I think destroying the only professional football competition  this country has ever had is a brilliant idea.

That way, a fully professional muli-tier pyramid with huge financial backing, improved ratings and crowds can spring up overnight.

Why do you think a single individual would be needed?

I'm in line with this. 

My take is that the HAL will expand in "strategic" areas. This can also be read as where the the Indy HAL are happy for expansion. Canberra, Wollongong, Team XI, Tas and Auckland top that list.

Given that the Championship has been delayed again I also expect to see the HAL clubs running reserve/youth teams next season instead of the NYL.

Easiest way to fix it is to scrap it.


Why in the world is that actually an issue? Clubs that are able to invest will be successful, you'll end up with a multi tiered competition that will allow for different narratives to occur.

if the salary cap is removed and victory,sydney or city become one of the best teams in asia that would be pretty cool 

With regards to the question: should we evolve or restart?

Personally I think we can easily evolve the A League through the introduction of the championship and connection to the rest of the football pyramid through gated promotion and relegation. There is no issue with having achievable requirements that a club must meet in order to be promoted from one tier to the next. In fact having those requirements will help to drive investment as clubs with ambition will put in place development plans to take advantage of their on field successes.

Agreed. I think we get libel to run it, he/she seems to know everything and is the lowy family’s biggest fan. 

It would also increase the profile of Australian football attracting further investment. Imagine if CFG was able to utilise MC as a vehicle to drive their brand in Asia, they purchased the necessary land and developed their own stadium etc. creating not just a revenue stream but a capital increase in the value of the club. A win/win for them and football overall. Other clubs could attract the same sorts of investment, people are after marquees etc to help drive mainstream media interest - well removing artificial impediments would help that to occur.

Saying all this I would realistically expect that there really wouldn't be much change in the way most of the clubs operated other than they would create football budgets that were more in line with the revenue they could generate.

Is anybody seriously still advocating a continuation of the salary cap? 

Im done with football in this country if the league folds and we lose the current teams. 

The independent HAL will add the 4. The Championship need to find 16. I don't think it would he hard to identify the likely candidates. 

Yep me too. Tens of thousands will turn their backs on football in this country forever and rightly so.

There is nothing that needs to happen that can't be done by improving what we have currently.

Exactly what happened when the NSL died.

The PFA seems to like it.

A-league develop into a 16 team league - add Canberra, Woolongong, Townsville and South East Melbourne. Change Western United to West Melbourne United or something like that. Get rid of salary cap, keep 5 foreigner limit.

A League division 2 - 12 teams .... no idea where the teams will come from, bids with most cash i guess. South Melbourne, Gold Coast, Hobart, Darwin, Auckland to name a few but stadiums are an issue.

In 2nd season of div 2 introduce promotion and relegation between aleague and division 2.

National NPL winners to have playoff with bottom of div 2 for relegation/playoff battle. If national NPL winners doesn't want promotion then no relegation that season.

If team from div 2 gets relegated, they can go into local NPL. 

So two wrongs make a right?

I think this is generally agreed upon as the best option moving forward

Nope, unless you're an SJW ;)

Some on the forum are very pro salary cap.

Exactly what happened in Sydney in 1957 when the migrant clubs took over the elite arm of football and effectively locked us out and/or made us subservient beings football wise for nearly 50 years.

It just keeps repeating.

If we destroy the HAL, can we make sure a club from New Zealand is never let in?

I am not sure why this is even a question. Obviously you wouldn't blow up the HAL, that would be rather idiotic. The easist solution would have been to allow FIFA to come in with their normalisation committee. We would be half way through where we want to be already. The obvious solution is to have a NSD and then to draw more teams into the HAL from there and then to allow full pro / rel. Then every year the HAL would be blown up with 2 new clubs through promotion and 2 previous clubs through relegation. Too many of those in the HAL are looking at this the wrong way and are only looking at this from their own selfish interests. The benefits of pro/rel far outweigh the negatives. Of course you can understand that none of the teams who are in the current HAL would want their place jeopardized with the threat of relegation but until we get out of this mindset our football is surely doomed, we WILL NEVER WIN A WORLD CUP, unless its implemented and we will not improve the sport and realise its untapped potential. 

In broad terms the top league had never been so accessible to all forms of supporters. Can football in this country afford to turn off both ex nsl supporters and aleague supporters? 

Yes.

I'd make some modifications to it but it must stay.

If the cap was gone next season, I genuinely believe that within 5 years, CCM will fold and the Jets will be on the verge of folding if they haven't already folded by then.

I also don't think we'll have pro-rel by then either so we wouldn't have a place to relegate clubs who won't be able to compete purely becuase they aren't owned by a loaded sugardaddy.

Yeah I think I'd struggle to follow domestic football in this country if we lose AUFC.

I'd still follow the Socceroos though.

Yes, but not in its current form. I'd like to see it increased to $5 or $6 million, remove the cap floor and remove marquee players (or consider keeping 1). Then bring in a luxury tax. I think a luxury tax would hugely benefit the lower/less financial clubs. 

LOL  Serious? Tell me when in recent history has there ever been a united vision for what football should look like in this country.

Bettega is spot on.  Lowy ran it like he owned because..he did own it. Do you think Nikou can pick up the phone and call the PM for a chat about a new Australian professional football league?


Yep me three.  

What might help is if all the arm-chair sports administrators got off their keyboards and actually went to a game.  Hell, I'd be happy if they watched it on Fox/Kayoand posted in a match day thread about the actual game.

We will never win a World Cup, period.

Why would a team fold just because they cant compete?

They get a hand out from the central league, they are in a big enough league to attract sponsors and commercial partners, believe it or not some people actually like going to the football which is why we have never seen a crowd of zero

This win or die is an AFL / NRL mentality that has held our game back too long

Ironic that you say if Adelaide were gone you would only follow the Socceroos, yet they dont have a chance of winning the world cup. Why is it OK for you to support the Socceroos but not OK for people of Gosford or Newcastle to want to see their team do that little bit better each year?