Its a smart plan by expansion consortium's to build Football Specific Stadiums and I am strongly of the opinion that it must be a prerequisite of any team bidding for a future licence. But they need to be careful when it comes to negotiating with governments for funding... Government funding comes with conditions, and most of the time it means that you will have to share the stadium with another sport (or one off events such as concerts). Trying to build a Football Specific Stadium without government money is difficult of course, but eliminating/minimising the sharing of stadia with other sports is the direction we should be heading over time

Bonita's new article on this 

http://footballtoday.news/features/a-league-deja-vu?

excerpt

..................FFA also noted in its September 2009 media release that Canberra was “an obvious priority” for the 13th license.

What's changed since then? How many consultancy studies do we need to figure out the how, what, when and where of expansion? How many working parties are required? Why is the FFA Board only now mentioning a non-specific “new corporate framework” for the A-League and W-League?

Just what has everyone been doing all this time?

It appears that the answer to that question is tied-up with the visit this week of FIFA and AFC...............................

and

The fact that FFA has recently decided to invite representatives of supporters, referees, coaches and women to meet with FIFA/AFC for 45 minutes each is not due to a Damascene conversion to democracy, transparency and accountability but rather a token ‘tick the box’ exercise to say “Look at what we’ve done.”

FFA also attempted to allocate AAFC just 45 minutes for their discussion with FIFA/AFC, and did not think it appropriate for AAFC to attend the joint session on the final day. Perhaps indicative of the attitude with which FIFA might approach this week’s talks, their lead negotiator, Luca Nicola, overruled FFA on the matter.

We don't need football specific stadia. The stadia can be a local Aussie rules style oval ground with a cyclone fence and a capacity of less than a thousand and it will be fine, provided it has lights suitable for night time t.v broadcasts.

All of these 'criteria' people are coming up with are useless.

The ONLY criteria is that from Day 1, any team must be funded such that it is fully professional and can pay their players a fair and reasonable wage and allow them to train and play fulltime, without having to have other employment just to live.

Of course they must demonstrate sufficient financial and administrative capability to survive for a set period of seasons, including evidence of a lease for a stadium, evidence they can pay their players and staff.

Anything else can come over time. eg You don't need a single fan to start, you don't need a rectangular venue, you don't need a certain minimum capacity stadia, you don't need a 'relationship' with an NPL club,  etc.

All of those can evolve once a team is playing.

Wasnt it fox that claimed that a venue like bournemouths would not meet A league broadcast standards? Lol.

Waz

The 3 * 3 does certainty favour the Div 1 sides... 

It brings a couple of advantages IMO the straight up and down P & R does not... First it creates a competition of 10 rounds and that should get media and a reasonable following.

More importantly and my Belgium friends tell me this [BTW my middle son is engaged to a Belgium girl who migrated with her family to Australia when she was 19] that a huge advantage is when the 3 sides come up they are div 1 ready. So say it was Redlands in south Brisbane.... Redlands would essentially have to beat 3 existing Div 1 clubs and if they can they will contribute to Div 1 not simply be the fav to go down.

Yep so both parties (Supporters FOX etc) are happy do what these leagues do, have 'Relegation Playoffs' like in Belgium and Germany. More games, more viewers, more metrics etc etc FOX is happy, FFA can get more money, and as you said if a Div 2 team make it, they should be good enough

Expansion talk died very quickly.

Fold the entire thing and start again.

Separate league and administrators, keep the old guard from FFA out, start with 14 teams and then develop a second division and work up to relegation/promotion, no New Zealand team (ensure it's enshrined in any new company constitution).