Interesting South Hobart's interest.

I'd just love to have some HAL 2 standard football to watch live on a fortnightly basis. I don't care about TV. I've watched too much pro football on TV and not enough live.

There other 2nd tier competitions which have started with a SE corner emphasis, the SE basketball league is one which comes immediately to mind.  It just  reduces the costs for a start-up league, which is a bit of a leap into the darkness, so the more costs can be controlled, the better it will be in the long run.

Five teams from Melbourne (maybe one from Geelong), five from Sydney, one from Canberra and one from the gong makes 12 teams with travel costs kept to a minimum.

Go from there.

Good.

Interesting article from Cockerill.

Not being paid you mean haha.

-PB

@ pippinu

There's agitation in QLD as well, but the merits of having strong representation from the SE corner as you say are strong.

Starting out with 10 teams home and away with a concentration in the S/E and expanding later may not be a bad start

With this NPL agitation being focused in Melbourne, there is some merit in just including clubs initially from the SE corner:  Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and the Gong.

It must be heaps of fun travelling with width and length of queensland playing and being payed to play football. 

Tiger Air haha.

Teams in certain NPLs already pay large travel and accommodation costs.

Fury and Heat from the NPLQ do this everytime they play a SEQ team.

-PB

C&A are one in the same. Both need each other to be succesful and B can't really happen without C or A.

If you look at the last years of the NSL, crowd averages (Home and Away) were just above 5k, mainly due to the contributions of Perth, a newly formed Adelaide Utd and South Melbourne.

It was fair enough that the NSL administration needed a clean-out and the much higher crowds of A-league clubs shows this was justified.

However, a massive opportunity was lost by leaving the former NSL clubs in the state leagues and not leaving a second division in place sooner. A cooling off period would probably have been required to let the dust settle but the FFA cup at least was 5-6 years overdue.

I think the FFA just tried to funnel NSL fans into the A-league instead of focusing on the key strength of the sport in this country, the size of the base of its pyramid. It seems they were still scared of "old soccer".

Even if pro/rel was off the cards for many years, they could play a winter comp and also create a testing ground for potential expansion sides to prove their on and off field credentials. They

Even if they could manage an average of 3k, that is still great by world standards. Looking at tier 2 averages from last year from Wiki:
Buli 2 - 19k
Championship - 17k
China League 1 - 9k
Spain Segunda - 8k
Scotland League 1 - 7k
England LEague 1 - 7k
J2 - 7k
Buli 3 - 7k
Brazil Serie B - 7k
Italy Serie B - 7k
France Ligue 2 - 6k
NASL - 6k


I think this all comes back to the philosophical question we need to ask ourselves - What do we want football to be in this country?

Focus on youth development for the success of the NT?
Bright lights, big stadiums and mega tv deals?
Building a strong pyramid with strong foundations of amateur clubs that builds up through the semi-pro to the pro leagues?

The answer to this question shapes the direction the game takes.

An independent self-organised and funded second division is by far the best way to go about it.


Good luck to them. I hope it is viable.

I think this more represents, for football fans, a step forward and a step closer to a true football pyramid. Thats where the excitement extend from for myself and I'm sure the majority.

I doubt people want to see the HAL fail, its more LOLS over the fact that it looks like is going to happen against FFA will.

I only remember positivity about the cup, was anyone negative about it?
I don't expect people to leave the HAL in droves, but why should that be the purpose anyway?

The same people crapped on about a cup and it took nothing to set up and it's already made waves in football. Clubs have invested in their grounds and money is coming back to the states. 

With your bitter sarcastic opening response, I highly doubt it. 

The idea that people will leave the A-league in droves for a second division with familiar clubs and less marketing/visibility. 

Yep all that's been keeping the state league teams from having massive fan bases is calling their league a 2nd division rather than state league. 

Id like to see this happen though. would be good for their fans. 

They have 5 (6) years until the next tv deal is negotiated. This should be their time frame to plan, develop and execute their structure. They need to build a financially viable :) league that adds value to football.

If a league can be set up it will IMO require to meet certain metrics :).

Will it be in a strong enough position in 6 years time that Foxtel, or which ever, want to to be part of the A-League?
That should be an aim.

Dont be silly pipinu is right.

"Rather - a system should be agreed within the domestic football family to work out how a small return can find its way back to the original club 

Its what we have already but hey its a great idea.

I don't agree. Everyone knows how the transfer system works. Its out there on the table. What I don't agree with is how transfer fees are currently capped to a minuscule amount which doesn't help anyone. Just open it up and let market forces decide how much a player is worth. That's the whole point we don't know how much our players are worth in a free market. Both players and clubs need to make decisions on what is best for them. In a transfer market how is an NPL club going to demand more, they will only receive how much a club is willing to pay. At least if they do sell him they will get a fair amount for him. If they decide not to sell him then he stays at the club and sees out his contract and he becomes a free agent. It's not rocket science. 

And if you have a kid on a youth contract earning some $50 a week in an NPL club, what do you reckon the buy-out of 18 months of such a contract is worth?

What a coincidence - about $7k!

i agree.

I was responding to your last sentence, "Clubs buy players from second divisions all the time." (Forgot to highlight it). 

What I mean is A-League clubs will be bypassed. 

Capped at 7k. Anything to keep the little man down. 

If a player is good enough to be bought they can ask for a fee. Young players will also pick clubs where they can get game time. If many players have aspirations to go overseas to play it is going to be easier for some when they get a chance to play in a 2nd division. Clubs buy players from second divisions all the time. 

What an idiot. 

Wow what a load of shit. You sound alot like the resident sophist Gyfox. Words words everywhere but not a drop to think.

National premier league Australia sounds alright but when you add a third division then what? National premier league Australia division 2. Doesn't work well.

I think npl1, then npl2 etc then nplv etc is the way to go.

There should be a return to NPL clubs, but transfer fees are not the answer.  Another system needs to be devised (to operate between the top tier and lower tirr clubs).

Let me explain why transfer fees are not the answer (within Australia).

A-League clubs look for the best young talent to sign up to their youth teams already.

A few escape the net, and are already signed with local clubs, perhaps for one, two maybe three years.

A young player who originally escaped the net gets identified at a later date. He might have 6 months left on his contract, he might have 18 months left.

Either way, there is absolutely nothing the NPL can do to demand a high transfer - the kid walks for free in either six months or 18 months, and unless he is the hottest talent in the history of the universe, as if any A-League club will bother paying a large transfer fee (e.g. if overseas clubs are expressing interest, then the A-League club is most probably going to lose the battle in any auction anyway).

Rather - a system should be agreed within the domestic football family to work out how a small return can find its way back to the original club (noting it's not guaranteed that that young talent has spent most of his life at such a club in any event).

On top of that, any system we can work out ourselves which puts player agents on the outer is always going to be preferable.

So its a corruption pissing contest then? Safe to say frank wins by a country mile.

And the key reasons we find ourselves in this current shit storm civil war, with everyone revolting, are "corruption and administrational mismanagement". But continue. Its funny to watch you squirm.

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