Yes, this is what they want !

Sydney FC chief slams ‘embarrassing’ Southern Expansion

The simmering feud between Sydney FC and Southern Expansion has dramatically escalated, with Sky Blues CEO Danny Townsend describing as “pretty embarrassing” a perceived attempt by the A-League aspirants to take credit for a full-house in Kogarah for the Big Blue.

The expansion hopefuls have released a statement, insisting that Sunday’s sell-out crowd at Jubilee Oval - one of the three venues they plan to call home - would be a foretaste of what to expect were they granted an A-League license.

“This is exactly what we’ve said would happen, bringing the A-League to local Southern stadia,” crowed Southern CEO Chris Gardiner.

“As we all know, the Southern region beats every other region in Australia for football fanaticism.

“Over 40,000 football participants not yet connected to the A-League or a club, they’re hungry for games at their local stadia with their own team.

“Sydney FC has validated our multi-stadia approach of bringing games into communities. We know that we will fill Jubilee, fill Shark Park and fill WIN Stadium each with their own monthly games - just as the Dragons have done this year in the NRL.”

Southern chairman Morris Iemma added fuel to the fire, declaring: “Our competitive push has seen Sydney FC jump on board, at least until they return to Moore Park as they plan.”

Having previously accused the China-backed bid of seeking to cannibalise a region where it claims 30 per cent of its fan base resides, an incredulous Townsend lampooned Southern’s bid to “dine out” on Sydney’s success.

“They’ve been pretty much kicked into touch on social media over what they’ve said and it’s not a very smart way to go about things,” he said.

“The sea of Sky Blue in the crowd yesterday sent out a pretty strong message.

“Southern Expansion have previously said that Sydney FC aren’t connected with the St George area, and that people in the region don’t identify with us, well it must’ve been pretty embarrassing for them to see 20,000 of our fans in the stands.”

Gardiner claims that Sydney can legitimately claim 21 per cent of their members across St George and Sutherland Shire, and that the South West Sydney A-League bid out of Campbelltown poses “more of threat” to Western Sydney Wanderers than they do to Sydney FC.

But Townsend disputed that conclusion.

“We are the only ones with our membership data and they are putting out false information,” he insisted.

“We know the postcodes of our members and over 30 per cent of them are from southern Sydney. I don’t know how many more times I need to say that.”

Townsend believes expansion, with six bidders chasing two spots for 2019-2020, should come from “areas not currently serviced by the A-League.”

“The number of kids coming through our Academy system from the St George, Sutherland and the South Coast demonstrates a very clear pathway to professional football,” he said.

“You look at the population growth over the next five or 10 years and it’s very clear where there needs to be a new team in Sydney, and that’s in the south west.

“The St George area is not a growing community but It’s a great community for football and that’s why we’ve had a lot of success in 14 years of promoting the game in there.

“The reason we chose to play in Kogarah was that we knew we would be taking the game to our heartland.”

The stadium is one of three Sydney will use in the three years it will take to rebuild Allianz Stadium, and has intensified the territorial arm wrestle with Southern Expansion with the two potentially sharing the same venue.

“It’s madness and doesn’t make any sense. It flies in the face of what everything expansion is meant to be about. It’s laughable really,” added Townsend.

“We’d like to see the next decision on expansion from FFA be a commonsense one.

“We should be looking at areas where we can grow game.”

But Gardiner sees it differently, contending: “I’ve seen the data now and there are more Wanderers members impacted by the South West Sydney bid then there are Sydney FC members impacted by our bid. That’s the FFA’s own data.

“Of all the bids in Sydney and Melbourne, we’re the one with the least impact on an existing A-League club.

“In the St George area, for example, after 12 years and three premierships, the number of Sydney FC members in that area - the heartland that they will not give up - is only 1000.”

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/the-five-coaches-canberra-s-a-league-bid-should-go-after-20181126-p50iej.html

Must have been a juicy leak about the time and location haha

-PB

Thats fantastic bant from Townsend

                          

Team 11 and SEX would be great for this failing league 

The way I see it, the that offer significant growth potential would be:

- Team 11
- West Melbourne
- South West Sydney
- Canberra

Those are have significant areas of growth occurring, or in Canberra’s case have no representation anywhere near their catchment area.

The bids I see limited scope for growth:

- South Melbourne
- Southern Expansion

I don’t class Southern Expansion’s efforts to include Wollongong as anything but a token gesture, given it is unlikely to resonate much with that area.

There will be disagreement from some about South Melbourne, but even though it looks like a compelling bid, it may have decent support in the short term but can it build a stronger base after that? I tend to think it would not.

Team 11 and South West Sydney likely have the strongest value proposition overall for the league, but the heart does put Canberra in their with a chance. The brain says larger markets will be preferred though.

Long term South still have better prospects than team11 and west melb as those areas are not going to see a single person from anywhere outside their immediate area following them, Melbourne will have 6 million people before you know it and South has better reach all over the city, even the current npl fan base 1-3k we have are from all over Melbourne. For all the stick they cop I reckon City would be well and truly cooked if they were out in the burbs. You get your 6-7-8k automatically just by being in the cbd, South was doing this in the 90s when we had 1,5 million less people.

Don’t know or care about Sydney but know enough that geography is overrated when we are talking about Melbourne.

Yep, putting a club in Melbourne that's only aiming for one part of the city, well, pretty dumb to be honest.

The issue is that the new entry has to offer something different to grow the game, for which true geographical differencition offers that opportunity.

Trying to say that it won’t work if it’s not in the inner city is strange thinking, especially when it was pointed out that there could be millions more people in Melbourne over the next 20 years. Most of that growth will still come from the outer suburbs, with a significant part of that in the South East.

Victory and City already have their role in the inner city, and another team entering in that space would likely not go down well with those clubs. It’s about finding a way to long term growth, which is why unlocking new opportunities is key.

South Melbourne have many great selling points of their bid, but broader appeal for future growth and location would appear to not be the strongest elements. Just my view though, and I’m sure there’s going to be other opinions out there too on that one :)

City and Victory may play in the inner city but they aren't really in the true historical sense inner city clubs. They attract fans from all over Melbourne and not predominantly from an inner suburb. It's the same scenario with all the AFL clubs(and Storm) here. Fans come from all over nowdays. The demographics of Collingwood, Carlton, North Melbourne, Richmond etc is a lot different than it was in the VFL's heyday. Sports fans here simply want convenient access, good facilities and top class action and aren't as fussed about geographical rivalry as it seems to exist in Sydney. It's why the MCG and Marvel stadium works. IMO the only way a club out in the west or s/e could work is if everything was in place esp a modern stadium/entertainment precinct that would attract the 'locals'. But this would cost plenty of money and would be a massive risk given the first class competition that already exists in town.
South (arguably) may not offer massive spectator 'growth' as some have put but they also don't have to spend millions and millions building a stadium, football/admin infrastructure etc etc. It already exists, even a social club. The A League can't really afford any more costly failures. Instead South can throw money at building a competitive squad from day 1 to attract fans. Playing at a boutique venue such as Lakeside can also be seen as a selling point. 7-8k fans in that venue would have the place buzzing.

is someone feeding you this rubbish or is that your denialist opinion in the hope that the FFA will believe this argument? every man and his dog is crying out for the next Melbourne team to have a geograhical distinction from the 2 current teams. that is except for SM fans of course.  

and why wouldn't WMG or T11 find new fans from outside their local region? eg. WMG are already targetting Geelong and the surfcoast and T11 are targetting the la trobe valley. 

AFL basically has 10 teams playing out of two stadiums in the central business district, go figure, they must be wrong, RIGHT?

But of course there must be latent football support sitting in Tarniet and Dandenong not interested in Victory and City, because well, ITS TOO FAR to travel.
Theres just tens of thousands of them just waiting for a stadium to be built, so they can support the A-league!
That's all its going to take.
And there must not be any differentiation between South Melbourne, Victory and City because they will play within kilometres of one another!

So this thinking is along the lines of territorial Franchise exclusivity.
Everything is the same so don't put them to close together.
Spread them out like MacDonalds Stores.
Give them an exclusive territory like MacDonalds Stores.
Serve up the same menu like MacDonalds Stores.
Same packaging as MacDonalds Stores.

Hopefully one day we as a sport might decide to structure our Club Football like they do in Germany or France or Spain or most of Europe rather than a model based on the USA-MLS or the AUS-AFL-NRL models.

I don’t get how people keep pointing to the MLS as proof of concept. They are completely different and are only one example. What’s gonna happen when they have P&R?

I think the MLS is used as an example because it most closely relates to Aus in terms of football.  Football in both countries was/is a fringe sport (at the senior level) compared to the other major sports payed in both countries.  It's not to say a "traditional" model won't work, but the MLS is a model that is succeeding in a sporting market/culture that is probably the most similar to Aus.

taking the piss i assume?

many people on here might not be old enough to remember the time waverley park closed. there were so many AFL people from the SE and gippsland that were dirty and bitter over this. and still are. and the new SE Melbourne Phoenix NBL team have already annouced they will be playing their home games out of Melbourne arena. some sports never learn i guess.

If Team 11 can get their stadium built, it will open up Football to a whole new market with no local competition.

But that fails to take into account that the MLS has around 50 large population centres and investors lined up willing to pour millions into the game. We have none of that.

It's just so simplistic to say, "see the MLS works" and then try to apply it here. 

Cash should not be king for new A-League licenses, says Griffin

The man who led the campaign to oust former FFA chairman Steven Lowy says any plan to give new A-League licenses to the highest bidders would be an affront to the principles of governance those who opposed Lowy sought to bring to the game.

Former Adelaide United owner Greg Griffin, who has also taken a leading role in the Australian Professional Football Clubs Association, was a thorn in Lowy's side for several years and was a key player in the faction that fought to widen the FFA Congress to get A-League clubs and other stakeholders in Australian soccer a bigger say in the game's policy-making body.

As rumours circulate that the always cash-hungry FFA might be tempted to consider handing the new expansion licenses to those that offer the highest fee, Griffin, who is currently the APFCA's caretaker chief executive, bridled at the idea.

He wants expansion to be approved quickly - but in the right locations, and for the right reasons.

He wants existing A-League clubs and the game's other stakeholders to be consulted about which of the bidders gets the go-ahead.

And he says that the separation of the A-League from the FFA and the establishment of a genuinely independent league management should be almost as big a priority for the new Chris Nikou led board as expansion itself.

''It needs to be judged on the correct metrics. Location, population, support, demographics, not just on who pays the most,'' Griffin, an Adelaide-based lawyer, said.

''I would be appalled if it was whoever pays the most gets the license. That is just not the way to do business.

''It has to be demographically supportable and it also has to respect the position and investment of the 10 existing A-League clubs, which have lost $350 million between them in the 15 years they have been in existence.

''You can't cannibalise existing markets, but Australia is big enough and diverse enough that you don't need to.

''NSW is such a big state with such a strong football culture, that you don't need to put one next to Western Sydney or Sydney.

''It's the same for the next license in Melbourne ... it can't be in the CBD of Melbourne. Whether it goes to Dandenong, or Frankston, or Geelong, wherever it may be, it just has to appeal and cater to a different market that is being well catered for now.

''And it will be the same thing with South and Western Australia. SA and WA are more than capable of supporting a second team.''

Griffin also says that steps should be taken as soon as practicably possible to ensure the independence of the A-League.

That was one of the key arguments those who opposed Lowy prosecuted during soccer's long civil war, and Griffin is adamant that splitting the A-League from the rest of the game will not lead to cash shortages for the grassroots, as Lowy and his supporters claimed.

''I think it's incredibly important to have an independent A-League.

''That's going to bring in a whole new set of investors. It will bring in new clubs.

''And we want new clubs that are financially viable and will add to the A-league.

''We don't want what occurred in the past where franchises came in and went out as quickly as they came in. That doesn't do our game any good at all.

''We are not the AFL with lots of money to throw around.

''Gold Coast Suns are just a basket case and if it had not been for the pumping in of millions of dollars by the AFL they wouldn't be there.

''And it's probably the same for GWS. They are a basket case in reality.

''The AFL's expansion clubs only survived because of the diversion of millions of dollars from AFL coffers. Soccer doesn't have that luxury.

Griffin argues that getting the location right is the crucial factor in determining which potential franchises will succeed.

Transport links and infrastructure will be critical, as will a population base that identifies with the area in which the team is based. Western Sydney Wanderers should be the model for any new teams, he says.

''I was hoping that the new board would come and talk to the stakeholders - the clubs, the federations and the PFA - before they make a decision.

''At the moment there has been no consultation and we should have an input as to what we think is the best location for a new franchise.

''Ultimately they become our quasi-partners. They are rivals, but they are also partners. We are all in this together.

''We are in a very tough commercial environment, and the tighter we are and the harder we work together, the more likely we are to be successful.''

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/cash-should-not-be-king-for-new-a-league-licenses-says-griffin-20181128-p50itf.html

Team11 are targeting the Latrobe Valley and this is meant to impress me? The same Latrobe Valley who only ever drew a crowd when South fans would travel there by the thousands. Nobody in Melbourne gives a stuff about teams having a geographic distinction. In fact before a few years ago it was never even mentioned. Melburnians go into the city for sport and entertainment. We are trying to manufacture a West Sydney scenario in a city that simply doesn’t have it, and a city for the most part that doesn’t care for it.

As for the other lot and Geelong, LOL, if they believed in the region they wouldn’t have ditched the Victoria Patriots bid.

Give it up SMFC.  You're finished.

Gotta laugh.

Its not about us being finished. We carry on in the npl and thats finr. Its the laughable idea that a wanderers is waiting to be unleashed here. Thats where the real laugh is.

If the ffa were smart pick  Canberra and Sydney and save the tears down the track.

I vote for No Expansion

IF

I think if you are introducing a new team into a city/region where a team already exists there are no hard and fast rules.
The idea that a new team shouldn't be introduced because it will cannibalise the existing team is not based on any fact that i know of.

The potential of losing fans to a new team close by is not a reason to lock that new team out.
A lot has been said in the media about this but i dont agree.
MHeart and WSW are the only examples for the HAL and neither have been detrimental to MV or SFC.This is despite both teams cannibalising the existing teams.There were certainly fans that switched.The end result was positive though.

The loss of even a few thousand fans ,if that happens will be replaced by a new rivalry which will have far more benefit.It helps galvanize support.You cant be a lazy supporter.You are forced to choose and your geography gives you a real connection that previously was grey.
All those north shore SFC supporters.Are you really East Sydney wannabe's or would you jump as soon as a local team was there in your backyard?

Look at Spurs and Arsenal.There is a huge rivalry there and Arsenal moved into Spurs territory.

An SFC Southern ,cough ,contraction would be a drawcard.I have no doubt.As would a McArthur - Wanderers derby.Apart from an intial cannibalisation,there would be a strong rivalry formed.People in the same area going for different teams and teams in adjacent and overlapping areas.The Southern Shire Riot vs SFC Lattes,who wouldnt want to see that?

Stopping a team from entering the HAL to protect an existing team is the dumbest counter productive rubbish i have heard.The fact the existing teams dont see it is bizarre.
The upside is huge compared to the downside.

So forget the paranoia.Pick a team on its merits,not on how far it is from an existing team.

I agree. I don't think the whole geographic region thing matters as much as people make out. Especially not in Melbourne and Sydney. I'm more interested in what a club will contribute. We have a handful of clubs currently in the league that are either taking the piss or not far from it. We need clubs that are actually going to challenge the existing clubs on and off the field. It doesn't matter where they are based, a winning club will gather support. 

That's why Campbelltown and SEX have to happen! Forget the Melbourne bids for now or until the next TV deal.

@ nomates

A Melbourne bid has to happen now or we can forget the next TV deal. That’s why Nix have to go - it’s nothing personal, we’re just deep in the shit

Personally I don't think South Melbourne playing down the road is a big deal. They have their own stadium, an existing fanbase and enough history to make a success out of it compared to the farce that was Heart. 

Equally I think the argument against Team 11 that geographic distinction isn't important in Melbourne are ridiculous. Melbourne is fucking massive and it is not easy for people in the outer suburbs (especially on lower incomes) to come to games in the CBD and then get home every week, especially when both teams nearly always play at night. Team 11 will be able to actively target people in the region rather than spreading a wide vague net across the whole city.

My opinion is that we are dealing with idiots. The latest article about expansion in the smh confirms it (link below). They don't even know how many teams they want to introduce next season or how many games to play. I mean this is the sort of crap that the FFA should have thought about 12-18 months ago when this was first put out there. Did they not know that having 2 more teams would result in more games being played or if they decided on just a home and away season that 22 games is just not enough. Now the talk is of introducing 4 more teams for next season as a possibility. I wish I could say I was making this sh*t up but how do can you not be aware of this when deciding on expansion. This sort of thing should have been planned long ago and the conversations with fox and other stakeholders should have happened long ago. It boggles the mind. 

My preferred option now is to delay this by one year but put the process in place right now so that you can build momentum for the season after. The FFA were too caught up with dealing with the governance issue which was also their fault and something which could have been sorted out long ago. Aggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/growing-pains-ffa-ponders-structure-of-12-team-a-league-season-20181128-p50iya.html