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The A-League has got off to a bad start in this year's AFC Champions League. The Newcastle Jets are already out and Victory lost…
“we’re left with the diehard few watching a league most casual fans abandoned long ago”
That’s weird hyperbole Mike. Aggregate attendances are only down about 10 to 25 percent depending on which of the best non-COVID prior years you use for comparison.
Your ‘diehard few’ will end up plonking their bums on seats around 1.4 million times this season. That’s a lot more bums than just a few. And the diehard few have been consistently turning up in those kinds of numbers for the life of the A-League.
The casual fans were bigger contributors when the league could afford a few big names like del Piero and Heskey. But Arab money has pretty much killed off those kinds of signings, so the casuals are probably gone until football money turns again.
But what I find most fascinating is that just a few years ago I used to read match reports in the mainstream media on the train home from a game. That is, there were journalists at the game who wrote a report and posted it within minutes of the game ending. They used to do pre-game write-ups as well.
Presumably journalists wrote up games because there were enough diehard fans who wanted to read about the games they were going to. Nowadays, there is zero reporting of games, before or after (unless there is some kind of shock-horror non-football incident to anticipate before a game or exaggerate afterwards).
Why am I surprised? Well, as I pointed out earlier, the numbers of the diehard few who might read those match reports hasn’t changed all that much over the years. So you would assume there is still a good market for journalists to serve.
So the question I have is not where did all the fans go – it’s where did all the journalists go?
Does the A-League do enough to nurture creative players?
For refs it all happens in the blink of an eye and so inevitably they will be a little inconsistent.
But the VAR officials have no excuse – they have the luxury of slow-motion replays and plenty of time to rank the current atrocity against previous examples.
If you have Paramount watch the replay – Davila’s butchery is around 21 mins into the game. No red. Compare that to Patrick Wood’s VARred red card earlier this season.
As Ufuk Talay said, where’s the consistency?
Does the A-League do enough to nurture creative players?
Davila’s tackle vs Macarthur was far, far worse than Girdwood-Reich’s.
Does the A-League do enough to nurture creative players?
I’m a very big fan of any ref who gets called over to the monitor but decides they agree with themself.
Does the A-League do enough to nurture creative players?
When I saw the tackle I was worried, when I saw the replay on the big screen I thought that’ll be a VAR red, when it looked like play on I thought that’s a let-off, so when VAR finally pulled its finger out and intervened I joined the group outrage.
My issue is not that VAR gets it wrong but that it takes the VAR so long to detect ‘clear and obvious errors’. There should a statute of limitations on the VAR process – if 15 seconds of replays can’t find a clear and obvious error then just go with what the ref said.
Victory bounce back in Original Rivalry, Mariners nab top spot, can Rudan turn it around?
Ha ha – I meant to say as long as C-P is available King is benched
Victory bounce back in Original Rivalry, Mariners nab top spot, can Rudan turn it around?
Sitting amongst thousands of usually biased SFC fans it was pretty clear nobody was comfortable with a yellow so everyone was furious at the red.
Victory bounce back in Original Rivalry, Mariners nab top spot, can Rudan turn it around?
He looked a bit lost for the first few games at left back but he’s doing all the left back things brilliantly now.
And Hayden Mathews looks a good bet too – a bit of an Alex Wilkinson clone. His tackling and positioning are spot on, although his lofted passes out of defence need work (or elimination).
Victory bounce back in Original Rivalry, Mariners nab top spot, can Rudan turn it around?
Courtney-Perkins was outstanding and has been for quite a while. Joel King has no hope of getting a game at SFC now.
Victory bounce back in Original Rivalry, Mariners nab top spot, can Rudan turn it around?
He looks unhappy mostly. When he does good stuff on the field his reaction is more ‘up yours’ than joy. But he exactly what OZ teams have always lacked – someone who shoots on sight and scores regularly
Does the A-League do enough to nurture creative players?
Lucy Zelic ‘unhinged’??? Please explain…
The Roar's A-League Men tips and predictions: Round 20
Simplistic answers are never the answer
Violence is not 'passion': Wanderers fans chuck a wobbly again... why is it always them?
Div 2 should work for Football but will probably never work for the dodo codes.
It’s simply a matter of economics and the markets in which the various competitions operate (and James Johnson is spot on about this).
So, Football in Australia is a tiny speck in the global Football economy, such that a pittance in global Football terms (via transfer fees and foreign investment) should be more than enough to sustain 2 tiers of Football in Australia.
Added to that is Football’s huge participation rate in Australia, which will keep pumping out sellable ‘product’. If top-down money meets bottom-up participation then 2 Football divisions is completely doable – not guaranteed, but definitely doable.
For the dodo codes however, the economics just don’t work. For example, the AFL’s global economy is a vanishingly small speck compared to the domestic economy. Almost all their revenue is generated domestically and it’s hard to grow, as we have seen from previous expansion attempts. Any expansion would be domestically funded and a huge drain on an incestuously limited pool of funds. The potential for disruption in the AFL’s only market is huge e.g. what might be lost if a team like Collingwood got relegated. Expansion is a huge risk for the AFL in financial terms.
Same problems for NRL.
The problem with Australian sporting codes having effective 'second tier' divisions for its major football leagues
As for the VAR, a statute of limitations would be a good thing. If someone armed with replays can’t spot an error in less than 30 seconds then the error can’t have been clear and obvious.
If the VAR official can’t come up with something in those 30 seconds, then the game should go with whatever the ref decided.
Shove your blue cards where the sun doesn't shine, football - the game is already over-officiated
Dissent doesn’t affect the current game, it affects the ref and the other officials. So, it seems silly to alter the current game to punish somebody for dissent.
Why not just put a player on report for dissent, with 2 reports for dissent leading to a suspension, hopefully a long one.
I am ambivalent about introducing a new card, but I would like to see reds issued for the more grotesque professional fouls e.g. desperate rugby tackles
Shove your blue cards where the sun doesn't shine, football - the game is already over-officiated
It says a lot about the Ballon d’Or that de Bruyne has only ever managed one third place finish.
What the UCL?! Scary reality of 'extraordinary' star as City smash scoring record, VAR lets Real off the hook
Must try that when the rellies visit
The Roar's A-League Men tips and predictions: Round 16
I think MRL thinks AFL is Foxtel’s comedy channel
The Roar's A-League Men tips and predictions: Round 16
Boyle wouldn’t have been so useless if anyone had been able to create some space for him to work with.
Are we a mature enough football nation to honestly discuss the Socceroos?
Yes but they have a much worse coach than us.
Are we a mature enough football nation to honestly discuss the Socceroos?
Go Jordan – hard pressing at key moments and fast counter-attacks wins the day. Puts our listless display against SK in the shade.
Are we a mature enough football nation to honestly discuss the Socceroos?
I’ll be there if it is
Wanderers play victims again as Rudan launches childish, Trump-like conspiracy theories
I’m looking forward to another CCM grand final win and their not even my team.
Wanderers play victims again as Rudan launches childish, Trump-like conspiracy theories
Has he been sacked yet?
Seventh heaven for City as Rudan no-shows presser after horror defeat