It's been nearly 20 years since the Crawford report (2003), was released, outlining how football in Australia needed to be reformed, and when I think about it, I think football in Australia has progressed quite well, although there are still many issues that need to be addressed.

With the positives, since 2005, Australia has qualified for five successive World Cups, if someone told me prior to 2005, that Australia would qualify for the World Cup five times in a row, I'd think they were crazy. Putting Australia in the Asian confederation was the best decision ever made, although qualifying via Asia is harder, it's a much fairer system than the old Oceania route, where once the Socceroos breezed past the weak Oceania teams, it basically came down to, two very tough games against either a South American or European opponent (eg,Scotland in 1985). Also, playing against quality Asian teams will lift the standard of the Socceroos, I'd rather beat Japan 2-1, than some weak Oceania team by 10,20 nil etc.

Although the A-League has had it issues (and still does), it's a massive improvement on the old NSL it replaced, for the first 10 odd years of the A-League the crowds were generally pretty good, even regular season matches like your local derbies (Sydney FC v Western Sydney Wanderers), were often sold out (this never happened in the NSL), and I recall attending a regular season match back in late 2016 between Sydney FC v WSW at the Olympic stadium and the attendance was 61,000.

As for the negatives, junior development has been neglected, and the decision to scrap the football division of the old AIS (Australian Institute of Sport) has been a disaster, the AIS produced many great footballers, and I hope the management of Football Australia are seriously looking at issue of junior and elite player development. Another serious issue is the increasing cost of playing football for amateur players, the beauty of football is that it's working class man's sport that should relatively cheap to play, jacking up player registration costs will drive people away from football.

And before the old NSL apologists start beating their chests on how "good" the old NSL supposedly was (some of it was OK, but it was mostly crap), FACTS don't give two shits about your feelings, the Socceroos never qualified for any WC during the 27 failed years the NSL (1977-2004), and the crowds were mostly pathetic (in terms of numbers,not the ethnicity).

Just my 2c worth.