I read quite a lot of academic research articles and papers and one that I read last week dealt with a model the authors developed that predicts which clubs will get into financial distress.  They verified it against the history of club failures in different leagues and the model showed a 90% success rate.  In part of their conclusion the authors, 2 Spanish academics from the University of Malaga, stated:-

"The model developed in this study has shown that low liquidity, high leverage, poor sports performance and small size of the club market are the best predictors of the distress of football clubs."

Clubs getting into financial distress has been a big concern in Europe for a number of years and there has been a fair amount of research into it recently.  I think something like the model mentioned above could be used as part of any semi pro or pro club's annual licensing approval and for assessing whether a club that wins promotion meets the financial requirements for the higher league.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0225989

^^^^^^^^^^

GyFox, thanks enjoyed reading that, so sobering lessons to learn in there..

New teams:-
2023:                                           
13. Ipswich Utd   14. Canberra 
2025:  
15. South Melbourne  16. Football Tasmania 
Wollongong to be considered as well.

I think the next 6 are...

canberra
ipswich
woolongong
auckland
hobart
cairns or Townsville or Gold Coast

Canberra will be the next team in for sure, plus one more team from either Woolongong, Tasmania, Gold coast, Ipswich, North Queensland, Sunshine Coast, or even a second team based in Brisbane or another team from Melbourne.

With mega money behind a bid a team from the South of Sydney is also possible as Sydney FC will be at the new stadium, but SC will oppose the bid for sure.

The final decision on who is offered entry will come down to the financial backing behind the bid.

Please no more Sydney or victoria 

Yeah having rich owners and the right geographic spread is very important to the future of soccer in this country....  

Money talks

Oh I know ...... the richest countries in the world do so well in football.

If only there were some system that could be set up to promote a team into the top tier based on merit......

The merit is in how much money you can fleece from the "consumers" ♻️

Yeah it's fucked.  And even more fucked is the people here that think you should be able to buy your way in.  Only if you represent a specific geographical area though.

FFS.

Tasmania will never, ever have an A League team for so many reasons that I can't be bothered listing them here. 

The countries leagues that tend to spend the most money seem to have the best Leagues in the world. The top five England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France.

Maybe not an A league team but hopefully one day through pro/ rel they can have a team or two playing in the highest non exclusive league in the country.

If you are referring to me I have never said that you should be able to buy your way in, its just the way it is and I don't agree with it, and until such time as we have a second division with promotion and relegation that's how it will remain.

Lederer on twitter said Apl want to get to 16 teams first, then look at second dividion.
It will not be from promotion via a lower tier.

China was throwing ridiculous money a few years ago as were a few middle eastern leagues, do you rate them as well? What about Indian PL now that is bying up all the fleeing Aleague players, do you rate their league?  England has only won 1 world cup yet countries like Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina (with more than 50% of thier population below the poverty line) have 2 or more???? If your definition of best league is the combined value of the players playing in it and the most advertised and thus popular then perhaps you would enjoy NFL as they spend billions.
Speaking of which you forgot to mention US Soccer franchise system who spends close to if not more than Germany and Spain combined.... where are they on your list of greats?

Yeah I said highest "non exclusive" league. Whether that is the championship or national NPL or even just the shitty end of season round robbin the NPL does now.... that sall we are going to get Im afraid. The Plastic Cartel pty ltd league is now locked out forever to the rest of football, that much is obvious.

So expect north sydney, south sydney, north melbourne and south melbourne. Got it

This is only hypothetical as my experiences of victoria and melbourne/geelong is only minimal, however once western united finally make the move to tarneit, how viable is it for geelong to enter their own side? Or is it just not happening even if they expanded to 20 sides?

It also raises a parallel hypothetical, if se melbournes bid was chosen over western uniteds bid, does a. City make a move west; or b. Does geelong still hold any chances of claiming a potential aleague license in the future?

My personal thoughts are theres better cabs in lined at least for 4 to 6 teams before geelong to be brought into consideration, and even then could be unlikely

Just because I mentioned the top five leagues in the world had massive investment behind them, you have to go and use China and the middle East as examples of leagues with massive investment behind them, you are missing my point and no I don't rate them as one of the top leagues. My point is that it is near impossible to be a decent league without appropriate investment.

Imagine what South Melbourne could achieve if an investor come along and said here is $100,000,000.

What national countries have achieved has nothing to do with the standard of the league, the world is a small place and players play all over the world, the best South American players, play in Europe, they start their development in South America and move to Europe to continue their development and play in a better standard,richer league.

Poverty also has nothing to do with the discussion. 

It depends on what you are talking about, if talking about players some of the best talent in the world are coming from Africa, as we know the poorest continent.
If you talking about competition & the health of the competition, then yes, Money talks & the best competitions are from 1st world countries, neither China or middle East are.

My point is about the competition and the health of the competition and why those competitions are successful. Long term with their mega populations and wealth if China and India invest heaps of money into the game in the right areas they will attract better coaches and players which in turn will improve the league, but they also have to put money into infrastructure, advertisement, promotion and youth development to really reap the rewards.

Exactly how I read it. The countries with the best & healthiest competitions in the world are 1st world countries with stable Economies strong investments.
The best players are coming from of the poorer 3rd countries & not surprising as well

'people' is plural so no I wasn't talking to just you.

Brisbane derby would be nice, i think Ipswich could work for sure. I also reckon Townsville/Cairns could share a team. Play half their games in each city.

Ipswich Utd (or South Qld-hope not), would play out of Perry Park or Albion Park? Hope not out of Suncorp Stadium. 

Brisbane Roar can't even play at suncorp so I don't think the expansion team could justify paying their ridiculous rent. I think if it was called Ipswich then you could focus more on the western corridor kind of like wsw or western United.

I would like to hope that the roar can return to suncorp one day. Even with 15 to 20 thousand in suncorp it still a good atmosphere. Dolphin is a good experiment. 

So a best/succesful competition for you guys is the most popular and watched?  Well thats always naturally going to occur when money is spent on it, just like WWE wrestling, or Big Bash cricket, or NFL etc...  It really doesnt make it the best quality or the most succesful, just the most popular... Getting back to MLS with 30 or so professional teams and billions of dollars in investment you could argue that it is the best and healthiest soccer competition in the world at the moment... no team dominates, they have lots of fans and safe smoke even all the metrics that Gallop wanked over are hitting big numbers...  Im not having a go at you as clearly alot of people think as you do, I just dont get the appeal.