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The A-League is often described as a developing child, still in its infancy. This does give us the opportunity to learn from other leagues, but also for us to create a competition unique to Australia. While some have questioned whether the A-League should bother with a final series, it is quintessentially Australian.
The first past the post system used in Leagues around the world works in countries in which football is established and, in most cases, they have a knockout Cup competition that delivers a Grand Final type match, such as the FA Cup final.
In a country like Australia, in which the A-League struggles to maintain attention from the media and casual sporting fans, the finals campaign allows the A-League to gain significant momentum with a climactic round of matches culminating in one single match to decide the champion.
Grand Finals are part of Australia’s sporting culture, part of the other major codes, and for the A-League, a chance to take centre-stage for one weekend with a showpiece event that, hopefully, showcases the best of the League to an audience greater than just another regular season match.
The A-League final will never have the heritage and tradition akin to the AFL’s great day in September, especially when it alternates the location of the Grand Final.
But it can build its own traditions and folklore.
Already A-League Grand Finals have given us a 41,000 plus crowd to see the inaugural champions, Sydney FC crowned, Melbourne’s 6-0 demolition which included some Archie Thompson heroics and Kristian Sarkies planting a smooch on John Howard’s head!
The regular season alone would not be able to gain more attention if we used the first past the post system, and with the mainstream press slow to jump on the A-League’s bandwagon, it is easy to envisage a situation where the importance of League position and individual results would be lost.
The NSL also tinkered with the finals series, occasionally reverting to the first past the post system. But the fact remains that the largest crowds and biggest games of the now defunct league were the Grand Finals.
The problem with the final series is rewarding the team who finishes the league at the very top.
The FFA is right to give some importance to the Premiership by awarding the victor one of the two Asian Champions League spots. And in this regard the A-League has one up on other codes that don’t have a similar reward to give.
However, with the games staggered over the weekend, the 28,905 Victory fans were robbed of the chance to celebrate their Premiership win and return to Asia.
The only footage the media could show of Ernie Merrick and Kevin Muscat was the pair walking in an empty Telstra Dome, along with a press conference.
How much better would it have looked for the League to have the parallel images of 28,000 plus fans celebrating with their team while Adelaide United players and fans scratched their heads at what could have been?
The FFA can have two bites at the cherry by making the final round of the regular season an event in itself, with a worthy prize to the first past the post after the home and away rounds, and then move into the finals series with momentum and capitalise on Australia’s love affair with Grand Finals.
If the A-League is a developing child, it still has some things to learn from its fully developed siblings around the world, such as not staggering final round games.
But it must also stay true to Australia’s sporting traditions and culture.