It wouldn't be dull I can assure you. That's because there are other wealthy owners who would want to win the A-league and keep in close contact with city group. In any case the city group also part own Yokohama and I can't see them spending silly dollars in the J-league in order to win the competition, what makes you think they would do that in Australia. Even on the off chance that the A-league becomes open with no salary cap do you think the other clubs that have billionaire owners are just going to lie down and let the city group just win it every year. No, they wont, they will have a big say in the matter. In fact all it would do is propel our league into a spending frenzy, buying better and better players, building better facilities, improving our local players and training methods. So you are genuinely against this.......................riigggggghhttt. 

There's a cap of sorts on how aspirational CFG can be with Yokohama and Melb City. They both can't compete in the same AFC competitions as AFC rules forbid it.

I'm pretty sure there was a similar rule in UEFA with the red bull teams, but they were deemed separate entities and could be in the same competition.

My point is - how will win city group win the A-league every year if we had no salary cap. It gets raised every time this topic is brought up. 

It's time to escape,  but I don't know where the fuck I'm heading,  up or down,  right or left,  life or death? I see myself in a mist of smoke,  death becomes any nigga that takes me for a joke. 

Cool.

-PB

Its because there are no real advantages of the salary cap. Just blind patriotism for something supporters of it don't fully understand

Australia (and the AFC in general) is in the great position that we can cap the number of foreigners in a squad - European clubs can't do that due to EU human rights laws, so it's easy for EPL clubs to bulk import Eastern Europeans and French Africans (hence the cosmopolitan nature of the EPL). The foreigner restriction will act as a natural 'cap' on clubs, and force the big end of town to do one of two things:

1) Spend big on their own academies and develop the required standard of Australian player to fill the other 6 positions in a matchday team (assuming 5 visa spots).
2) Spend big on buying the best Australian talent from other clubs.

Either way, the result is the same - money being spent on Australian youth development. This in turn will (hopefully) lead to a more local feel for a club. I agree that it's great to see a team of Aussies doing great on the world stage, and am very much in favour of the foreigner cap (would love to see the A-League to go to 3+1 like the rest of the AFC). What we need to do is to remove the hard salary cap to force all the clubs into a 'one size fits all' mould.

I'd have a more positive response to perhaps a soft cap being introduced, where the amount of spending is limited to a percentage of a club's total revenue - this still allows the big clubs to be big clubs without spending their way into a financial blackhole. It also allows small clubs to progressively grow into a bigger club (should they wish to do so).

I think the best approach would be to scrap the cap and then implement measures to correct any thing that fails as a result

Much better to be adaptable than cynical

If P & R was the fix all, and other sports don't have it, wouldn't you think the other sports would also be declining?
The AFL and NRL for example.
P & R is not THE fix.
It won't necessarily generate any more interest.
What about the teams that are neither in danger of relegation nor have a chance for promotion?
What would make their fans continue watching them?

I think overall the article made a lot of sense.

For me anyway a few things jump off the page.

WE have allowed the league to become stale, no club nor FFA nor anyone else for that matter is doing much if anything to promote. 

I lay the blame for this at the feet of Steven Lowy, not only has he lost the conversation, he IMO is too scared to front the media, other than in controlled setting.

The four big issues, new governance, expansion,  second division and P & R, need to be resolved, with reasonable time-frames allocated to their implementation. 

Finally and hopefully we need a leader who can unite us again, as SL's lack of setting the agenda and leading the conversation, has created a lot of groups many pulling in different directions. The new leader also is  not  to apologise for Football  culture, but to explain it and get acceptance of it.

Horses for courses

There is no uniform template approach. If you are on level 1 and you need to go to level 2 you walk up the stairs. If you are on level 2 and you need to go to level 1 you go down the stairs

If you advice is for everybody to go up the stairs then its a failed approach

The AFL / NRL will never have P/R because they are closed off invitational only leagues. Neither will they have a 600 team national cup competition

If the AFL / NRL suits our need then we don't need the A League

In a global competition like football, the lure of continental football provides the drive for midtable clubs.

For example, I can assure you that Burnley are absolutely ecstatic by finishing 7th because this grants them qualification into the Europa League. In a closed league like the AFL or NRL, a 7th placed finish is truly meaningless - hence why (at least the AFL are) they are looking at adding more gimmicks to the competition such as a 'wildcard round' for entry into the finals. People are already shitty about Victory winning the Championship from 4th, imagine if we had a wildcard round and 8th spot won the Championship?

The AFL and NRL are successful in this country because a) they have a long history (i.e. support is now generational) and b) for all intents and purposes, they are the highest standard of the game in the world. A better comparison would be other international sports like Cricket or Rugby Union - crowds only turn up for England and India games in the cricket (watch 5k crowds against the likes of Sri Lanka this summer, even though they are a half decent team in cricketing terms), and the Wallabies are absolutely gash now that the rest of world rugby has professionalized and gone past the ARU. It just seems that us Aussies don't take competition so well (evidenced by the cricketers cheating in South Africa) and can't stand the thought of us not being the best - just look at the outrage whenever the Olympics come around and we don't win every medal in the swimming. News flash - other nations have swimming pools too! This is probably why we have a large proportion of Eurosnobs in this country - why bother following something if it's not the best?

We're a global sport playing in perhaps the most multi-cultural country on the planet - we need to stop looking at the bastions of AFL and NRL as the 'correct' model when it's been proven time and time again in EVERY league worldwide that it doesn't work. We literally have access to a global talent pool, and instead we hire 'expertise' from Union (O'Neill), AFL (Buckley) and NRL (Gallop). No wonder the game in this country is fucked.

If P&R was an option for them, that'd be something they'd look at to be even bigger

For some they'd breathe a sigh of relief that they've survived comfortably.
Huddersfield just had a big celebration for finishing 5th Bottom.
Bournemouth would we loving being able to relax this year, they know what's in store for them eventually
Leicester fans confused, don't know whether to look up or down


Some would look at their rivals
St Totteringhams day hasn't been celebrated this year for the first time since 1995
Everton would happily finish 4th bottom , as long as it's above Liverpool

If you bothered to read the article I think the crux of the matter is that the A-League is NOT the best football we can watch. Look at crowds in many smaller European nations, they are abysmal except for a few "big" teams. They face the very similar issue Australia does ... their domestic league is not the best available.

Sure you watch your local teams but the majority want to watch the best there is ... the A-League is so slow, so clumsy, and players lack so many skills when compared to the EPL, Bundesliga, La Liga etc. etc. Unless you are already invested in a team it is hard to gain/keep fans.

I think for me this is where pro/rel won't address the issue. Salary cap removal could help, but again I don't think there is limitless money available for A-League clubs to spend big enough money to bring the talent needed. So as the article suggests what is the selling point of the A-League??

I personally think it comes down to that the A-League needs to sell the game as a spectator sport (not a TV sport). This makes it hard because the main $$ come from TV now in sport. But unfortunately at home you are going to mainly watch the best quality game (EPL if you don't have Fox, La Liga, Bundesliga is you have Fox) ... unless you are a fan of your local team that is playing away. The only way to get that fan is to get them to the home games. Pro/rel would help there to an extent as you get an interest in your team, but you still need the team playing a certain quality of football (hence why lower division English sides get smaller crowds ... Sunderland have had to shut up parts of their ground since dropping).

As corny as it may be, and many of you will hate it, unfortunately the A-League needs to be entertainment driven IMO. You need to accept that the quality is sub-par but the entertainment at the game is what "sells" it. That "entertainment" doesn't have to be tacky (e.g. Big Bash ... although it works), but you think what has worked in the A-League (e.g. crowd chanting / atmosphere). For me it is finding that unique "entertainment" that Big Bash, AFL, NRL etc. doesn't have.

@ sokorny

Yeah but nah, the average attendance in the English championship is what, 18k? If it’s just about quality why aren’t they playing to virtually nobody?

Why don’t supporters of Sunderland who’ve just been relegated to the third division stop supporting them and follow the higher quality Newcastle in the EPL?

Quality will have an impact on attendances, but it is not the major driver - unless you are an NRL, AFL supporter or part of a hostile media pack, where it suits a certain agenda.

We just need a respectable, competitive football competition that engages with a wider range of football lovers as possible. It’s not that hard to do. The rest follows.

The AFL is the best competition of its kind in the world, but I’d rather watch the NPL Grand Final than the AFL GF held on the same day. It’s just the way it is.

Pro/Rel isn't a solution for getting people to the game. Its the solution for letting the big clubs grow bigger

A single tier league with no salary cap isn't instant death. Japan and Korea managed it fine. But it does require a smart expansion plan. And if the gap between top and bottom becomes too great you'll risk a break away rebel league, particularly as the big clubs frown upon generating millions in revenue for small teams squatting on funds

Pro/Rel is a smart strategy for managing the inevitable small clubs in a league that come from letting the big clubs grow freely. And contrary to popular belief it is very low cost. Initially no bigger than the current youth league. And the reality is clubs at the bottom of the A LEague will be no bigger (as we saw with team 11 NQF - team 12 will be worse)

The critical point of development for the league is no salary cap so the big teams are free to grow and attract interest, and support the national teams. P/R is a low cost investment for helping this process

It's also vital that if the cap goes, then a proper transfer and loans system is in place. This creates a vital income stream especially for the lower clubs. MV received an estimated $1M for Milligan and $800k for Geria this year. That's nearly 40% of the season cap. However if those players had gone to other Australian clubs, MV would have got nothing.  If clubs had the ability to make money from transfers and loans we would see clubs like CCM able to make more money and stop scraping in at the salary floor.

Agreed

There are countless precedents for the sensible running of a league in a global environment. Unfortunately we have opted to look at how to run a closed off invitational only league in a local environment

I think the big issue is the whole concept of franchise models and private ownership. Other than the hardcore fans , everyone else does not see a connection with thee teams . The NRL may have private ownership but other than a couple of clubs the rest that are privately owned were community clubs.

For instance Sydney FC , whilst a fan .. I ask the question who do they represent ? Do they have local talent in the team ? Or all the players bought elsewhere .?Represent any region with strong ties... is there anywhere to go to celebrate a victory .. ie a club premises ?

The other issue for me , In their haste to get rid of the "ethnic" clubs and supporters they killed the league from inception .

They could have used Anglo existing soccer clubs or had the associations set up teams to try bring community ownership to the clubs.

Since they were after the mainstream market , guess what your not going to get new supporters by having it on a pay tv sporting channel , it needed to be on free to air to get the new market . Except all they did was put in on a medium that hardcore supporters who would support the league no matter would seek out and watch the game . Even now one day a week on digital channel is a joke .

If Lowry was really going to pump his actual own money to the game , he could have afforded to have the game on free to air with no payment as they got peanuts from fox for first few years anyway and game may have appealed to the mainstream

Ffs the game spent fortunes bringing the likes of del Piero and Yorke to be hidden away on Pay tv instead of trying to entice the mainstream market and grow the sport on free to air

Also don't get me started on gallop he is a news ltd puppet , was always going to end with tears with him at the helm

So the people wedded to pro/rel have come out in this thread and re-stated that they are wedded to pro/rel.

The thread is about why the viewer numbers on Ten have not grown and an AFL type journalists view of why that is so.

If you genuinely think that pro/rel will increase the viewership and attendances at the A league, why don't you do some analysis work and show how this WILL be the case.

The A league head honchos wouldn't want to try to introduce pro/rel on the feelings of a few bloggers on a football site, but maybe if you put together some statistics and modelling and some projections on what P & R could do for the A league, and then that leaked into the media or up the chain (as things sometimes seem to do on here), then the head honchos might take notice and there might actually be some chance of it happening.

• You mean apart from the 99% of the rest of the world  ?
• or just the countries that started Closed and gave up ?
• or just the countries that started Open and haven't learned what a great idea the FFA are on ?

And Head Honchos ? They're paid by Frank to do Franks Model.  Any dissenters who actually got in, get shown the door

TBH I wouldn't really care if 'the metrics projected' are less than whatever the metrics you think are important. 

An inclusive integrated game should be the starting point, and wherever it ends up sitting, is fine with me.

Anyhow, look on the bright side, as the HAL slides further and further, the alternative is going to have a lower bar to match for those who worry about 'Metrics'

I've always wished we had a sporting club model in Australian sport but unfortunately its too late for that now. It's such a popular and successful model throughout much of Europe and they get around their clubs no matter what the sport. Instead we have a thousand different franchises that spread people thin on time and money, not to mention the stupid code wars mentality that is just one big measuring contest... 

All leagues started closed and pro/rel came in a various times after the league grew in strength. Happy to be proved wrong, but I haven't seen a pyramid spring into existence in any footballing history I have seen.

Its obvious

The games that rate the highest are games involving big teams (as Gryfox's stats in the ratings thread shows). These teams have the highest membership numbers. They have the highest attendances. They have attracted the largest amount of commercial support. The league is also crying out for big players

It is an absolute no brainer that interest in the A League will improve if the cap was scrapped and the big teams were able to flourish. The 2k NCJ fans that may walk away if they didn't make the top 6 for 7 consecutive years will be more than made up by what MC, MV, SFC and WSW can do with their current potential and backing

It also goes without saying that there is danger (not immediate disaster) in having teams shit kicking at the bottom of a closed off league year after year after year. What we have seen in the A League is not relegation but termination. Compare the 3 clubs lost and high number of take overs to the AFL that has had a single club lost and a single merger

P/R is the global answer of the best sports minds in the world for managing the bottom teams in a league where the best teams can drive revenue more revenue and deliver it to all parts of the game

The two go hand in hand


Dont worry: I'm not going to ask for stats that try to prove whether or not the current model has any merit or appeal. The fact that not a single commercial network bid for it is evidence enough. People supported the A League because of the initial promises. We were never going to have 2 tiers from day one, or 2 Sydney / Melbourne teams, or even youth and womens frameworks. But there was desire and people were sure the game was in the right hands

Now that we know we are stuck with a single closed off AFL / NRL model, watch the whole thing suffer a slow and painful death

Here's a prediction: The A League without scrapping the cap and / or implementing P/R will not last longer than the NSL. There will be no season 27 unless we have a reform without resetting the counter

Bottom 4 had to ask to not be relegated
















Answer : 1888

Second division was not started until 1892.