Yeah quoting Crawford to defend this , but ignores when it said the league should be independent from the FFA

At least there are all nationalities attending their games, not just one out of 200 as was and still is the case with the mono ethnic clubs. You need to understand the difference. South Melb Hellas are a Greek supported club with an entire board of Greek heritage. That's what they like and want. Everything else is lip service.

So youbstand by everything in the crawford report? All of it? Or just you fav parts lol

Your "we have all changed, please believe us" pleas do not hold water. There's no evidence of their will to diversify. Their inclusion mixed in with broad based clubs did not work in the NSL either. There is an onus for you to show evidence they have changed for the betterment of football. The last Melb Croatia game you still heard chants of Cro-art-tzi-ar so their mono ethnic bias is still on their radar. Croatian signs and then of course their shirts does not show a desire to broaden their base. The mono ethnic clubs have been mentioned in the Crawford Report as an issue to fix. It has been fixed whilst the HAL doesn't have that baggage. It will be back to square one where we were before (or close enough) if they mix it again in top flight. They're bitching now because they want a share of the spoils, the very spoils that were gained because of their exclusion. Going backwards is not the answer. Football deserves better
.

Need to broaden their base. Insular against Liverpool and man utd supporters.

Emirati club even :)

I'll meet you in the middle. MC are a niche team because if there connection with Manchester City. This limits fan potential IMO as many Australian have an English team that is not Manchester City.

SM would be a niche team also.

MC may become popular in the future but I don't think they are the same as any other Auatralian franchise because they are a subsidiary of an English club.

I did think of this momentarily before posting but I skipped it.  You definitely have a point though, Sydney and Melbourne are diverse enough in Ethnicity and with enough population to support a particular ethnic team, agreed.  I do think you are drawing a very long bow to describe a team like City as an ethnic team, thats a pretty narrow technical definition but otherwise yeah I see your point on Melb and Syd at least.

It's part of the history. There was football in Australia before "ethnics"

So many racist people on this forum. Crowd behavior is a people thing. These thugs will always find some excuse to cause trouble. The A-league had it's share of trouble but where different from the NSL the FFA stamped it out quickly.
South Melbourne is no worse than Melbourne Victory or WSW. Passionate supports who get too wrapped up with emotions. Add the thug in this and you get your trouble.
Let me tell you I attended many West Adelaide and Adelaide City Derbies in the time. These are no different to the Melbourne Derbies. During the game we shout abuse at each other but after the game we were best of mates again. It was just innocent fun which to an outside would look like we hated and wanted to kill each other.
South Melbourne would add so much to the A-League. They will draw at least the same if not higher supporter base than Melbourne City. There are many NSL teams that could add to our A League. I still believe before the A-League expands further an A2 League should be formed with easier requirements and smaller budgets. Let bridge the gap between the National stage and the local leagues. Pro/Relegation up to the A2 for the next 5 years and then we review again. This will also protect the Mickey mouse Franchise league for now.

That's the whole point I am trying to make here. All those things you mentioned are the reason ethnic clubs will fail in the A-league. That is if they remain the same as they were in the NSL. It will be in their interest to be as broadbased and inclusive as possible. They want as many customers streaming through their gates as possible. If not, they will not succeed and they will be relegated to 2nd, 3rd and even 4th tier. This is primarily about pro/rel. Stick them in 4th or 5th tier I couldn't give a shit, I am not arguing for or against them. At some point we will have pro/rel in this country whether you want or not. Be prepared. You also have to understand that we have many clubs with ethnic backgrounds as well, you cant just say, you can no longer celebrate your history. That's the history of football in this country. If people want to be insular like paulc with a narrow minded view of the world or football that's up to you. People have moved on, at least the majority have because if they didn't the A-league wouldn't have survived. Just Paulc is stuck in the dark ages. 

This. 

bury yourself paul c, you wont be missed.

You seriously have no idea. Scottish population is 5 mil compared to Aus 24 mil so per capita their attendance is much better. 

Also bottom placed Hamilton Academical F.C. in your list was formed in 1874 in Hamilton which has a total population of 53,000 (which is about the same as Coffs Harbour). Their ground capacity is 6,000 and I am sure atmosphere there would easily be better than at Suncorp.

Plus 10 year old Brisbane Hollandia (who are again on their knees looking for another new owner) don't have enough members in a city of 2 mil to fill Hamiltons stadium anyway so dont think Scottish should be embarrassed. 

How can you bring a third team into Melbourne? SM give that possibilty and the added bonus of derbies. I can understand your point but the fact is Melbourne has 2 broad based teams already. One is an ethnic team MC, because they are a branch of the English club, therefor English. If people arent supporting MV or MC why would they support a 3rd broad based team? 

If Canberra got a team and they were Canberra FC Croatians then I would agree but not in the markets that already have teams. It wont happen in Perth but Adelaide City should be a contender. It wont happen in Brisbane either as they already have an ethnic team and need a broadbased team like Strikers. Sydney could have it but I think you could also have teams in geographic locations like Shire and SWS. 

So I disagree. 

We will not recreate WSW. Maybe the league needs more niche teams..... who own or have great stadium deals. 

From the flood of responses I have to assume that paulc has commented about this issue before and the arguments got kind of heated.  This was a relatively sane article, oldish, but the responses have been so aggro I'm guessing everyone here has done this dance before yeah?

Well on the article.  Seems like a clear and straightforward point.  Teams are divided from each other geographically, giving fans from the same area the ability to form a bond around their local team (and get to games).  
Teams divided ethnically cut down on that supporter base.  If people don't feel like the local team really represents them they will be less likely to get involved (serbian whos local team is croatian, Turk whos local team is Greek, Skip whos local team is anything).  Mono ethnic teams make a lot of sense when football is small, and you struggle to capture even a tiny percentage of the populations interest.  That identity can bring people on board, in many cases more than a broader supporter base would have achieved when popularity is so low.  If you want to increase to a broader appeal and start challenging other codes for support it hampers you a lot.

 Its just a poor basis for large support, and the tricky bit is that it is in Australia often a good strategy for smaller support.  This means if you just 'let the results sort it out' you end up with a poor foundation for future growth and connection with the community.

That is without going into the arguments over divisions, violence or any of that.  Just from a future of the game in Australia the rules seem sensible to me.

You sound like a bitter old - oops, I just ate my own poop.... 

You like a 1 or 2 team league thriving and bugger the rest scenario? Not even CCM get such miserable crowds as they do for most of their clubs.

A poor league that has football as their main code must be an embarrassment for them. Let's not even talk about the quality of the football from 80% of their clubs.

because ethnics?

That's not nice!

You couldn't find anything from a respectable source within the last five years. 

Fucking inbred. 

Celtic FC	44849	19
Heart of Midlothian FC	16423	19
Aberdeen FC	13094	19
Dundee United FC	7969	19
Dundee FC	6122	19
Motherwell FC	4912	19
Ross County	4033	19
Kilmarnock FC	3993	19
St Johnstone FC	3879	19
Partick Thistle	3799	19
Inverness Caledonian Thistle	3753	19
Hamilton Academical	3024	19
Average	9655

I for one am glad we don't have a one or two team SPL type league

has it held back celtic in the spl?  last i heard they played barcelona in the champions league. i saw a lot of catalan flags in that game as well.  ethnics everywhere!

when celtic were at home against the rangers (another ethnic club btw) and entire section of the crowd - must have been 5000 - were coloured like the irish flag. them ethnics.  

Sorry if the article provides an opposing view and doesn't toe the bitter line.

Ridiculous statement. If we have that as a rule, we would have lost a few A-league clubs already. Can't kick a club out for it. 

Loaded with what?

LOL Please tell me you didn't mean to make that correlation lol..

This guy needs legite help ROFL

LOL you need to take your meds quick

Edit. Didnt read yr comment properly lol