Get in. I love the persistence and ambition in the face of 12 years of being dragged through it.

Surely the FFA could deal with a little cash injection this FY from selling a new license?

Michael Caggiano just won’t give up, I love it. While many Canberrans are weary of the FFA and in fact the rest of Australia’s football community, Caggiano seems determined to get us into the A-League. Good on him, I’ll put some money in the pot and sign up as a member right now if the FFA are genuinely entertaining a Canberra team, rather than using us as a fluffer bid again to drive up the price of the licence. I’d like to hear something positive from the FFA, like the positive remarks they made about WSW many years back. On the European connection, the Canberra football rumour mill is suggesting an Italian group, but who knows. 

I’d buy one well mate I’d love an away trip to Canberra. 

Great opportunity for our youth to aspire towards after life in NPL

Not with a winter season!

A summer season is a boiler there tho as well, prefer to rug up in winter and head down.

FFA need to let/make this happen, we need people who want to invest and work into the game, id prefer the 13th but if mariners have to go to take a step forward, sadly it must be that way. 

So damn true. Canberra winter nights in particular are an experience. Day time matches only there please or get that indoor stadium built fast :)

I agree that the FFA/iAL should get them in, even if it’s a couple of years away, they can still plan and have a roadmap to entry. 

I hope you get the chance, thanks mate. There’d be some good road trips for fans from Melbourne and Sydney, and for us going the other way too. 

Just give them a fuckin spot already.

I'm excited. Make a Canberra and second Brisbane/SE Queensland team the 13th and 14th teams would be fantastic. Go to a 26 game league with finals and we pass the AFC number of games test. You know it makes sense!!!!

Damn, do I really have to feel optimistic again, only to be let down, hmm???

Or let 16 teams battle it out in the 2nd division and promote the winner for the next 4 years to get 16 teams.

Then go full pro / rel.

Or just keep manufacturing plastic franchises that no one cares about. 

With the tightening of their belts, money hard to come by, FFA should let in another 6 franchises and make a motza, even teams without homegrounds if they must.
Then the execs can give themselves a pay rise after that. That's a fair call.

Strange comment:
"He added: “Players like [Socceroo] Tom Rogic and [former Bundesliga defender] George Timotheou skip the A-League and sign directly with top overseas clubs "

Didn't Rogic play for the Mariners?

Correct, Rogic played for CCM and what Caggiano said was not perfect but if anyone knows Rogic’s story it sort of makes sense. At various stages of his career Rogic has been shunned and had no clear pathway to the top, and this was not helped by not having an A-League side in Canberra. As an aside, Rogic was an excellent Canberra Futsal player but was not rated as highly at outdoor when younger. He ended up coming to more mainstream attention via the Nike program and only then got picked up by Arnie at CCM. None of that means an A-League side would have certainly discovered him but then again, his chances and others like him from this region would be increased if we had an A-league side. Other Canberrans before him have found alternative pathways, such as Valeri and Zelic. 

From memory he was also lined up to head to Reading after Nike but didn’t have the visa

That sounds right, from memory.

Not quite correct. He had been identified by Lawrie McKinna well before the Nike challenge and was being monitored by Ron Smith on the Mariners behalf. He was going to be signed by the Mainers that season with or without the Nike program. All that did was complicate the matter with Reading's involvement.

I didn’t know that but it doesn’t surprise me, as Ron Smith has a great eye for talent as we all know. 

Hope Canberra get a club. Can’t have Canberra ‘Mariners’ though?!

Notwithstanding I am expecting to be strung along and disappointed again, if I allow myself to dream about entry and a name I struggle a bit. I actually just like Canberra FC but I think the local Croatian club have the rights to that name. A part of me likes the name Canberra Cosmos, notwithstanding that venture’s sad demise - it would be a big middle finger to those who like to use that experience as a reason not to let us back in, as if that was only yesterday and the landscape is still the same. The uniform was pretty good too.

Pretty sure they've reverted back to Canberra or Deakin Croatia FC now that NCIP is dead. Canberra FC should be fair game.

Always liked the name Canberra Athletic and makes some sense with its AIS links.

I’m happy for Canberra to join if they can prove self sufficient and don’t take the Mariners license. 

I don't mind Canberra Athletic (some team should take the "Athletic" moniker at some point), but my money is on Canberra Rovers. The consortium is called CRFC (Canberra Region Football Collective), so I imagine they will stay with the same initials, and Canberra Rovers has a nice ring to it.

Good suggestions, Athletic and Rovers. And I agree, I would like to get entry but not instead of the Mariners, rather in addition to them. 

Canberra United, as it already exists as a football brand and can build from that base. 

Would fans get behind a Red Bull Canberra club if investment was to come from them?

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/we-have-everyone-behind-us-canberra-tables-fresh-bid-to-join-a-league-20200825-p55p2u.html

Clive Palmer's former club joins Canberra in race for A-League licence

Correct. They are now Canberra Croatia FC. However, many things still list them as Canberra FC, so not sure if they still have rights / will make it hard for an A-League franchise to use it.

Yeah, my money is on Canberra United. The W-League side of things is already (at least moderately) successful, so would be a good idea to piggyback off that.

Canberra Croatia has a fantastic home base in the inner South of Canberra.
Ideally, they should get the nod ahead of anyone else.

Like some have mentioned, lets not get our hopes up but all for it one day soon.
Nope nope nope with Mariners license.
I like Canberra United, Canberra Rams would have been alright but taken, (they have NRL Raiders) Canberra Greens lol......j/k.

Don't forget Canberra FC Canberra Olympic are on the AAFC list.

Great interview with Michael Caggiano the bid leader up on TWG facebook page. Really recommend a watch just from the perspective of the embarrassing behaviour of the previous FFA leadership around the bid process, particularly with regards to the investors. 

He mentions that they had Qatari sports group ready to go, and another unnamed sports investment group that was even richer, and there was a meeting between the a-league bid team, the ffa and the investors in which the FFA asked the investors if they’d consider investing in a different location....how insulting.

Also sounds like the broadcast deal was the biggest thing holding us back, not necessarily the license fee as previously thought, but now that the foxsports deal is coming to an end, it’s a different ball game.

He again talks about the 51/49 community owned model from a decision making perspective to ensure that the everything is decided by the members, and about how out of the 8,000 foundation members, the engagement rates with his emails are around 75%, ie 6,000 people are actively engaged with this club just at the bid stage.

I’ve long been of the belief that “fish where the fish are” is bollocks for football in Australia and it’s time to fish where the fish are edible...

Yep, no point fishing for carp if all there is elsewhere are goldfish.

Plus: Asking the investors to invest elsewhere? That's really insulting to us.

The FFA’s agenda was clearly driven by the Fox decision makers, so the fact that they were looking at persuading those investors to channel their money into a Sydney or Melbourne bid would certainly have been a strong consideration. 

Boggles the mind that the FFA could knock back that type of investment just for Fox Sports. Look where that has taken us. A broadcaster who can't wait to get the fk out of the league.

Even if FFA had an agreement in place with Fox Sports that we must expand into Sydney and Melbourne surely an agreement/compromise could have been arranged which saw Canberra as the 13th team or at least provided a provisional licence.

Have no idea what could have stopped it from happening?

Pandering and cowering to fox is what Lowlife and his board did. Now, fox has washed its hands on Australian soccer and treated it like a bitch and when Soccer turns it around they can throw shit back at them, on a better platform. Thanks to Lowy the game went backward in the last few years.

Oh Canberra... 

having witnessed the FFA saying to the investors to invest in another area would be a very painful experience. 

good riddance that the Lowys are out. all they think about is money.

I think James Johnson gets it that there is a real need to diversify our revenue streams away from broadcasting. Understandably it’s still a massive driver, but for a place like Australia, being a development pathway, a selling league and a place to get your brand into Asia through the ACL imo is hugely attractive for sports groups. Capitalise on this investment, and a few dollars here or there from fox sports suddenly doesn’t mean life or death for the competition 

That interview with Lucy was awesome and is the most revealing Caggiano has been about the FFA shenanigans and duplicity last time around. Very smart of him to hold his tongue at the time and let the story out at a more appropriate time. A very cagey and clever young businessman and also very well connected. However, until I am sitting at Canberra stadium with my season ticket and about to watch the first home game start, warm and overpriced meat pie in hand, I won’t allow myself to get my hopes up again but .... something does feel right this time around. Who knows!

Fancy kicking that level of business people in the backside and have the audacity to lift their heads up to continue to function as FFA leaders, until they were diposed recently. They should be embarrassed to go to Coles to buy groceries, the lot of them!

Good article today on The World Game page about Craig Moore joining Ron Smith in Canberra’s football department. Can’t link it for some reason but worth reading.  Some strong football foundations being put in place. 

The bid team has announced today that the ACT Government has confirmed ongoing annual funding of one million dollars per year. In today’s fiscal environment that is an impressive public commitment. Now for a similar public commitment from FFA to allow some serious preparations to get underway. 

Is that commitment less than the ACT Government gives GWS, Raiders and the Brunbies?  If so why?

I don’t know. 

An interesting thing to find out is whether the FFA or the clubs now have the decision making authority on new teams in the A-League.

One would think getting licence fees would help boost the position of the competition, but there would likely be worries over increased costs and allocation of limited resources across more clubs too. 

I’ve heard that the decision to admit/reject canberra now sits squarely with the FFA. I’m not sure if that means that the clubs have already approved it, or if they don’t have any say in the decision. But either way, the clubs are supportive of Canberra and a 2nd brisbane team. 

The other clubs no doubt see the multiple benefits of a more interesting competition with more clubs and more interest outside Sydney and Melbourne.

Be great to see a 13th team come in, Canberra have been earmarked for that. With regard to a 14th team, if the major criteria is a suitable rectangular stadium to play out of, which team would get in if its from SE Qld? ( A good one for the expansion thread). I would like to see a team from Qld, along with Canberra or Capital Region fc.