Let’s just recalibrate on the A League first; the A League is a commercial success generating $80m in annual revenues plus whatever the clubs themselves generate which is probably another $120m.

Don’t ignore that otherwise the baby gets thrown out with the bath water.

The problem is not the A League itself but the operation of it.

Take that $80m and give all of it to the clubs and we’d have very stable and financially successful clubs. Instead the ffa retain 75% of the revenues for the greater good.

Or take that $80m and give 80% to the clubs and use $16m left over to seed a second division and we’d have two viable leagues.

It’s not all bad, it’s just the fuckwits running it that’s the problem.

I agree the cap can go, there’s other ways to regulate a league that don’t suppress quality but the cap must go at the same time pro/rel is introduced. The worst must be replaced by the best in the next lower division or we’ll get more mariners and Nix type clubs. Relegation survival is the only motivation when the top is out of reach

If th y have any brains they will select clubs that are existing whether ex -nsl or state league teams .
Those clubs will bring instant media exposure and you will have media following their progress.

New plastic teams will have initial hype and no one will care about them .

WSW as it in soccer heartland and they were crying out for a team that's why it worked so well , New plastic teams will do sweat fa

Bluebird, The horseshit on this forum is from AAFC and NPL stooges like you with an agenda that's plain to see.
Read my post, it makes perfect sense. I don't mention other sports. I don't support youth exploitation in those sports though it appears to do.
I follow football. I like the sport. The actual game on the pitch. The only way to improve the standard of the games on the pitch is full professionalism.
It's clear you don't want that, but you just want your NPL club or mates on its board to make some cash.

This is great news, hopefully the start of more positivity to come.

then do us aussies have a right to enter the ACL without the promotion and relegation? i doubt it

Thats the problem.
Whats the point of an amateur/semi pro 2nd div? Just watch the npl or the npl finals. Thats all it will be and wont do anything to increase the pool of pro players to raise the standard of the sport here. It wont gain any more attention than the current npl finals do, and will just be a vanity project of the clubs.
However where will the money come from for a 2nd div? If there was money for those npl clubs to go pro they surely would have by now. Just rebranding the npl wont result in a flood of new money. Ffa wont support it as they believe it will dilute the corporate sponsorship pool and have no interest in teams outside of syd, melb, bris because of metrics and new fox memberships per capita. In fact they'll stall and bait for as long as possible to make sure it never happens. They are focused on another wsw and would not rather spend their money on a league of regions and angry npl clubs from which they see only costs and no profit. So theyll make empty gestures "canberra people can now support ccm!" And baited metrics "canberra fans need to get out in numbers to prove they are good enough for an a league team" all with a grin and no sincerity. So expect a lot of "yeah it was competative process to pick the next team but we arr going with a couple more sydney teams" and "we are writing the second division criteria and will release it soon" and "weve selected perth glory as the future for tassie football so if they dont show up for a meaningless preseason then no club for them".... and so on and so forth

Crawl - walk - run

A semi pro second division can start tomorrow and the gap will be bridged in a few years

Alternatively we wait until we can find money for a fully professional second division

And we cant wait. Not to mention franchises in second divs arent really viable. There is no agenda. No one cares about politics other than the FFA. Open the pyramid for the good of all of football.

Too little too late.

The only difference between A-League clubs and NPL clubs financially is the fact that one has private ownership and a Fox tv deal and the other one doesn't, in fact take away those two and I would suggest that Some NPL clubs are better off in terms of owning their own assets and also have stronger youth pathways.

The A-League clubs have benefitted from being in a closed off league where they have had all the best players, sponsorship and investment funnelled into them. a second division, even if it starts semi pro, condenses all the best talent outside the A-League into one competition, they get better playing and training with and against one another increasing their value, add transfer fees to this and it becomes income for clubs. Add in promotion and the clubs chase more sponsorship and more investment and maybe even sell part of the club to private ownership and in turn invest more in player wages.

One minute we can't have a second division unless its professional and the next we can't have a second division because we can't afford it to be professional... A combined national second division will weed out the clubs that can and the clubs that can't and keep them away from the A-League.

Like bluebird said.. Crawl - Walk - Run.

Why this needs explaining and How anyone can't see that some NPL clubs, given the same opportunities as the A-League clubs, could do the same if not better job is beyond me..

Conspiracy revealed.

In short, they are fucking morons.

100% South Sydney will be team 11. its as certain as the sun rising tomorrow morning. I agree that Brisbane City will be team 12. They have a very impressive bid and I think the FFA will want derbies in Brisbane. If Wellington are kicked out (the idea of this is starting to gather momentum), I think the replacement team with be either Casey-Dandenong or Geelong. 

Unfortunately either of those two need a long term commitment from the FFA (lease wise) before they can get the funding for suitable stadia.
It's the chicken & egg story but you almost certainly cannot have one without the other.
Either South West Sydney or Wollongong are the low risk, easy entry clubs if the Nix get booted on the quick.

Crawl-Walk-Run
What a load of crap!
You can crawl, walk run with expansion of the top tier with fully professional teams.
You can crawl, walk run by setting up a fully professional second division.
All it takes is the NPL clubs to show some moral fibre and some courage and invest some money in the game, not just seek to make themselves rich, or not allow themselves to be used as a vehicle for a rich member(s) of a community to bignote themselves.

The only people who benefit from a semi-pro second division are the NPL clubs, who want to make some cash.
It's time for real football fans to call out the hypocrisy of the AAFC and NPL clubs.

I can't believe some on here have the audacity to criticise the Lowys for what they do with FFA and the A-League, when those people on here are no different to the FFA with their desire for a free ride for their club into the top league, and those people are happy for young Australians to be exploited along the way.
Pot-Kettle-Black comes to mind.

FWIW from a purely Canberra perspective, if we put together a sound bid for this round of expansion which from all reports could be on the horizon, I get the feeling that if rejected it'd be a long time until we see another bid proposed. Simply because, rightly or wrongly, FFA led us down a garden path last time with Ivan Slavich's bid and the experience scarred many key parties. So if that was to happen again, I can't see there being an appetite again to do it a third time in a row. Especially because there is a confidence within the city that it is ripe to be home to an A-League club

Curious. Don't the AL want/need to make money? Literally every person has self interest and so they should. If clubs dont look after themselves then they cant look after their players. Clubs want their players to succeed so they can succeed. 

You are the walking contradiction and its hilarious. Can't wait until dropkicks like yourself fade into obscurity. 

I don't get it??? Why the hate.

At Present. Canberra and Wollongong should be the next 2.

Canberra United should be 11th team only so the FFA whole of football plan one club model can be implemented which means if there is W-League Expansion Central Coast need a team.

Wollongong Wolves should be the 12th team as they have the stadium and will cover the southern NSW region.

Southern Expansion I am 100% against unless the FFA want the A-League's version of GWS Giants.

Vague identity and no fans. Either you make the call to be strictly South Sydney or Wollongong but not both.

2nd Brisbane will not happen without a commitment to a redeveloped or new boutique stadium that can be used other than Suncorp as the fixture congestion from A-league, NRL, Super Rugby and special events.

Any multiple Sydney or Melbourne Sides really should come from established NPL teams. Forget any more broad based sides.

Tasmania is a smokie and are going about it the right way but need a stadium plan as part of the bid.
At least they are telling the A-League we don't want token games here and there but our own team.

You can't honestly tell me the A-League clubs aren't in it for themselves and their financial backers??

What a semi pro second division does is gives the clubs a springboard into being fully professional. They start off only paying extra for flights, accomodation etc, then they increase wages for players and backroom staff, then facilites, so on and so forth, all in a time frame that doesn't force the clubs to overreach. The FFA has been saying for years it can't afford two new teams let alone, a fully pro second division.  A semi pro second division allows the clubs to do it on their own with minimal help from FFA and the A-League and this is all the AAFC are asking. Asking the clubs to jump straight into professionalism off their own back, whether it be A-League or a fully professional second division, would be too much too soon, in the current climate. A semi pro second division will also give you 15-20 clubs slowly improving their standards on and off field. I realistically can probably see 6-8 clubs taking the risk of jumping from NPL state leagues to a fully professional second division. 


 

The consortium and government for Tasmania have both said they will plan to build a 10,000-15,000 seat rectangular stadium IF given a licence. Bit of chicken before the egg scenario. 

Is there an election coming up in Tasmania or something ?

Fortnight this Saturday.

/tasmaniadiscussion

Haha funny that the politicians haven't actually made it an election promise. When the journalists questioned them on it they said if we get a team they'll work with the consortium, hobart city council and Federal government in building a stadium.

Thats a cart before the horse attitude if there was ever one .

 Sometimes it’s the simple that works and for the life of me I can’t understand how something IMO reasonably straight forward can become so entangled.

For me we new 30 teams, 16 in Div 1, and 14 in Div 2. Hal & Div 2 clubs to run this league.

How do we create the new teams… set a criteria on a team having capital or access to it. A stadium of a certain size…. Both these to be determined but it can’t be that hard ….

Given AFC have taken away FFA’S major revenue earner i.e. Socceroo rights, some kind of licence fee or percentage of revenue to be given to FFA so they can do their job, to cover shortfalls in revenue.

In time and my guess more than 4 years but less than 8 years P & R introduced… my preferred P & R model is the Belgium model where I think the bottom 3 and the to 3 have a home and away 10 round competition with the top 3 going up.

Then 10 years out determine if we need more than two divisions, or how teams can be promoted to the second division.

@ Mid

Initially I can’t see the 3+3 relegation playoff yielding anything but the same 3 HAL teams returning to the HAL but, it would be interesting to see how fans take to it, and tv. Assuming we retain a top 6 finals system it would mean 9 clubs having a prolonged season and most - if not all - in a race for something towards the end of the season.

If we have a closed league system of 2 divisions using 16 & 14 I would rather see initially that teams have a greater chance of advancement.

Eg.

Div 1 14 v div 2 7
D1 15 v d2 6
D2 2 v d2 5
D2 3 v d2 4

Highest ranked winners play at home to lowest ranked winners.

Without relegation down from d2 it's the same as we have now with CCM & WP. There season could be over after 5-6 matches because they won't or shouldn't be able to reach 3rd when a team has a terrible start.

Better yet
16 15 down and replace it with 14 & 13.

Tough but why not?