Given, the plethora of possible team selections form the growing pool of promising young players coming through it would not be easy to pick a team and satisfy everyone.

But yes, give me Porta or Rukya or Leckie any day over Thompson or even Scott McDonald who just can’t score goals for the Socceroos. Thompson is out of condition, hasn’t played a competitive game for 5 months . . . why Holger, why?

Holger, this is an ideal opportunity to justify your claim to being a manager who developes promising up and coming young players to take us into our next golden era.

Blooding good young players for Brazil 2014 is more important than getting a result in this meaningless friendly.

The FFA is not responsible for selecting promising young players like Ikonomides.
Its absolutely entirely the coaches responsibility.

There are hundreds of promising young players playing professional football all around the world with Budesliga, EPL, Seria A, J-League, K-League, Arab League, Middle East, Primera Liga, Erdivisie clubs all asking to be selected for the Socceroos or Olyroos or whoever “or else I’ll play for another country”.

A lot of players, who are a lot better than the ones you have pointed out him have never ever been selected to play for Australia.

Bit different level of skill playing for Borussia Dortmund than Sutherland Sharks U16s.

The FFA spends a lot of money on Futsal and beach football and bankrolls the national teams and the national competitions from Under 11s upwards.
http://futsal4all.com/2011/12/ffa-futsal-nationals-2012/

Do some research before complaining – not after complaining.

How observant of Franko not ot notice there is an NRL team in Melbourne.

Swans doing well with basically a bunch of no-names and a couple of star players.

Should be an improved attendance for the Collingwood game this week compared to the turnout for GWS v Magpies.

Can’t see why the Swans can’t go all the way again this year.

In terms of A-League clubs viability, the FFA has recently announced concessions that give the clubs more freedom in their operations and a doubling of their revenue share from the A-League to $2.8 million per year, when the next media deal is finalised later this year.

They have also guaranteed the continuation of the National Youth League and National Women’s League and are investing record amounts in youth and grassroots competitions so A-League clubs will continue to get a good supply of young professional players coming through to stock their club and the competition.

We have also had a record number of young A-League players sold or traded overseas in the past year, which is an added source of revenue to clubs and the FFA.

Now its up to the the A-League clubs themselves to make it a success, the FFA have turned the corner in a number of ways to help them do that.

And you call yourself “Happy” – no pleasing you, is there.

The turnaround from the FFA this last 6 months has been absolutely extraordinary, given the turmoil that Palmer and Tinkler created and Sage wanting to withdraw his money too. Some experts were rightly predicting the end of the A-League was in sight – and look where we are now!

The FFA expelled GCU, set up WSW, set up an A-League owners joint steering committee and gave the owners concessions on revenue sharing and many other concessions on running their clubs to make them more flexible and profitable. The owners have unanimously endorsed the new FFA approach.

The FFA will at least double their media revenue by the end of the year and will double their payments to clubs to $2.8 million to cover their salary caps.

The FFA are also increasing their investments in youth and grasssroots competitions and again this year have not increased the National Football Player Registration Fee and kept it at $12.00 per registration. They have also underwritten the national Youth League and national Women’s League competitions so that clubs can continue to enter teams.

They have also secured increased funding and sponsorships and will return to the black this year.

All they need is anyone who has an interest in football in this country to stop bagging them and the A-League, appreciate what a great football nation we are and the FFA’s efforts to give us a national football competition.

Go out a watch a few games whether its A-League or the local kids playing or tune in to Foxtel and support the game.
You’ll only watch it grow and get even better.

Lyle Gorman is Lowy’s successor.

Given the tireless work he did to establish CCM, the way he turned around the A-League last season in just one year as the A-League Operations Manager and what he is doing at WSW in just a few months, proves he is the next Chairman of FFA.

Ben Buckley has been a total disappointment in my eyes as the FFA CEO and they should replace him at the next available opportunity.

Personally I don’t care either way, but I can’t see how lighting a flare improves the game. Most A-League games I’ve seen there have been no flares and no trouble.

The point is they are illegal and the police and security guards will surround you and start throwing people out. Mixed with a bit of alchohol and the violence and trouble starts.

At an MV v Sydney game at SFS every thing was going great, then an MV fan lit a flare and threw it into the crowd. They thought it was great and started singing and dancing around it.

Suddenly the MV fans were surrounded by about a hundred police and security guards who were taunted and the fans started throwing things at them. The police charged at the MV fans and started kicking and punching them.

The MV fans retaliated and fights broke out everywhere and the police started dragging out the MV fans one by one in headlocks and handcuffs some of them bloodied and bruised.

Then the MV fans started lighting fires under the seats and the plastic seats started burning and sent up plumes of black smoke.

All this trouble started because of one flare thrown in the crowd.

This was in front of a group of friends, families and their kids who I was trying to convert and for most of them it was their first A-League game.

They were disgusted and have never been back to an A-League game.

So its ok for the boys to have fun, but look at the potential consequences. The FFA and the league are working very hard to clean up the game and the image, and in the main they have been successful, but there are still incidents that will give the A-League a bad name and lighting flares isn’t going to help.

There are advantages and disadvantags to having a central controlling body like the AFL, one of the disadvantages is that they control the information coming out of AFL and even have their own media department to control the media.

Deliberately losing for political or financial reasons is a serious offence and teams have been banned from competition for doing it.
If you knew your team was going to want to lose the game because they would get a better deal from the AFL and had no chance of making the finals, wouldn’t you be tempted to gamble on the opposition?
Shouldn’t the betting agencies be concerned, if no one else is?

This is a serious issue that was brushed aside previously and hoped that it would go away, but plaudits to a professional player for being honest and coming out about it, despite the obvious repercussions from the central controlling body.

Once again you would suspect that the AFL will control the media, minimise the damage to their brand and just hope and wait till it all dies down again.

Didn’t flares go out of fashion in the seventies.

Seriously though, while flares are pretty harmless and as far as I know no one has ever died from lighting one, they are not a good look and are not to be encouraged. The anti-sokka brigade seem to make a big thing out of it for some reason.

For me, they don’t add that much to the atmosphere anyway and in fact tend to quieten the crowd and cause a little unease for the police and security guards – they certainly don’t help with the cheering and chanting.

Maybe red and black vuvuzelas or crying Ray Price dolls . . .

Lets not get carried away with the “its going to be the biggest club in Australia, bigger than MV” talk.

Sydney sports fans are very passionate but they are also fickle and if WSW don’t win many games . . .

65 days out from the start of the first game of season 8 and MV are abuzz with the new coach Ange and the new players coming in. They have sold nearly 12,000 memberships already and WSW about 1,000.

I know its early days yet and WSW are doing a great job, but that’s setting some very high goals to become the biggest A-League club when they haven’t even played an A-League comp game yet.

WSW will be good for the A-League and will draw more crowds and interest than the team they replaced, but lets not set them up to fail – there are a lot of people out there with a death wish for “soccer” and the A-League, even in west Sydney.

The recent announcements from FFA and the growing sponsorship and revenue streams makes the A-League more viable than it has ever been.

When the next FFA media rights deals are finalised later this year, the FFA will double their revenue share to clubs to $2.8 million or more per club, which will make the individual clubs more financially viable as well.

Its a matter of time, but the people playing it and watching it will continue to grow and take more of an interest in the A-League and Socceroos and the A-League should be financially viable within a few years.

As that grows the media interest will grow.
I thought that last season the media coverage of the A-League was very good and a lot better than in previous years. And the tone of the articles have moved away from “Soccer Hooligan Violence” headlines, although some of it does still exist in the flat earth corners of the media.

Don’t forget that football has overtaken netball as the biggest participation and fastest growing sport for girls and women, so there is a potential pool of spectators there already.

If its a WC you mightn’t get as much interest or coverage as the men’s but it would still get a lot of interest just because its a WC.
I’m sure the politicians and governments would get behind it as well because of the tourism aspect and women’s issues are seen as a good vote getter.

The A-League Women’s Grand Final got a good crowd and rated well on ABC – I think more people watched it than the A-League games on Fox that weekend.

AFL clubs are never in debt, its just a matter of how much cash they need from headquarters to make a profit.

Port, GWS and GCS will still be in the AFL in a hundred years time and still making a “profit”.

And on top of that they’ll get state and federal government grants to upgrade their “community facilities”.

He is a Panama international and has broken into the national team this year as a 22 year old so he has some talent. He is listed in the Panama squad as a forward, not a midfielder,

He has been selected in the Panama side to play Portugal in a friendly on Aug 15 in Panama and with his CONCACAF WC qualifier commitments in the next 12 months, he will be doing a fair bit of travelling and missing a few games for SFC you would think, because the A-League calendar is not linked to the FIFA calendar.

He seems like an exciting prospect and is very quick, has the ability to beat defenders and can score goals.

That’s true and shouldn’t get carried away just yet. Sydney public can be fickle especially if the WS Flamingos start losing every game 3 or 4 nil.

But the signs are good and the coaching staff and management will give the club every chance of success.
They should get a higher average than GCU and give the overall competition a boost, especially the derby games and the TV ratings.

If the membership packages are reasonably priced I might buy a couple on top of my SFC membership renewal.
I work at Parramatta which will be handy for a Friday night or midweek game.

Never likely to be repeated,
It would take 32 years of frustration and a team with players like Kewell, Viduka and the others of the golden era, a nailbiting finish with chances at either end, extra time and then penalties.

Not likely to happen again.

We can savour it and thank our lucky stars to have seen it in person and been a part of it..

You left out the 84,000 sellout at ANZ Aus v Uruguay 2005.

Japan is showing the way in Asian football.

Their men’s team are climbing up the rankings, the Women’s team are world champions, the junior teams keep winning Asian tournaments and the men’s Olympic team beat world champs Spain 1-0 overnight and played very well.

Not an A-League venue and it has its critics, but the best venue for a football game and atmosphere is still the Socceroos v Uruguay WC qualifier of 2005 at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney. Yet to experience anything that comes close, in any sport and it was a result that meant so much to Australia.

For A-League venues the very first A-League grand final at SFS was magic, with all night Dwight and the new look team and competition – everyone was so enthusiastic and full of good spirits and song, especially the Cove and the Mariners fans at each end.

In a trip down to Melbourne I really enjoyed the Melbourne derby at AAMI stadium last December, when from memory Heart beat the Harry and Carlos led Victory 3-2 – great game and great atmosphere and a very big crowd. And AAMI was probably the best in terms of facilities, ease of transport and available food and drink outlets.

The Australian Open, Ashes series etc will attract a lot of people to Melbourne including foreigners who follow football, so I don’t think that was a major consideration. If the final was played at Etihad or MCG, I’m sure you would still get a very big crowd or sell out AAMI stadium.

Given the sporting following in Melbourne I agree that this is a slap in the face for Melbourne.

Everybody made a sacrafice for the 2000 Olympics, including playing olympic football matches at the MCG, the NRL season finished a month earlier and the Bedisloe Cup matches delayed till after the Olympics and not one cent in compensation was asked or given.

And their Billion Dollar compensation package they wanted if the WC bid was successful.

Not really in the spirit of a World Cup.

By “developed” I think Fuss is saying that they have turned young footballers who probably cost them zero transfer fees into professional football players who could be sold on the world market for hundreds of thousands of dollars and that opportunity exists for all A-League clubs as a source of additional revenue.

Of course youth actually learn how to play football at an early age, but a professional football club will turn them into football professionals and that career path has been established by the A-League.