The sooner FFA/APL etc. realise and make their peace w/this fact, only then will ⚽ in this country finally be able to realise its potential.

As contradictory as that sounds, it's true.

Interspersed by periods of mainstream acceptance when the Socceroos do well or an Aussie player does big things in Europe.  

We should be fine with that. There at least 1-2 million proper football fans in this country and that should serve us well if we do things right. 

They need to be catered to above all else, instead of wooing the mythical masses who'll 'give the sokkah a go' so long as it's not 'too w0ggy' for 'em or w/ever else...

I like the above two responses.  Very sensible.  

As I've probably said a million fucking times.  

* Stop trying to cater to & worrying about the opinion of eggball fuckwits,  like teaching a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig. Seriously, just stop, all of you,  it's fucking pathetic. 
* As soon as someone figures out how to convert the massive participation rate into viewing interest at the A League and NPL levels then all our problems will be solved.  All the gimmicks and marquees and theme days and whatever cirque de soleil like bullshit you can come up with will not make a shit of difference in terms of ratings and crowds.  

The media landscape is as such.   Eggball and cricket journos at all levels from bottom to top outnumber football journos about twenty to one.   And the media is the very definition of the saying ' the man who pays the piper calls the tune ' so from that you now see why football is a niche sport. Because no one is around to actually report on it across a broad spectrum of media and therefore a broad spectrum of society.   Therefore my definition of football as  a "niche" sport at the professional level.  

Don't feel bad,  just focus on football people if you want more eyeballs on our game. 

There is a movie called SING which is literally about a PIG learning to sing.

lol

Despite what that one presenter said on that one day, you obviously don't listen to SEN.

SEN is the only dedicated 24hr sport radio station in Australia. It has dedicated soccer shows, racing shows, motorsport shows, tennis segments, american sports shows etc.

In the early days of the ALeague, SEN would broadcast Victory matches for FREE. Literally, they would send a broadcast team to each game free of charge just to cover as much live sports as they could. They had shows called the 4 Diegos, Francis Leach, Michael Zappone - everyday.  Simon Hill has been a regular presented on SEN for 15 years.

Some people have no idea what they're talking about on this site.

i remember those days - in the early years of the A-League, SEN had massive coverage of the A-League, they would do live broadcasts of the big Victory games on a Saturday night, and then there'd be hours of post-match shows, listeners calling up, talking football, it was pretty big, there has probably not been anything as big since anywhere in Australia.

There used to be a lot of radio coverage by the ABC, having heard anything on the ABC A-League related for years now.

There is something everyone needs to understand - the A-Leagues are effectively invisible.  There is nothing about them anywhere (maybe just Keep Up).

ikr ,   and   people   wonder   why   attendances   are   so   low .. .

I'm just recanting exactly what happened, I'm sure there's a podcast somewhere. 

I haven't once heard any european football scores recently. But every monday when I'm having my lunch they talk about NFL for 2 hours. Can't we get a half hour for soccer scores or? Maybe I'm getting different radio station in sydney? 

I'm happy to record them laughing while the guy reads the a-league scores and ill upload it to youtube if you dont believe me. 

SEN(in Melb. anyway) hasn't been as generous towards ⚽ as that guy described for a long time now. And to be perfectly honest, it's better this way - bc whenever they do talk about it, 9/10 it proverbially ends in tears one way or another.

lolz. spoken like a true bitter. 


I listen to SEN day in day out and they give Football fuck all coverage.  Yes Simon Hill’s show is good. But lets not kid ourselves, the bloody NBL gets more coverage on SEN than Football. And when they do talk about football, its never in a positive way.

The days of Francis Leach are well and truly over. The days of Zappers and Trimmers doing Victory games are over. I believe SEN still does broadcast games, but its via the app and never on the main 1116 station. They would rather broadcast Netherlands v Namibia 20/20 match.

It’s a blooody shame the coverage has gone down because there is a lot to talk about with the actual sport. Again I don’t care about the administration that’s separate topic but we can talk about kuol (we will Thursday night on AAA) Cummings rejigging his career, tilio, Sydney front three is dangerous, wanderers defence etc 

the product is there with the a league. Not every match is going to be amazing but there is football to be talked about. Hopefully they can fix the transfers, stadium issues and add two more teams and we’re back in business 

https://www.meme-arsenal.com/memes/d6b7da9b7a2dbfef8630d20341fdeebc.jpg

You watch every single game on your etch-a-sketch.  

that fish where the fish are is true word above.

Despite F T B quoting bitters that I just don't understand that train of thought after all this time.
BA81 made some good points as have EZ and sfc1987, the bulk of the football support that is not supporting ALM is at NPL/Jnrs/Associations right around the country.
The big grounds and all is also not suitable IF you started up all over again.
Niche against the main 2codes yes but a sleeping giant still to this day.
ALM is on its own and to this day have no care to break bread with the levels below for thats what would really help the game move forward more united and the NSD if when gets up and running will build momemtum from NSD down levels bit by bit.
Trouble is all the barriers as we know FA/ALM blah blahblah as well as either supporter base being smug mugs towards each other.

We aren't a threat at the moment. Why give us airtime when the current deathly silence is far more harmful.

When our flagship national teams switched to summer, decent crowds came to watch.  So what has changed in recent years? Our current flagship competition - A-League started well, but appears to have fallen in a hole. It appears to me, that while the quality of the games has generally improved, attendance has declined. My view is that because higher quality European football has become more easily accessible, they now have become our major competitor. It is time to switch back to winter, however with a later start say early May and finish in early December.. We can have the world's attention for about 12 weeks

As for competing with the eggball, who cares?  We aren't competing for spectators.  We have 1.2M participants, not counting families and friends. we just need to focus on them. As for ratings, they have rarely been high. We just need to be a little smarter when scheduling games. From October to December, there may be some cricket, but surely we can work around those games too.  Again any increase is a win.

Also, Such a move removes obstacles with regards to NSD with P&R.

F T B, read Ange's ethos, with the exception of 2 only mentioned that is nothing to brag about for we all know how much those 2 have dropped as well.
Its not about bitters its just fact, real community clubs have farfar more soul, if only we could support and build those capable and willing UP.
As its been mentioned the fish are in NPL land and below, not the suedo bandwaggoner as core support.
https://www.espn.com.au/football/celtic/story/4787262/how-connection-and-community-is-helping-ange-postecoglou-win-at-celtic

Agree wholeheartedly.

Mate there is ALWAYS alot to talk about, that has never been an issue... Its just that there is nobody that cares enough to do the talking....  As someone said above, there aren't anymore code wars because even the AFL and NRL types don't want to sink the boot into a dude lying prostate on the ground with his belly exposed....  You might get a few snarky comments during the Womens World Cup next year ( mainly because it is inconveniencing the true blue Aussie sports) but even then it will be half arsed at best.... The MSM only screams bloody murder when there are more than 2k people at AAMI park... 

Doesn't apply here mate, here it is all about "growth corridors" and planning on making consumers out of migrants that haven't even arrived into the country yet.....  :)

I know generally this joint ain't on the best of terms with TheRoar.com.au, but this reply on there to a similar article at the moment is too on-point to not share here, IMO:

To add to your line of thinking, this also extends to our lack of quality players.... Does everyone not realise that (if the 1.something million participants number is accurate) we have more football players in Australia playing the game very week than the at least HALF the POPULATION of countries who routinely do well in the tournament and on a global scale.. Croatia made it to a WC final with a population less than Melbourne's not to mention Uruguay,  Wales has the same population as Brisbane FFS. 
Even if 24 million people in this country HATE football, we still have 1 million playing the game .... WE SHOULD BE BETTER at it, no excuses.

the last 2 posts you guys, yer I concur - its so convoluted here its not funny.......
Not sure I'm going on the right path but going by my train of thought.
This place is so mixed up due to its early origins followed with migration its like the place wanted growth/expansion but only on our terms.
We love having migrants but dislike them not being brain washed aussies.
I recall compared to the young fellas here we prided on being miles and miles away from the rest of the world and it was football meat pies and holden cars and drink beer only.
Football meaning eggball, well mostly the southern states, north the other eggball.
Sockah the wogs mostly yet there were plenty good anglos playing so it don't make sense, well you keep to yourselves your only allowed to roam free if you follow eggball, when we went to the pub you wouldn't talk about soccer for a group of bogans would likely call you poofs and pick a fight, did other countries behave similar in their early days ?
Who knows but they have crasped many sport codes whereas here its run by 2 the rest are minnows and demonised, well thats the DNA of the past that still prevails due to the foundations laid.
So the past did create the sporting backwater ?

I don't care hearing about the NSL failure, the past is the past, the failure of modern football has been appeasing to the mass's that has fallen off the cliff.
As has been mentioned of late - the sooner the FA and all wake up and just appease to the real football family first and foremost we might get somewhere in the future.
Funnily without understanding the whole AL package that was to become originally I had high hopes we finally get out of the back water as well, its model was wrong but its direction was right going Pro and getting the needed sponserships/$$$$, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

https://media.tenor.com/VX9spij9_LsAAAAC/jerry-maguire-show-me-the-money.gif

Ask the football federations of Senegal, Ecuador, Iran, Wales, Tunisia, Costa Rica, Morocco, Cameroon and Guana to "show you the money" and they will say, "we dont have either it but we STILL qualify for WCs" What else ya got?

Everyone agrees the NSL was a failure in so many ways but it is such a handy boogeyman for the foreign owners to throw up as a reason to NOT break their stranglehold on the ponzi scheme they've got going .... As longs as we still qualify every 4 years everything is "so much better than when the wogs ran the game" right?

why didnt the a-league boucne back after covid like every other code? This question MUST be answered. 

https://i.redd.it/ykisu57vdwx91.png