Deflection.

As soon as I come on the forum you can bet TSF comes charging in frothing at mouth. :lol:

Of course it does

No expansion in season 4 was costly
Turning down a $300m TV deal was costly
4 more years of 10 teams after 4 more years of 10 teams is proving costly

You might pin hopes on an ambiguous 10-20 year timeframe which you hope will just resolve everything but inaction every step along the way makes it moot

Throw 10 years at the start of the A League and did you picture we'd have 2 extra teams? No. Many would have said 14-16. It wasn't a magical cure


If you don't have a 10-20 year plan for implementing P/R then it simply isn't possible. Isolating the top tier and growing it separately to the rest of the football empire, and then hoping one day to link the two isn't a pathway forward. It is simply the level of thinking the current body has which is why things have worked out the way they have

If we introduce a semi professional 2nd div with hand picked secondary regions at the same cost of the youth league, to replace the youth league. And remove the salary cap with the view of linking both leagues in 3 years time - that is a plan. Obviously you have contingencies around it but you don't have to advertise those


Currently the FFA don't have a P/R plan. The league is a leaking dam wall and they are just looking at patching the biggest and most obvious leaks one at a time. The mess you wanted to avoid - we already have. You just can't see it

Bluebird nailed it.

This really got me going. Well said!

All of this.

FC Cincinnati: the third-tier US soccer team pulling in 20,000 fans a game

Futbol Club Cincinnati are not even a year old but they’re already getting bigger crowds than most MLS teams. What is the secret of their success?

Monday 16 May 2016 10.00 BST

When Bjorn Knudsen talks, the whiskers from his eyebrows and beard poke out of his orange, full-body suit. When Knudsen walks, his father, Chip, holds him by his shoulders, helping him keep balance and walk straight.

“No curb,” Chip says when they cross a street, making sure Bjorn doesn’t stumble.

Bjorn, with a massive bass drum strapped to his chest, begins beating the drum while others are chanting. “How can you see the drum?” someone shouts.

Bjorn, Chip and 150 others are marching just under a mile from Mecklenburg Gardens, a quaint corner bar, toward Nippert Stadium — the home to what’s quickly becoming America’s most fascinating new club.

Just over nine months ago, Futbol Club Cincinnati became the city’s latest attempt at professional soccer. Nine months later, FCC have become the most notable club in the United Soccer League — American soccer’s third tier — and has moved up the list of clubs campaigning to join Major League Soccer, a competition openly looking for new markets.

In their second home match on 19 April, FC Cincinnati had 20,497 fans attend a 3-2 loss to Louisville City FC, the team’s geographic rival. The attendance was a league-record (the previous high was 20,231 set by Sacramento Republic FC), dwarfing USL’s average of 3,369 in 2015. There are no more comparisons to other clubs; rather, there are other clubs comparing themselves to Cincinnati.

A club for the people, created by the businessmen
Perhaps the most impressive feat during FC Cincinnati’s rapid growth has been their ability to truly represent the full spectrum of soccer supporters in the area. While The Bailey, the club’s official supporters section, waves massive blue-and-orange flags and ignites smoke bombs, other sections of Nippert Stadium seat young families and casual fans attending just to witness the city’s latest craze.



Essentially, the club have created a massive community through a grassroots effort, despite having an owner and CEO, Carl H Lindner, who comes from a family of billionaires.

“We have a pride in this town,” says the club president and general manager, Jeff Berding. “We’re a major-league community. People rally around us to support their teams, sometimes with a chip on our shoulders.”

FC Cincinnati want attention, and the leaders of the club have provided fans with meaningful gestures. When the team have played on the road, both Lindner and Berding have gone to local bars in the city and across the Ohio River to Covington, Kentucky, to meet fans.

Combined with strong marketing and a community feel, FC Cincinnati are set to be the city’s long-term professional soccer team. And it’s a welcome addition for fans. In 2015, the Cincinnati Saints played in the National Premier Soccer League, the fourth tier, to an average of 200 fans. While there were passionate supporters, there wasn’t a sustainable strategy for growth.



Chip Knutdsen, who used to go to Saints matches, said the team overcharged for tickets and underproduced on the pitch. The Saints folded and became the Dayton Dynamo, now playing in the NPSL.

FC Cincinnati, however, have decided on a different tactic to the Saints, by offering cheap tickets to college students and children. Fans can also request that 20% of their ticket sale go to local youth soccer organizations.

And in terms of staff, the club went with one of the most recognizable players in US soccer history. “It’s been incredible, actually,” John Harkes says about his tenure as FC Cincinnati’s first coach. “From August, some people said starting from scratch would be impossible.”

Harkes played in England for Sheffield Wednesday, West Ham, Derby and Nottingham Forest, as well as in MLS and for the US national team. His appointment to FC Cincinnati was the club’s first hint at the seriousness the organization was taking in establishing a legitimate team. Harkes is in America’s National Soccer Hall of Fame.

Then came building a roster. Working with assistant coach Ryan Martin and goalkeeper coach Jamie Starr, Harkes and Berding assembled a side with more MLS experience than any club in USL.

Cincinnati native and centre-back Austin Berry was the first signing, becoming the club captain. Berry was the 2012 MLS Rookie of the Year. Another familiar name was Omar Cummings, a Jamaica international who played at the University of Cincinnati, as well as the Colorado Rapids and Houston Dynamo in MLS.

Cincinnati play an aggressive, attacking style, opening matches in a 4-3-3 and reshaping throughout the game. With players in interchangeable positions, Cincinnati often pull opponents out of shape. In the first nine matches of the season, nine different players have scored.

“When you’re starting a brand new club, you might have two or three players contributing,” Harkes said. “For us to have so many players scoring goals, creating assists, combination plays … it’s encouraging. We keep finding ourselves making our own future.”

Winning on the field and in the bleachers
Advertisement

This weekend the weather at Nippert Stadium at kickoff resembled a cloudy November day in Manchester rather than a spring afternoon in the American midwest. FC Cincinnati were attempting to get 25,000 fans in for the match against Pittsburgh Riverhounds.

The team wore a special orange jersey and asked fans to wear the same color for an “orange out,” inspired by the Cincinnati Bengals-Pittsburgh Steelers rivalry. A few Bengals served as honorary captains for the match too.

Once the match started, Cincinnati controlled play. With fluid passing and copious possession, Jimmy McLaughlin put the home side in front after 27 minutes, finishing a rebound off Pittsburgh keeper Mauricio Vargas.

The goal marked the first time Cincinnati had scored first in a match since the loss to Louisville City. Ultimately, McLaughlin’s effort, combined with keeper Mitch Hildebrandt’s composure, gave the team a 1-0 win and their first clean sheet in club history. After the result, FC Cincinnati sit second in the USL Eastern Conference standings through nine matches.

The crowd was 23,375 — a new USL record, surpassing the 19 April attendance. It’s a promising sign for the club ,and with better weather Lindner’s original target would probably have been met.

If the club can make a Lamar Hunt US Open Cup run and host an MLS team, the attendance record will likely be beaten again. And although it hasn’t been confirmed officially, one source close to the team said FC Cincinnati will play an English Premier League side sometime this summer in a friendly.

“I think the whole community has embraced us as a club,” Hildebrandt said. “It’s not a fluke. It’s a very special thing that’s happening here.”

Of course it does

No expansion in season 4 was costly
Turning down a $300m TV deal was costly
4 more years of 10 teams after 4 more years of 10 teams is proving costly

You might pin hopes on an ambiguous 10-20 year timeframe which you hope will just resolve everything but inaction every step along the way makes it moot

Throw 10 years at the start of the A League and did you picture we'd have 2 extra teams? No. Many would have said 14-16. It wasn't a magical cure


If you don't have a 10-20 year plan for implementing P/R then it simply isn't possible. Isolating the top tier and growing it separately to the rest of the football empire, and then hoping one day to link the two isn't a pathway forward. It is simply the level of thinking the current body has which is why things have worked out the way they have

If we introduce a semi professional 2nd div with hand picked secondary regions at the same cost of the youth league, to replace the youth league. And remove the salary cap with the view of linking both leagues in 3 years time - that is a plan. Obviously you have contingencies around it but you don't have to advertise those


Currently the FFA don't have a P/R plan. The league is a leaking dam wall and they are just looking at patching the biggest and most obvious leaks one at a time. The mess you wanted to avoid - we already have. You just can't see it

No expansion in season 4 was costly
Turning down a $300m TV deal was costly
4 more years of 10 teams after 4 more years of 10 teams is proving costly

Yes, time has an affect on all things

Why would MV or Syd FC be relegated? Do you think CCM and Newcastle have more spending power?

Disadvantages of P/R
1/ Syd FC and MV will win every year and it will be boring
2/ Syd FC and MV will be relegated and kill the league
3/ The league will be swamped by ethnic clubs

Oh, but it is possible in 10-20 years. Just not now...


Instead of spewing out the same recycled hard wired myths maybe think about it objectively

I didn't say the clubs have to profitable, I said the competition has to be stable. A club like Melbourne Victory or Western Sydney can't be relegated, especially in a competition that's still in infancy. Think about the effect that would have on the next TV deal and ratings, if these clubs tank to the NPL? that would be an absolute disaster!

Your advice is reckless to say the least, as I said the clubs that are in the NPL aren't even ready to make that big leap to professionalism hasn't taken place yet. And you want them to replace clubs Victory? not to mention the ethnic baggage these clubs still have... no thanks.

Step 1: Get every team as a profitable and financially secure top tier team
Step 2: Relegate them to a lower division

Great idea Einstein

P/R needs to happen before the league is established. The low cost teams stay low cost teams and the bigger ones grow

You can't go one way for 10-20 years and then change direction. Once you start relegating $6m financially secure clubs to a lower division you'll break what you were trying to do from the start


The A League is at the perfect time for P/R. Large enough to attract a TV deal to fund the minimal club at both tiers for financial stability. Small enough that teams can shoot between the two tiers without somebody copping a $6m bill

Then both tiers grow at the same time. Not one first, then the other separately at a time frame that sounds far away enough to be reasonable but close enough to give hope

P/R will not happen for the next ten to twenty years at least. Most likely in fifteen years, what the A-league competition needs now is stability above all else.

Then next priority needs to be a slow calculated expansion.

Right now, what we see is a lot of the State league are slowly becoming more professionalised as the case is with Wollongong and South Melbourne. As these clubs are better managed, the NPL will become the de-facto Second league except without any P/R, of course that will be the final step to take.

How old are you? Not in your lifetime will u c Pro/Rel.

Well, for starters the FFA don't have a casual $550,000 lying around to hand out to winners. :lol:

did you just wish death on me?

How old are you? Not in your lifetime will u c Pro/Rel.

I actually looked to see if you put it on the page :lol:

It was a bit too deep for facebook I think :lol:

Rather than promotion/relegation, why not put in an incentive for clubs to keep trying to get maximum points out of each game to keep the tail end of the season competitive. At present with 10 teams there are 405 points available over the 27 rounds. That is , if every match had a winner, then the total of all of the points in the points for column on the ladder equals 405. However, the average each year is that there are a number of draws and anywhere between 360-380 points are awarded on average. If FFA could inject an extra $4 mil of funding, then they could award prize money of $10,000 per point. So a team finishing on top of the ladder with 55 points would get $550,000, and a team on the bottom with 25 points would get $250,000. At least there'd be an incentive in every game to try to win the $30k up for grabs, which would make clubs try to get as much as possible out of every game and end the 'nothing to play for' argument as to why promotion/relegation is necessary.

promotion and relegation is a pipedream. a second tier would be possible if weren't wasting money on the womens game, which is quite tedious to watch, and lacks tempo and atmosphere