People saying the youth league is very important. Is that why it only goes for 8 weeks?

Longer than Big Bash

Expand the A-league to 16 teams (20 teams all up overall in the future) and divide them into 2 divisions of 8 or 10 to determine the creation of A-League 1 and A-league 2

Step 1: Have every team play each other in a home and away season (32 games) and by the end of the season it will determine placings for Division 1 and Division 2

Step 2: The teams placed from last season are grouped in division 1 and division 2 spots, but except all 16 teams play each other like they did in the last season in a regular basis each season

Step 3: By the end of the regular home and away season it will determine the standings in both divisions, you can have a top 4 for finals in division 1 to determine the A-League Champions and finals for division 2 to determine the placings for promotion into division 1
and by the same token, the bottom 3 placed teams in division 1 go for relegation into division 2, whilst the top 3 teams in division 2 go up.

Once both leagues are stable enough to run, they can be separated once they commercial and financially sustainable to be run as separate entities and play on there own with pro-rel intact but both leagues can extend with more teams once they get independence.

On top of that there would be more games (32-38 including finals) and create incentives for staying up in division 1 and introduce transfer fees and loan/transfer system and would mean a much bigger talent pool of players and coaches.

Season 1: All 16 teams play
Season 2: Division 1 and Divison 2 with Pro-Rel and Finals
Season 3: Introduce a League Cup like they do in the UK between the winner of Division 1 and Division 2 (possible ACL spot)
In 5-8 seasons later introduce the NPL Championship and link the NPL clubs to the a-league clubs with Pro-Rel from Division 2.

What do you guys think? 

Its a joke these days, Ron Smith said in his PFA Conference that the youth league went for 40 weeks ago.

Contrast to the current age and its no wonder we have weak youth national teams.

No. The clubs said it was too expensive to run.
The trade off was to allow the A-League youth teams to play in the local NPL with age restrictions.

@bluebird,
The requirement for a boutique stadium wasn't meant to mean a new stadium.It could be an existing or upgraded existing stadium.
Playing out of cavernous Major even stadiums is not a requirement.This is the second division afterall.But who knows when it comes down to the meaty end of the season and promotion is up for grabs,who is to say whether massive crowds couldn't be queuing up see Melb team X vs Tas team A.

It goes for 8 weeks because the fools we have as owners refused to fund both their academies and the NYL despite them serving different but complementary purposes.

Expansion doesn't have to be full time players, even Ipswich in the 1992/93 season of the epl had a part time player/accountancy student playing regularly.

And in 1892/93 I bet most of their players were amateur.

This is 2018. There's no excuse.

A fool and his money are soon parted... although in this case the pockets of the fools only run so deep.

The kids are getting a better workout in the NPL anyway, much better than spending 2 days flying/travelling every second week for away NYL games.

The Smith Report showed 50% of club losses was discretionary spending.  They can spend money where they want to.

what are your thoughts on the japanese model of expansion? they didnt just jump into 4 divisions or whatever they have now. they did it in increments and once they realised their model was fkd - it took them 3 years to admit it, whereas we are still in denial 13 years on - they corrected the league very quickly and bought in a proper tiered system.

regarding the asian leagues.  we have money in sport and interest in the game. however,  just like many SE asian nations the most interest is in the european game - so i dont think an ASEAN super league will rake in cash just because of general football interest in the countries.

i dont need to have a league that matches the epl in australia. i just want a good, solid local league that in its good years can go toe to toe with leagues like denmark, switzerland, scotland, etc.  i dont think we need to re-invent the wheel for this. we just need to involve the existing football structure in the main league. 2 tiers, p+r, lower the cash costing standards for the first few years so 32-40 teams can participate and then the most ambitious will filter themselves into the top tier.  i dont think we need to do anything miraculous here, we just need to involve what is already there and make it accessible. and fuck off franchises.

i would also like to see an independent body run the comp. im not sold on that being run by the clubs or the ffa.

Dont really see what is in it for singapore or malaysia or indonesia. The ALeague is a bit of a financial basket case with struggling attendance and sponsorship and a shambolic dictatorial administration, why would any currently independant league want to join up with that? Its not as though our football is currently setting the ACL alight either. Would rather we focussed our attention and limited resources on growing the league here with more teams and a pro 2nd div before chasing illusionary pots of gold

I don't understand where all the money is coming from.  Sponsors aren't lining up when our clubs play in the ACL. And clubs outside of Australia tend not to be big draw cards so I can't see Fox spending big on it for sub CCM ratings. 

So even if the money did come it won't be coming from the Australian section. So I can't even see a lot of that money filtering down into Aus clubs. If we were not pulling our weight financially maybe they would just cut us out. We don't have a lot to offer them. 

So as much as I'd love to sponge some money off our neighbours I don't think it's a good idea. 

Agree with some of the posts above, Australians aren't really interested in watching Asian teams, and within the ASEAN countries, most of the attention is on the Premier League.

 Perhaps the thought is that having teams from the largely populated countries will see a significant payout from local tv deals which might be small to them but would be large to us.

More to the point - blaming the NPL clubs for their inability/unwillingness to set something up that the FFA can easily crush with regulations.  The last 2-3 years has been the NPL clubs positioning themselves and the FFA in a way that makes it extremely difficult for the FFA to resist that secondary competition.  That's not lazy - it's taken a huge amount of time and effort. 

The Super Rugby model, over half the revenue the Australian clubs earn is coming from overseas, but those clubs aren't exactly prospering.

Also, as a few of us have mentioned, all the ASEAN countries pay big dollars for the Premier League, so I wouldn't be counting on any big overflow being directed to a predominantly Australian league.