I was not surprised that Gold Coasters were the quickest to spot the FFA blueprint.

But they didn't ban them all, did they. Con Constintines Newcastle United was kept, Perth Glory was kept, To a lesser extent Brisbane Lions was kept and rebranded amd the New Zealand Kingz were kept and rebreanded as the New Zealand Knights.

To a lesser extent further you can also add the Mariners coming from the Northern Spirit. Although it was a different funding body, the coaching staff, players and most of the backroom staff all went to Gosford.

so 5 teams were kept from the defunct NSL.

I don't side with anyone on this debate, I just wish it would stop or at least have a summary page so as to not continually go over the same irrelevant points.

How about you post the complete article, not just hand pick the above comments from it. A quote without a link to it's source? Do you perceive others are as stupid as yourself?

Im a proud Melb Knights and Melb Heart supporter and am also an ethnic croat, for the good of the game in this country all this bickering between old and new bashing needs to stop. I admit old soccer wasnt perfect but neither is this one, both sides need to call a truce and start working together because without the old the new soccer enviroment isnt working either. Someone has to bite the bullet and get the 2 waring parties together and work out how to fix the game domesticly before it implodes.

This thread isn't about teams moving from NSL to HAL, it started from the point that 'ethnic clubs will never be a part of the A-League'.

Ethnicity, or perceived ethnicity, should never be an issue. It should be down to who can bring what to the table. If a club with an ethnic 'flavour' can bring something worthwhile to the league then they shouldn't be excluded purely because they have said flavour.

My comment refers to the quote regarding NSL teams and your association (even if it was just my interpritation) to it to being black balling all old soccah teams, which is not what happened at all.

However all teams with a preceived ethnicity have not been allowed to join the New Football movement due to how it is likely to acceft sponsorship, community engagement and overall perception of the community to these teams.

I no longer care about whether Old Soccah teams can raise the money to buy their way in or can meet the FFA standards but I do worry that this debate is completely ludicrous and a waste of time as what club of old would want to give up control of their team and then have it wiped out of existance when it doesn't meet social marketing targets or runs out of funds or the board and community can not raise the funds to keep it going. How would you feel if South were in the League the board did a Palmer and had the licence taken from it and sold off to a Chinese sindicate, removing any Community envolvement in the club?
Remember Con owned Newcastle for the best part of 10 years and dumped 15 million into it and was stripped of his licence due to lack of available funds.

Don't try to play down how much of a crowd failure the ethnic clubs were. Apples aren't oranges. The below quote is what the result was when the NSL clubs were in the spotlight (source Wikipedia) all because of their ethnic base, unable to broaden their appeal.





Edited by paulc: 19/4/2012 12:39:38 PM

Terrible shame that you can't tell the difference between a comment about the NSL and a comment about the current environment, paulc.

As for 'ethnic' clubs in the NSL... Funny that non-ethnic clubs, like Brisbane Strikers, Newcastle, Wollongong, etc., also struggled to get crowds in the NSL. How do we blame the ethnics for that?

I'd say number 4. I still think we are ahead of SRU.

Most codes lose sustantial amounts of money trying to get into a stronger position. We are not immune to this unfortunately.

PG & AUFC were the two to buck that trend, but overall the NSL suffered from the perceptions gained in the late 80s and early 90s.

Edited by General Ashnak: 19/4/2012 01:10:04 PM

Very true. The damage was done by then, and most clubs struggled to get any traction.

Edited by heart_fan: 19/4/2012 01:12:07 PM

Non ethnic clubs that made the final were able to get capacity crowds up to 40K+ whilst ethnic finals lucky to reach 15K.

The average club crowds in the A-League are about 3 times higher than those of defunct NSL.

that's because they were played at the clubs home ground which most of them had a capacity of less than 20k
Perth Glory got 40k to their home grand finals and so did the Strikers

This is where it all gets messy.

The HAL has the advantage of a good broadcasting deal, with decent media exposure at times. The NSL did not for most of its existence, however much of that was its own making unfortunately.

Those from former NSL clubs would say that its unfair to compare the situations, due to a number of reasons, but IMHO, the only reason that we have got to a larger fanbase so far is the lack of perceived barriers to joining the game.

Its still building, and after 7 years, we have our challenges ut its made no easier by some of the BS some in our game spread.

Yes True but look at the difference, Aleague has Marquee players and players are paid more
the NSL was semi pro back then, plus advancements in technology economic boom you cant complare it, different times and crowd types, i mean since then australia has so many new ethnic groups and stuff like that its not the same. i do think that some 'ethnic clubs" could join the A league especially in a Div 2 format but could need rebranding.
But in all honesty i think any club could turn ethnic unofficially, say for example they bought a marquee player that is a national hero in (insert Ethnic county) im sure the "ethnics" would follow that team. theres many examples of groups in different sports following a set team because of an player, playing there. i have met so many everton fans because of cahill etc.
i think CHIVAS USA is a good example of an ethnic team in a league structure, and i also think than many ethnic teams could achieve targets of 8000 fans at there home games.

my 20c

The fact that there are so many new migrant groups means we need to be more inclusive. Theres no need for more arriers in our sport.

Rebranding has been shown to fail for many clubs, as it did in the NSL, as people know what the club is/stands for, and it also serves to annoy your core support anyway. Its not a successful strategy.



Asking a few MLS fans over the years, they view Chivas USA as a mistake in the comp, and far from a success. It is seen as a barrier to making clubs more inclusive, or broadening their own reach into the hispanic population.

Its very subjective I know, but its a viewpoint that has been expressed.

There was one game in 02 or 03 cant remember which year but Sth Melb vs Melb Knights played a game at docklands stadium in a normal game and 26,000 came to it. So as you can see by that the old NSL teams still pulled crowds in.

I don't think anyone can say some teams didn't have a decent base, but its whether or not there was potential to build on that which is another matter. I think from the evidence it appeared that there was a ceiling and it was hit for many in their core base numbers.

I still miss the days of the MK though in the top tier, but I could see the challenges they had in engaging the broader community.


Edited by heart_fan: 19/4/2012 03:13:57 PM

I can't recall that but in any event, 95% would have been either Croatian or Greek which is not surprising in the 3rd largest Greek city in the world.

I hear that in the same venue Victory got double that in a normal season game and would have got 80,000+ if they had played their grand final at the MCG.

Notwithstanding the much larger crowds and sponsorships and appeal of new football, most of those attendees would be from a large range of nationalists and not a single concentrated nationality all for themselves.

During that period you mentioned, South Melbourne Hellas had only 2% members which were not Greek. Melb Croatia would have been even less.

Look there is no way back for KNIGHTS or Sth Melb but if you look around at Hearts games we might be sneaking in through the back door!!lol Croatian coach if Milicic gets the gig and a Croatian football manager aswell all thats missing is a croatian board takeover!!!!hahaha

Last year of the NSL South Melbourne's Members were close to 50% non greek names, FACT.

You have to admit that the rants of the anti-ethnic crowd have become shriller and shriller.

I have said it in the past and I'll say it again for them, in fact it offers a way out for them.

What I and many others are arguing is the following:

Firstly that the procedure and requirements for entry to the A-League be laid bare for all to see.

Secondly that any business man, group of business men, any incorporated association club (such as the former NSL Clubs) if they have the financial, marketing, infrastructure and intellectual abilities to fufill the required A-League criteria should be able to bid for a licence.

Thirdly the assesment or acceptance should be open transparent and independantly assesed.

Its really that simple, and if Melbourne or Sydney can accomadate more than two franchises so be it.

The amusing part is that you think that the former NSL clubs such as West Adelaide, Adelaide City, South Melbourne, Melbourne Knights, Green Gully, Hedelberg, George Cross, Sydney Utd, Marconi, Olympic, Brisbane Strickers, Inter Monaro and Canberra City. Are somehow waiting to bang down the doors and enter the A-League.

Seriously which one of these clubs has $1million entry fee, which has $5Million in working capital, which has access to a modern 10,000 seat stadium, which has a strong enough support base, which is prepared to surrender ownership of its Intellectual Property Rights to the FFA.

Seriously wake up to your selves, you are making yourselves look like racist fools. And so to the FFA as they make themselves small and petty.

If there was an open process and one of these clubs could meet the criteria and wanted to be part of the A-League what could possibly be wrong with accepting them into the A-League??????


So there you go, force the FFA to have an open set of criteria for A-League entry an independant assesment panel or body and all this bullshit division will go away. And guess what? I doubt one of those clubs will be able to join the A-League, but imagine what can be acheived if they wanted to take that direction and build towards the A-League.

I have to admit that I do love stringing you along while I'm distrubed that so many do not understand they are making racist comments. While bringing violence at games during the NSL era was always a beat up as it is now. Just that the media loves using stero types of soccer hooligans and ethnic animosities (which seriously did not exist any way generally speaking) thats why I never brought up media reports at A-League matches because I know whta the media is like.

Arthur, IMHO, racism is not the cause of the anti-NSL crowd, although there might be a few that channel it that way, its mainly a fear of the same troubled times for the game that we have already experienced.

We do not want the past issues to resurface, as we already have enough on our plate.



Edited by heart_fan: 19/4/2012 04:07:34 PM

Very well said Arthur.

P.S. I read that all in George Cole's voice.

-PB

Yes, i have seen and can still see the inclusiveness many on this site, including you, practice. An extremely selective inclusion. Football, the game of inclusion, eh? As long as you're not 'too' large a group of wogs that threatens the comfort of, as Pauline Hanson used the phrase, 'Mainstream Australians', you will be 'allowed' to be equal.



Damnit! Once a wog, always a wog. What a pity there's absolutely nothing they can do to be accepted as an equal, eh? Their own bloody fault for not being beer gutted, hard drinking n cussing, esky carrying, good old Aussie white boys that fear those different to the proper lads with generic, respectable Brit heritage whom enable the retention of the status quo, i suppose.

Stuff em, i say. Luckily for the Roar, we must regard the Dutch as acceptable pseudo white boys or they too would have failed at re-branding. Even with their retention of the Dutch coat of arms lion as their logo and the Dutch national colours as their club colours.




Expressed by whom?
The fans in the mls that don't like 'spics' having the opportunity to have control of a club whom might attract more 'spics' because there's too many 'spics' as it is? Sounds similar, don't you think?

Bullshite, fella. I too follow the MLS and it's publicity. Chivas has been both, very successful and accepted. Point me to a source saying otherwise or keep your attempted tainting of yet another non anglo group, to serve your present argument, to yourself.

Football, the sport of inclusion! And Pauline Hanson is a a red haired Aborigine.



Edited by skeptic: 19/4/2012 04:56:40 PM

I think what I wrote above is self explanatory, if you or they continue on this path of exclusion wether perceived or actual we are doomed to never unite. Following a civilized and open path with clear standards that is inclusive will lead to our organization being strong and honest.

Interested to read that you at least recognize that we currently have problems, while obvious to most there is a minority that blames everyone and every thing else for the problems we face.
Having open criteria an standards will not cause problems and will not digress into the issues that surfaced for the NSL for which lets remember we're created at head office which is what we have now, problems caused by poor Decisions or non-decisions from head office.

Arthur, you are just a bitter man. Just admit it.

You chose to use words that are devisive and then accuse others of things. Simple blame game with no solutions in sight.

You won't care, thats clear, but atleast understand many are trying to hope for a good future for the game, not one that only takes us back down the same depressing path we were on for so long. It's not perfect now, but its a hell of a lot better than it was, whether you choose to accept it or not.

And btw, no your points are not clear, they are just a rant on an ongoing basis.


Edited by heart_fan: 19/4/2012 05:15:29 PM

This is my first post in this thread... quite frankly i'm over all this bullshit. I look forward to the day when we, the code collectively, work out that we're stronger and better when we're united, not divided.

I basically came on here to say that Arthur's post addressing the open criteria of entry to the HAL pretty much sums up all my feelings on this stupid topic. I'd like to see you debate that and convince me otherwise.

Your reply was weak. But that's all you have. The word "bitter". You think that by throwing that word around others will just side with you because after all, "they're just bitter". And it's not working.

And btw, your use of the word "bitter" is just a rant on an ongoing basis.

yo

A fool is a fool is a fool. Arthur makes an extremely reasonable argument, devoid of insult or denigration, as he always does, and your only comment is the above?

From someone making up stories about Chivas to further an argument regarding anti ethnic club sentiment, now, that's something. Look at yourself in the mirror.