Yeah I meant BC. Hakoah are a member of AAFC that’s why I thought they would attend 

But I think AL teams would be on the same wicket with their youth teams if FFA can work it out. 

AL youth teams has to fit into this somehow. 

The threat of relegation from the get go may be a deterrent for new entities. Pity these new owners dont invest in existing clubs instead of starting their own.

Existing clubs carry baggage and are harder to control given their established structures. That likely explains why many prefers to start a new project instead. 

The model yesterday calls for immediate connection with the NPL leagues via P & R from day 1. 

The model isn’t confirmed.

Ideally we'd be in an environment where the first thing a newly created first or second division bid would do is form a club ahead of time and enter it way down the tiers in their local area, giving prospective fans a rallying point to demonstrate demand.

Imagine if Team11 (who are interested in a second tier spot) spent $10k on putting together a team of youngsters in State League 5 South and ten thousand fans showed up so they could say that they were at their club's first ever official match and signed up as prospective inaugural season ticket holders of an A-League team.

Unfortunately in the current Lowy-derived system, existing clubs way down the pyramid are seen as icky, so I see why past bidders haven't tried this approach.

Another advantage of this approach would be the opportunity to become a legitimate member of the AAFC.

In the case to get this up and running I wouldn’t mind a license fee. But, you get it back when you get relegated and that is covered by the team that gets promoted. 

Every one pays when they come in every time. Keep this as long as needed. Doesn’t need to be much.

That wouldn't work for teams like Canberra and Tasmania, as they should ideally represent the whole region (the way Newcastle Jets do for NNSW). If they spend several years scrapping around in their state leagues, then they just become one of a couple of dozen of clubs for locals to support, and end up developing rivalries with existing clubs and thus alienating potential future fans. 

Likewise, Team 11 did at least manage to get backing from most of the existing clubs in the Dandenong-Casey area, who are unlikely to make the step up to a national division by themselves. I could see a similar thing happening in places like Penrith or Ipswich. I don't see a problem with an entity like that parachuting into a second division, as long as they are rooted in the area's football ecosystem.

I also wonder if some NPL mergers to create superclubs might not be on the cards. Things like Adelaide City-Adelaide Blue Eagles, West Adelaide-Adelaide Olympic, Avondale-Moreland Zebras, South Melbourne-Port Melbourne, Perth SC-Bayswater all make sense (in the sense that they teams draw on a similar geographic area and ethnic community for their support base).

We have to lose this idea of representing regions.
The only thing which matters is that a club does enough to win promotion, doesn't matter where they come from, doesn't matter whether NSW has 10 teams or zero teams in the comp, doesn't matter whether a club has 10,000 members or 50.
A club like South Melbourne doesn't have to amalgamate with anyone, nor does it have to represent a geographic area, it already has a fan base.
It just needs a chance to win promotion.

I can't see how entering a team (youth team, really) in the lower leagues first would stop a prospective bid being seen as a broadbased bid, but maybe that's just me. If some youngsters for a prospective Canberra United or Tasmania FC team played a season or two in their local leagues first they'd never be accepted? I think the opposite is true.


Merging clubs would mean a net loss of long established clubs which would be a loss to our game. I can't agree with this.

This was my point from the other day bit expressed from another point of view. People saying we should just have a Sydney/Melbourne NSD miss this point. It should just be the best clubs that meet the criteria and can stay there through P & R.

Brommapojkarna (The Bromma Boys) who I have talked about with the large youth was set up as a youth club. They have been a yo-yo team to Allsvenskan. But remain a focused production factory which is their meaning. Eventually their better players are sold.

With FFA you teams limitations wouldn’t having FA youth teams be an option? Of course there is a funding question but couldn’t Football NSW have an “excellence” team up to 21-22 year olds that play in a NSD NPL league system? 

Because let’s not pretend it won’t be like now with Nichols and Smeltz playing for GC knights and united. I don’t think it is a bad thing to have ex AL players in a NSD.

Every club will need to be innovative in their revenue streams, so getting significant youth development returns has to be a top priority. 

FA have resources but it could create a backlash 

i am pro clubs every form. Old new franchise private NFP. We don’t need rules. Only rewards for success.

Just shows then that the model of planting regional clubs on top of an existing club environment is dumb really. 

So we should get rid of the Jets and replace them with Edgeworth Eagles? Get rid of the Glory and replace them with Floreat Athena? Look what happened in Adelaide. In the NSL you had two clubs both with limited drawing power (crowd averages were usually 3-4000), which both eventually went bust. Then Adelaide Utd came in and suddenly were getting 12k+ to games. That was undeniably a positive for the game. The same should apply to regional centres like Canberra, Hobart, Gold Coast, NQ, or even suburban fringes like Dandenong, Penrith, Ipswich.

If you want a viable second division, it is going to have to be a mix of established NPL clubs from the big cities, and all-embracing regional entities. Otherwise the latter will be cut out of the picture and you end up having no pathway for player development (which is a big issue right now for these areas).

We commonly hear the expression:  connect with the grassroots.

To my mind, there has always been a fatal flaw in that thinking:  it presupposes that there is one single elite level, and that everyone and everything below that level is subservient to the elite level.

For example, if you're in a junior South Melbourne team, why should you feel the need to "connect" to an A-League team?  Aren't you dreaming of helping South Melbourne get into the top division?

During the last round of A-League expansion, Capital Football ran Canberra United in the ACT NPL competitions (a rung higher than the age groups, exactly the same as the A-League youth teams play in their respective NPL competitions), and it got scrapped after a season, as the local clubs rejected it since the system took all the local clubs best youth players from them. This was the same season that the CoE was disbanded.

That's a shame, that sounded like a pretty good idea. Bit of a conflict of interest for Capital Football to be running it though, so I can see why the other clubs were upset. 

I think it was Capital Football, but I'm not 100% sure.

Based off this article, I'm going to say it was. This is regarding club concerns before it actually began.

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6056776/soccer-canberra-npl-clubs-unite-to-voice-concerns-about-canberra-united-academy/

EDIT: And this is the concept of the CUA at the moment
https://www.canberraunited.com.au/news/academy

Lol calm down no ones suggesting replacing teams.
 
I just think this system of dropping in new A-League or NSD teams and expecting they act as some all encompassing representative of other clubs in their area when they are all supposed to be clubs within the same pyramid is daft. Adelaide United should be treated as the biggest club within the overall football community of Adelaide, not some weird rep team for all Adelaide Clubs that all the existing clubs and their fans are expected to fall in line under.

If some Canberra or Tasmanian bid wanted to start playing in the NPL like Pala suggested and they ended up forming some rivalry with another team in the league, then i see no problem with it. They are supposed to a be a club in their own right and if anything it would make a future potential FFA Cup ties more interesting anyway. Structuring things so that everyone who already has their own clubs is supposed to fall in line under the new team is the wrong attitude imo. 

I'm not saying we should go to some rep team model like Super Rugby. But even in the European model what do you see with those kinds of mid-sized cities? Almost always they have a single major professional club playing in the top divisions which is supported by the whole city, and then lower down the pyramid you have smaller amateur (or semi-pro at best) teams that in no way see themselves as being in competition with the flagship club.

We need to get to a situation like that in the A-League/NSD with the likes of Canberra, Hobart, Geelong, Townsville, etc. Some cities already have this in the NPL (e.g. Wollongong, Gold Coast), but a lot don't, either because of distance or because they have their own NPL system. The only viable way to do this is through new entities. If you expect them to try to work their way up through the local leagues first then they're not going to end up embracing the whole region, because they will have spent several years playing against other clubs in the area, developing rivalries, and it will be quite difficult to actually establish themselves as the hegemonic club (or it will involve throwing a lot of money down the toilet and hoping that fans gravitate toward them).

I'm all in favour of eventually getting to a fully integrated pyramid for pro and semi-pro football, but there are going to have to be a few top-down interventions before this becomes viable.

The problem is that then support for the team would be fractured and it would be much more difficult to be a viable entity in the A-League/NSD. You need to have a pathway for players in these areas (at present anyone who aspires to something beyond NPL level has to move inter-state), and ideally a pole of attraction for the footballing fanbase in those cities.

The path way is through promotion.

If a NNSW team qualified for NSD then rejected it those players get a platform. Clubs around Australia and would be wise to scout because if a player isn’t willing to move to Sydney or Melbourne to another NPL club then they don’t have the ambition.

In Europe they have carnival like events for out of contract players. A similar thing could occur.

Also, if you are eg. Green Gully, why not play friendlies and organize games in Newcastle pre season. As training and scouting mission?

It could work.  The clubs become shareholders (with board representation) in the larger entity and serve as feeder teams to the larger entity.  Nothing is lost, as the local club would still participate in local NPL under their own identity.

But then what happens when that club gets relegated?
Also the feeder teams shouldn’t be able to be promoted to the same league.

its the same concept as how AL youth teams would function in a full pyramid. You can have them but they can’t be in the same division as the senior team.

That's exactly right, if you're a club with any ambition, there's no way you want to tie yourself to an A-League club, you want to be the one who replaces that club in the top tier!

Not every clubs wants to get on the  elevator.  There is a whole part of the football ecosystem that isn't in the slightest interested in it.  I would suggest that the majority of players that play in grassroots football aren't worried about where their club is going.  They just want to play the game and enjoy it and the part of the ecosystem that they play in is just as important as any other part.

The UEFA president when opening the UEFA Grassroots conference said:-

"Grassroots football is of the utmost importance, The slogan 'Football First' is at the core of UEFA's strategy for the coming years – and without healthy grassroots, the game cannot flourish."

"Grassroots football is all football that is non-professional and non-elite. This includes, but is not limited to, children's football, schools and youth football, amateur football, football for disabled players, football for veterans and walking football. In short, grassroots football is football played by the masses at a level where participation and a love of the game are the principle driving forces."

Within grassroots football there will be many clubs and players that do want to climb the pyramid but it is wrong to assume that this is the case for most.  What is required is to develop a football structure that allows clubs to participate in the part of the ecosystem that suits them.  Not every club needs or wants to be in the pyramid.  If some want to band together to provide the opportunity for those of their players that want to play in the competitive pyramid then that is perfectly OK for them to do.

FFA views grassroots as clubs and leagues they can monetize.

So affiliated clubs only.