Australia mulls overseas matches to avoid Asian Cup clash

Australia's top flight league will look to schedule matches in Asia next season to avoid clashing with games in domestic markets during the 2015 Asian Cup.
Australia will host the January 9-31 Asian Cup, which comes midway through the local competition's 2014/15 season, forcing administrators to consider holding league games elsewhere.

"Next season with the Asian Cup ... we won't be playing games at the same time most likely in the markets where the Asian Cup is on," A-League chief Damien de Bohun said at the A-League's Melbourne launch.

"So that's Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle, Canberra and Brisbane. Necessity is the mother of invention, we have to look a bit more broadly. We have had active discussions with places like Singapore, like Indonesia.

"There's local opportunities (too) but also some more global opportunities that we are looking at very seriously.

"We are very focused on playing games where you can get the best possible results on both a strategic level and a commercial level and that may well be in Asia.

"We would definitely be looking at playing games for points in Asia as early as next season."

The 10-team league already has a profile in Asia as part of the Asian Champions League, and the league has tested the waters by having Perth Glory play a pre-season game against Malaysian Super League club Johor Darul Takzim in Johor Bahru last year.

While the A-League, which also features one team from New Zealand, saw crowds, memberships and broadcast ratings rise in its most successful season last year, it is still in a precarious position in its home market, where Australian Rules football and rugby league dominate.

De Bohun said the A-League would not look to expand the number of teams over the life of its current four-year broadcasting agreement, but would consider bringing in Asian-based clubs when it found itself on a firmer footing.

"We're part of Asia, I think Australia's starting to understand that in a footballing context," he added. "We have a global game, a game that doesn't just have to be played in Australia.

"There's no reason why you can't look seriously at games and certainly clubs being based in different parts of Asia."

The A-League's ninth season kicks off on Friday.

Singapore team anyone?

They have their own leagues...he cant be serious...

Singapore team anyone?

Updated more NSL clubs average attendances

Were the Wolves ever called Wollongong City Wolves, according to this they were?

http://www.worldfootball.net/teams/south-coast-wolves/21/

Obviously Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and of course Thailand all have their own well supported leagues which should also have their own access to the ACL, although I can think of one even closer county, AFC member although too small for it's own professional league, football mad with cultural links to some of the biggest football nations on the planet, and back in the day had material links with some of the biggest clubs in Europe. Might not be much commercial money there but some massive Australian companies do business there and as an A-League club would be fanatically supported - even nation building - I have no doubt they'd jump aboard.

Spit it out then lol, East Timor?

[size=8]Asia may be A-League's next expansion zone[/size]

The A-League could expand into Asia when it stretches beyond its current 10 clubs.

While that's not expected to be for another four years, the league is likely to dip its toe in the water by staging games in Asia as soon as the 2014-15 season.

Already there's interest from Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

"There's no reason why you can't look seriously at games and even certainly clubs being based in different parts of Asia," the head of the A-League, Damien de Bohun, told reporters at Tuesday's Melbourne season launch.

"Perth Glory played a game in Malaysia, just outside of Singapore, a pre-season match, they had 27,000 people there.

"They built a brand new stadium with a roof there that holds 50,000 that they want to play a club out of and they're meeting with us on that."

De Bohun said the four seasons of the A-League's new broadcast deal, which for the first time includes a free-to-air television component through SBS, would be devoted to ensuring the 10 current clubs are successful and sustainable.

But when the next deal is negotiated, they'll look at a bigger competition.

De Bohun said with Australia to host the Asian Cup in January 2015, some A-League games would need to be played away from regular venues, making it an ideal time to play in Asia.

"We have had active discussions with places like Singapore, like Indonesia, I was down in Hobart with Melbourne Victory last week, that's another option," he said.

As de Bohun outlined overseas plans, Football Federation Australia chief executive David Gallop said soccer's global standing was part of the reason it would become Australia's most popular sport.

"As the world gets smaller, football gets bigger. We will become the largest and most popular sport in the country - one day," Gallop said at the Sydney season launch.

Gallop said the code had witnessed unprecedented growth over the past two seasons, with a 40 per cent increase in crowds and 100 per cent boost in television ratings.

He heaped praised on marquee stars Alessandro Del Piero (Sydney FC), Emile Heskey (Newcastle) and Shinji Ono (Western Sydney) - who were the face of the A-League in their debut seasons Down Under last year.

While there are no new overseas stars of similar standing this season, Gallop said it meant plenty that all three are staying.

"That was a vote of confidence in the A-League that is immeasurable in terms of underlying where football is at in this country - the increase in the technical standards, the intensity of our competition," he said.

As we have seen by basically every other sport, expansion into other parts of Asia fails.

only the NBL expanded to asia and that failed because its lol nbl, seriously

Edited by GDeathe: 8/10/2013 09:24:40 PM

Others have tried and had the concept abort due to the logistics of it all. Same will happen with this.

It is a lovely dream but unless we have a shared currency and taxation it isn't realistic.

im sure it'll work they got enough supporters there to carry them for years. and it'll work because football is a religion over there :)

Others have tried and had the concept abort due to the logistics of it all. Same will happen with this.

It is a lovely dream but unless we have a shared currency and taxation it isn't realistic.

and yet this is not stopping the AFF Super league

Which has nothing to do with this concept.

I'm sorry I don't get the comparison?

Others have tried and had the concept abort due to the logistics of it all. Same will happen with this.

It is a lovely dream but unless we have a shared currency and taxation it isn't realistic.

seriously you don't get the comparison with the concept of an 8 franchise competition with franchises over 8 different countries who don't have a shared currency and taxation, with no promotion nor relegation and a play-off system... are you a wizard

There are separate currency and tax systems in Australia and NZ, and they adjust the cap accordingly for the Nix.