helps.

Some very valid points, Waz.

1) If we don’t want to shorten the ALeague season, no problem. Stick with 33 matches & a compromised competition.

I want more ALeague matches to be played, however, after sitting throught 4 Melbourne Derbies last season (and it could’ve been 5 if City/Victory met in the ALeague finals) it’s become apparent to me we are just padding out the ALeague season for the sake of it.

I want the ALeague to be a proper competition. Not just a competition to fill in space. I’m all for teams playing 30 matches in ALeague home and away, but we then need 16 teams in the ALeague. And, 16 ALeague teams will be awful unless there is relegation. As we see with AFL & NRL, the majority of the season is meaningless for a huge bunch of teams once there is no hope of finishing in the top half & making the Finals

2) You are right in saying it’s possible the ALC home fixtures won’t pull as big TV viewing & crowds. But, you never know. Some of the metrics for ALeague fixtures are appalling. And, I would have the ALC played on weekends; not midweek.

In fact, I would have the ALeague stopping for FIFA international dates & we’d play ALC on those weekends. Crowds & TV ratings for MVFC vs South Melbourne might be bigger than MVFC vs CCM

@Stuart Thomas

You have the patience of Job to continue to engage with someone as annoying & immature as Disnick. If I hadn’t seen the photos of him next to his Bogan Mobile, I’d have thought he was a kid at High School; such is his level of insecurity.

No doubt even in your profession you don’t deal with such puerile minds. Don’t know what happened to this bloke growing up, but the way he constantly like to pretend he has a great intellect is a sure sign of “small man’s syndrome” – intellectually and, most likely, anatomically.

The FFA’s role is to ensure the development of football in Australia. The ALeague will be vital for this development. I want the FFA to have strict control over the basic principles regarding the type of ALeague competition we want.

I don’t care how popular the EPL is. I never want ALeague to be filled with foreigners who are there just for the money.

In fact, I started watching English football about 40 years ago. Well before the big PayTV money arrived. Clubs were filled with local players, whom they developed & the majority of players became part of the fabric of the club. I enjoyed that type of English competition far more than watching “Dream Teams” of mercenary footballers who just follow the big money around the world.

The player regulations for participating in ALeague right now is reasonably well structured in terms of foreingers to Aussies. The main 2 things I’d like to change are:

1) remove the Salary Cap so we can get whatever foreigners, or Aussies we want
2) include regulations to ensure u26 players are pushed up the ranks rather than just the same 30 year old players who’ve never pushed themselves beyond moving from one Aleague club to the next over their professional career.

Thanks for the input, AD.

Although I’ve no idea what this means: “..seems to be at odds with the inherent fandom the A-League seems to hold surrounding international players making the league “more entertaining”.

My PPS has absolutely no impact on current foreign quotas. In fact, a team could theoretically even have more foreigners than current (5), as long as the Total Player Points on the park is less than, or equal to, zero.

I’ve just given an example of 2 teams – one with existing foreign players; another with 5 of the world’s best foreigners. Both teams would fit within my PPS regulations.

These Starting XI could face off against each other using my Player Points System.

Team A:
Ryan
Atkinson, Sainsbury, Spiranovic, Gersbach
Modric, Mooy, Ronaldo
Messi, Kane, Neymar

Annual Wage Bill: A$150 million (approx)

Team B
Thomas
Geria, Williams, Deng, Nigro
Valeri, Troisi, Sanchez
Theoharous, Berisha, George

Annual Wage Bill: A$3 million (approx)

If you think my PPS is an Equalisation Policy, you’re delusional.

Who are the “less wealthy clubs”?

If we are using the wealth of the owners as the basis for a club’s wealth, I’d say Jets might be wealthier than Melbourne Victory.

Regardless, from all I’ve heard from every ALeague owner, they do not want the Salary Cap limiting the potential growth of their club.

Rick, you rarely make sense.

But, even by the low standards I set for your posts, this last post where you try to argue that removing the Salary Cap & allowing clubs to pay whatever they want for players is an equalisation scheme; is beyond the most nonsensical thing I’ve read from you.

But, I appreciate your interest in this topic.

So, keep clicking.
Keep trying to pretend you have the aptitude to engage with us.

@Mr AFL

That post has zero relevance to this subject.

Please have the courtesy of asking before you place irrelevant stuff.

I hope the Moderators remove this disruptive post & place it on another Discussion Topic.

Good point, Waz.

And, based on everything I’ve been hearing from the major stakeholders – players, coaches, fans, State Feds, grassroots clubs…

They want more Aussie youth to be getting an opportunity in ALeague.

So, I’ve no doubt the majority of FFA’s stakeholders will embrace any System that places regulations to encourage young Aussie footballers to be given game time in the ALeague.

“These are just some of the issues that need to be discussed when developing equalisation policies such as this.”

This has nothing to do with equalisation. Absolutely nothing. The headline was chosen by The Roar’s sub-editor and it is a nonsensical headline for this topic as anyone would know if they understand the issue.

A Salary Cap is an equalisation policy.

A Player Points System that uses Age & Nationality to assign points has nothing to do with Equalisation.

I’ve given the example above of a Starting XI team with: Neymar, Ronaldo, Messi, Kane & Modric plus 6 Aussies: Mooy, Sainsbury, Spiranovic, Atkinson, Ryan, Gersbach.

The above Dream Team would have the same Player Points under my PPS as MVFC’s Starting XI from the Melbourne Derby last Saturday with Theorharous in the XI instead of Barbarouses.