Fear mongering that an open pyramid would come in.

This is why you remove salary cap, FFA pay minimum wage and owners spend as much as they want too. Hundreds of countries and leagues in a far worse financial situation seem to manage, it isn't as 'high risk'' as you think it is. 

Ohh damn you were right Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC got relegated in the same season. That is just shit.

Fox - But they are still football clubs right?
Midfielder - Yes they are
Fox - Because they are in A2 we don't have to pay them as much as A-league sides right
Midfielder - Yes that's correct
Fox - Do they still have a big fan base
Midfielder - I suppose so, why
Fox - Well why cant we show Victory and Sydney FC games from the A2. They still have plenty of supporters right
Midfielder - Yes I suppose so 
Fox - Well that works out great for us. Suddenly the A2 is now more compelling and its cheaper for us to operate and we still get good ratings. Plus there is every chance they can get  promoted next season.
Midfielder - Oh yeah I suppose
Fox - Damn we love a tiered league. Why didn't we do this before. We have double the content with more interest than ever. 

Checkmate.

I think the removal of the salary cap is a no-brainer but still some risk. If you reduced the floor though presumably you'd need to renogiate the CBA

If you are just paying the franchises the minimum salary and selling new franchise licences / letting in old clubs then you would need to convince the existing franchises, currently asking for $6 million , to agree to it (with the added risk of relegation)

And you would need to convince Fox that this is viable and / or renegotiate the recent tv deal that transferred the risk back towards the league

The big risk is owners and supporters walking away from relegated franchises and whole cities (adelaide, perth and brisbane) being relegated and losing interest completely and pulling the league in to a downward spiral. Alternatively, if it works, it could elevate the league to a level that cannot be achieved through the status quo. That is, high risk

Excuse my ignorance (you might have gathered this isn't my primary code), how is an open pyramid a source of fear to people otherwise supportive of P/R? It seems to me that the linking of the professional to the semi professional is the more  challenging link than the grades between degrees of the latter

Interesting point. My personally preference is that the CBA should be abolished totally. There should be no floor and no cap. I believe that there should be is a minimum contract in order for a club to sign a player. Of course signing a player on a minimum contract is something that would happen if you are a junior player or perhaps a journeyman player or someone coming back from injury.

It requires some work on the part of club CEO's and Chairman. Are they responsible enough to keep within their budgets and sign the best players and stick within those budgets. Are they able to scout the hidden gems around the world and sign them on a reasonable contract. Are they able to develop players within their academies and promote them within their club or perhaps sell them in an open transfer market (how I wish). So a CBA is not a problem in the slightest. Players, clubs, foxsports, agents etc would have a good idea of how much money is floating around, which clubs and how much money players would be able to get. If they cant sign for a particular club they would just move on to another club here in Australia or overseas until the market decided how much they were worth. 

It's obvious Australia would follow what Japan did. It's ridiculous to make stupid statements like "what if Woy Woy come in".

An overnight up and down isn't a reality. It's people like Gallop and midfielder that act as if it is the only way to a pro rel pyramid (without any kind of standards). It's not but they will use fear to denounce pro rel.

HYUNDAI A-LEAGUE SET FOR EXPANSION, PROMOTION-RELEGATION IN 2018
DECEMBER 12, 2016


More Australians than ever before will have the chance to play at a professional level with Football Federation Australia today announcing a significant expansion of the country's elite player pathway.


On the back of Thursday’s official confirmation of football as Australia’s number one club-based sport, Football Federation Australia has made an historic move to introduce a new 12-team second tier competition beneath the Hyundai A-League.

Set to launch in 2018, the competition will be known as the Australian Premier League (APL) and will enable promotion and relegation between the country's top two tiers.

Hyundia A-League, which launched in 2004, will also be expanded from 10 to 12 teams in 2018.

The bottom two Hyundai A-League teams will be relegated each year and replaced by the top two APL clubs determined by the same points system.

The groundbreaking developments follow wide-ranging feedback from players, coaches, parents, clubs, Football Federation Australia and further stakeholders and are based on the recommendations of a dedicated review committee.

Clubs across the country will be welcome to submit expressions of interest prior to a formal application process with 2017.

Football Federation Australia Chief Executive Officer David Gallop described the expansion as a landmark moment for the game.

“This is a major investment towards realising football’s potential in Australia,” Gallop said.

“Our sport is Australia’s number one choice for adults and children and we are striving to provide them with the best opportunity to achieve their ambition.

“The review committee examined several models for growth through the next licence period and has decided it is the right time to broaden the elite opportunities for participants and clubs.

“Strengthening the commercial potential of the game will also provide considerable benefits to the entire football community.”

In addition to gaining greater aspirational opportunities, junior players will also benefit from an increase in Skill Acquisition Program licences to 20 from 2018.

The chance to run a Skill Acquisition Program will be offered as a standalone licence and open to applications from all clubs and Zones throughout the country.

A review of the Westfield W-League Women’s competition will take place in early 2017 and will inform decisions on the final structure for the 2018 season onwards.

http://www.footballqueensland.com.au/football-queensland-announces-major-ps4-npl-queensland/

Please note all I did was change FQ with FFA and insert Gallops name.

Queensland atm is the NPL most similar to the A-League

- no relegation
- big distance between teams

This is a perfect model to implement. FQ are requiring $10k for SEQ teams and $20k for regional teams for travel.

Of course FFA would have to take a franchise fee , eg $5 million and wait for 2-3 years before implementing promotion.

This is the first step in transition to a bigger league system.

Its the old 'present the least likely, most improbable, virtually impossible, doomsday scenario' to argue against the point.

The big clubs that make the league go round, will always outspend the little clubs. Just like in every other league in the world so it just aint happening. (Sure Man U have been relegated before. And btw did it kill them?) If woy woy get promoted it will be at the expense of a little club, not the 'marquee fixture' clubs. MVFC aint getting relegated for many many years to come if ever. Its a fear mongering fairytale. 

Some people in Australia have this aversion to the term Promotion Relegation so lets remove pavlovs dog from the equation. Lets call it an upper conference and a lower conference. The MLS speak should help stop their night sweats.

It seems the FFA don't understand how easy it is to lose A-League fans.

It's not like AFL where they can't pick another countries league to watch and unlikely that NRL fans would ditch the league all together and start watching Super League instead (not as well).

It's easy to be a Eurosnob and I think it would be very rare for A-League fans to only support an Australian team in the sport of football.

Of course it is generational and the league is not very old, but FFA should be doing their upmost to keep fans satisfied. Again, this comes back to FFA wanting to convert non football fans instead of focusing on football fans.

Because if you convert the non football fans or even just have them turn up to games as clueless bogans thats exactly what the ffa want...these are the people that have no idea about the grassroots and player development issues etc..they just want live hassle free sport during summer when the main sports they follow are off..the more clueless they are the more advantageous it is for the ffa..the competition since its inception has been marketed towards these people. 

We aren't "fans". We are "customers"and the FFA aren't keeping their customers happy.

yes one fixture in A2 will make it work

Why one fixture? If we had an a2 now we would be preparing for Adelaide United v Adelaide city ..biggest football match played in SA for decades and it would be in the 2nd tier.

Okay so you would be happy having an absolutely depleted national team of any real talent because as you say clubs should recruit whoever they like no matter what. SO in other words if all clubs would like to recruit 11 foreigners then so be it? Because I dont agree with that at all.

And if you say that recruiting 11 foreigners would never happen because of the rules in place, then doesnt that just go against your initial point about not hampering clubs with rules with regards to who they should field etc?

So which is it?

Yes but rescheduling means having to move a game out of a premium slot for fox and moving it to another day to make up for it, which wouldnt suit fox. That's why FFA are being rigid, because they are being told by fox which games can be moved. And in most cases not many at all ever. 

The scheduling of games at the start of the season are hard to manage because FFA isn't to know whether a Brisbane Roar would beat a team in the preliminary stages of ACL and then get put in a certain group and played at a certain timeslot. 

I just think Fox need to be more flexible and allow the FFA to move games around in order to help the clubs partaking in the ACL. ANd it seems they have probably had a chat to Fox about doing it for next year. 

I love all these ideas in theory, but in reality, do we really think Victory would still pull the same crowds they do now if they were in a A2 scenario?

Id put my house on a bet that if MV where relegated to A2 and MC where still in A1, suddenly MC will get a massive influx of fans and heck might even fill their Green Seat Elite faction. Nature of the beast unfortunetley,
MV will still get its core supporters going, but I would say theyd pull avgs of around 5k if they were relegated.

You may laugh and call me crazy, but in 1998 if you told me one day South Melbourne will have 500-1,000 core fans going to games, I would have laughed and called you crazy.

The difference is an adelaide united or melbourne victory would have the opportunity to gain immediate promotion back up. Crowds might drop a bit but they would retain the bulk of the fan base.

With us we cant get promoted, our fans from 1998 know that even if we win the victorian title we cant go anywhere, outside the hardcores its killed the incentive to turn up.

Does it matter ?