What could South Melbourne achieve with 100 million? Mate make it 700 million and we build our own 50k stadium,  sign Messi and Ronaldo as players with Mourinho as coach and we still cant get into the closed off plastic A league..... its like a private golf club, invitation only, no "ethnics" alowed.

2034 will stand. By the time the A League get to increase to 16 teams, then implement second division, it will be about 2029. Then about 5 years later the pro/rel will begin.
Its something the younger generations will get to experience in this country. At least the oldies got to experience the unbundling aspect of what will eventually be unveiled by younger administrators that take over from the current lot which have achieved already.

Show them the money, that's how you will get in for now and if you give them enough money then nothing else will matter, it wont matter if you are in South Melbourne, Darwin or Tasmania. I have had and still do have different affiliations with A league clubs, various Associations, NPL clubs and community clubs and from my experience nearly everything revolves around the money. 

A long time ago a community club I was associated with at the time won promotion to NPL but the administrators then said there will be no promotion or relegation next year. I have no doubt that if we really wanted it and the club pushed it and showed them the money we would have been admitted the following year for sure. Years later the administrators called for expressions of interest for expansion and the club applied and was finally admitted, the club was always told that they would never get into NPL because there were already to many NPL clubs in our area,all of a sudden it didn't matter that there was still the same amount of NPL clubs in the area, because with expansion there is more club fees to be paid to the association and more money coming in. Despite the additional revenue coming in The NPL prize money was never increased. 

It just depends on how you view the best & healthiest competitions in the world, be it richest, most popular, best teams, best players.

I think, the general view, is that best competitions is in the top 5 leagues in Europe (Italy, Spain, England Germany & France, no particular order), all 5 countries are 1st world countries. Now you talk about other countries spending big like US, China, Middle East or where ever. The quality is 95-98 of the world's best players reside in these top 5 leagues. There are other leagues like the Portuguese, the Dutch & even maybe Japan or even the Brazilian & Argentinian leagues are fairly strong, but they tend to be feeder competitions to the to 5, maybe not Japanese as they are reknown not football travelers.

Oh yes, NPL licensing, driven by state fed greed is absolutely shithouse I agree, football administration is rotten to the core at all levels in this country you wont find any arguments from me there. As for South "showing them the money" we have mate, an investor (who is not even Greek Australian  if you can believe that😎) was willing to stump up at least 20 mil for license and ongoing operational costs, its all in tbe bid document which both Delloits and Foxtell assured our board met all the criteria. I guess WU and Macarthur had a great property deal,  that certain decision makers at FFA who seem to have subsequently gone very quiet, may or may not have  taken advantage of. Its ALL about the money mate you are right but its also about who gets it not what it is used for? Perfect example is the seed money Football Nsw stumped up to help seed Western Sydney way back when, or Football Victoria did for Melbourne Victory when they couldnt afford a womens or youth team..... money flows up in Australian soccer when ut should trickle down

Richest yes, most popular certainly but best teams and best players is purely subjective mate... Thats the beauty of this ridiculous game we play and watch.... 

No doubt I agree our game is subjective, however, all the best players, Messi, Ronaldo, Mane, Salah, Dybala, Lewandowski, Kimmich, Neuer, Ramos, VVD, De Ligt, Buffon, Neymar,Mbappe, Di Maria, TAA, Silva, De brynne, Benzema, Modric, Fati, Asensio, Griezmann, Immobile & many more all play in what is generally regarded as the top 5 competitions in the world.

Aleague comes in at 6-7 i'd say.

Like Monoethnic Social club says, it's all subjective, so you can't be wrong Footyball, but I'm sure he doesn't agree.

Sure, why not...  A league is awesome, has both tbe best clubs AND players in the world...  its not as popular as the top 5 leagues though but that is the fault of ethnic NSL supporters and Eurosnobs.....

Subjective, but your opinion, so nothing wrong.

Geography in Melbourne is almost arbitrary. Few people feel a strong connection to teams from the outer suburbs though there has not been many experiments. The city is just very centralised.  Everything of note happens in the city and all roads lead to the city. 

What are the differences though? Im aware it doesnt have to be a geographic divide, wsw and syd have that class divide also, i just have no clue what makes someone appealed by victory vs city in melbourne.
Is it the rough c*** tactics of muscat or the oil money euro style of city? 

I used the fairly arbitrary term of other topics because as far as I can tell it’s victory and not victory. But that is another issue for another day. I really don’t think that forcing a geographical rivalry that few in Melbourne care about is the answer. 

How about another term that is also fairly arbitrary but may be the solution to  creating a real rivalry.... its the magical M word, no not money but MULTICULTURALISM....... 
If you look at the 50 strongest and best supported clubs in Victoria - including Victory and City, 48 of these clubs have some sort of ethnic identity/history behind them.... Theres got to be a reason for this surely

I agree. I have no real ethnic ties to any community, im personally fairly cookie cutter in terms of my own heritage in australia, however i notice how much some of the strong ethnically tied npl clubs flourish despite being in some state league banishment

My personal view is that the Lowy's original MO was then eight one at the time. Non ethnically affiliated clubs needed to be created and given at least 5 years, possibly even 10, to establish. They've done that and now it's time open the A League too all comers via a second division. If a club has the money, the players and supporters to viably compete in the A League, it should be there. The utter travesty of Western United shows categorically that the A League has to move on from the Lowy model 

You're right, we need to move on, but do the club owners agree?
Aren't they just as tied to future license fee revenue as the FFA was?
Are the more recent club owners, who have paid hefty license fees, going to allow any club in willy nilly?
I can't see it happening.

Sadly I agree. 

Unfortunately, because of the actions of the ffa previously, they set a precedent for new license holders that would just become unfair for any new franchises in the future. A place like canberra is now in an impossible position to get granted a license as:

A. They cant be admitted for a license fee smaller than wutd and macarthurs without running risk of those clubs seeking compensation;
B. Will reduce the ownership pie of the other clubs as stakeholders of the body which runs the competition
C. Piss off any division 2 club with the aspirations of joining the aleague top league as they likely will be chosen as a franchise instead of earning their way through merit.
D. None of their local NPL clubs in the ACT likely have the finances or capacity to make the move to the A-League if an existing npl club was chosen to move up. People argue the capacity for traditional stronghold clubs like sydney united south melbourne and melbourne knights, how would canberra olympic fair?
E. The hypocrisy of the fans who argue that franchising is bad for the sport as it takes such a safe route to attract fans that it makes them feel unspecial and plastic, but would also demand that canberra have a side added to the competition where the only real possibility to do this is to create a franchise license and not through promotion of an existing lower division side.

I did hear rumours that once the club owners began to take control of the competition around 18 months ago, they had mapped out provisional expansion locations which did not impact on the existing clubs. Id imagine canberra and queensland were the main locations discussed.

A 2nd S/e Qld team would be a good rival for Roar, but where specifically would the team play out of Perry or Albion? Fox won't have either.
Brisbane Strikers and Lions fc home grounds don't come up to fox standards, not enough corporate boxes for corporates to eat seafood perhaps. 
 

I agree to some extent with what you say but would it have been the end of the world if rather than "punish" the existing clubs and fans, Lowey instead added to the existing landscape. New franchises in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Gold Coast (maybe even Tasmania and Canberra _ Adelaide United, Perth Glory and Newcastle were already around) ) could have easily slotted in with the existing NSL clubs and the new football old soccer divide would have been a sporting one, not a cultural war. 

I agree with your points above however feel the need to point out that Canberra United is an existing W league franchise....the McDonalds store has been open for a while they just need to add male toilets round the back so to speak.
As for NPL clubs in ACT sorry I cant speak from knowledge however just like around the rest of the country, it should be sink or swim. If there is interest and money in Canberra for a team wny dont the money bags get themselves down to their favourite club, dump a million bucks on the canteen table and get started? 

Everything I hate about Aleague sumarised neatly in 3 lines 😎

Agree the teams need to have the funds on the table. Interesting that the canberra bid seemingly had the finances but was still overlooked last expansion phase. Id like to have been a fly on the wall in those meetings to decide the teams, for an area with the infrastructure already secured and ready, lower expected operating costs given the cheaper cost of living in canberra vs syd/mel and the fact the fans captured would have not eaten into core supporter bases, Im still gobsmacked they were overlooked. I have to be missing something obvious really, but this is beating the same drum a majority of fans bring to discuss.

Ideally it would have been nice for the aleague to have an optimistic plan in place from its inception. The original 1 team in the major cities for 5 years worked imo, but the expansions were handled poorly and then the ffa got gun shy. We had record interest in wanderers debut season with international audiences tuning in for adp and heskey, yet the ffa spent 6 years working out when the right time to expand was watching as the tv audiences declined. People got sick of the same teams playing every few weeks apart. If it was the mls, theyd have the wanderers lined up and then be handing out conditional licenses to groups like the brisbane strikers so they could enter so long as certain criteria was met by a certain date.

Division 2 should have been in the works since 2010, similar situation.

Same few teams playing each other three times. That was hectic. 
Hey bring back Gallop to assist Greg with the Apl.

Really have to stop calling it a second division in my opinion. This implies pro/rel which, from the language and the actions of the ... um whatever the cartel is calling themselves this week, is NOT in their interest. I dont think FFA got gun shy after Wanderers mate they just didnt have enough fingers to plug the holes in the bucket. Potential investers talk is cheap and people like to ride on the fact that when last call for expansion was made, there were heaps of bids yet Newcastle still dont have an owner and Perth is trying to sell....

https://twitter.com/DailyOzFootball/status/1350647497564164097?s=19

Just saw on the news that Brisbane is now the hot favourite for the 2032 Olympics. Given that we got virtually no Football legacy from the 2000 Olympics this will be an opportunity for the FA to lobby for upgrades / new stadiums.

I'm not talking about Qld that will host matches at the Olympic site and probably Lang Park. (except maybe smaller stadiums for tram bases). I'm talking about the early rounds where groups will be around the country and smaller stadiums for base camps around the country.

e.g. Team XI, upgrade to Campbelltown, Hobart, larger rectangular stadiums in Adelaide and Perth, the Civic stadium? 

Bid document only includes Sydney and Melbourne outside of Qld.