No chance. 16 years without tourny in South America, 12 in Europe, 20 in Africa and only 8 since what would have been a disastrous tournament held by the Asian confederation

~ That's how I interpreted the FFA discussion paper.

On page 42:
-------------------------------
PROPOSED MEASURES
Create a new model for the A-League, W-League and Y-League which is relevant to and reflects the current circumstances of Australian football
• Any new model should be designed to:
- Ensure clearly defined roles and responsibilities which promote alignment of objectives between FFA and Clubs.
- Increase ability for Clubs to control operations and strategy for the professional leagues in alignment with FFA’s broader strategy for the game.
- Empower FFA to act as the regulator of the professional leagues.
- Promote increased performance and greater accountability for all levels, including FFA, the professional leagues and Clubs.
- Evolve the Club Participation Agreement framework to a Club Licensing System to improve standards, capability,and accountability within the professional Clubs and across the professional leagues.
- Reduce operational costs and increase operating efficiencies through streamlined and shared management.
-------------------------------

May not be a bad thing though. Whereas the current "participation agreement" likely only has commercial based requirements attached such as crowd sizes, etc., the new thinking may be to insert more meaningful requirements into the contract that will see better run clubs that produce improved quality of play and player development. Also, "across the professional leagues" I take to mean the 2nd division, if a professional 2nd division manages to get off the ground. 

It’s pretty vague.

in the vision part at the beginning it says;

“Our second-tier competitions are administered effectively and play a key role in the player pathway.”

What does that mean? Non pro or NSD
Does it mean AL and WL 2nd tier or all the NPLs together as 2nd tier?


  

reduce the finals to a top 4 and have bottom 8 play in the NPL finals with that comp being rebranded as being Australia's europa

You do realise that whole “creating a new model” is just a consultants way of saying getting divorce finalised and iAL done. Easy box to tick for JJ and new FFA

If ever anyone asks for an example of a ‘motherhood statement’, point them at these principles. Corporate Australia has been sticking principles like this on the walls of their offices for years. “We will instil a culture of honesty ....”, “we will value the contribution of all staff...”, “We will adopt innovative, best of breed, practices and embrace diversity ...”, blah blah blah.
Has anyone here ever watched ‘Utopia’?

A lot of it is motherhood statement, but there are some concrete proposals in there. Albeit some of them I would be against, like renaming the A-League (to what? what's the point? the brand itself isn't so toxic that it needs to be abandoned), or renaming FFA to Football Australia (again, what's the point? Also, I hate those kind of corporate names like "World Rugby", "Netball Australia" etc.).

But the big opportunity I would think is the consulting period. This gives us fans the chance to actually voice our opinions in a way that the FFA might actually listen to and take action on for once. Unlike the previous "Whole of Football" plan, which was entirely cooked up in-house, this can mean that our voices are heard on things like a pro-rel, A-League expansion, length of season, etc.

My sense is that James Johnson wants to have a unified football pyramid with pro-rel channels as the end-goal. Moving the A-League to winter removes one of the biggest impediments to this. But he also realises there are a lot of stakeholders he has to win over to make it happen (everything from the existing A-League clubs to state federations, who all have their little fiefdoms). Showing evidence that the "football family" is overwhelmingly in favour of certain changes is a good way to have the moral authority to make them happen.

For what it's worth I think a good way to move forward would be to have a 24-team, semi-pro second division, split across northern (NSW, QLD, NNSW, ACT) and southern (VIC, SA, WA, TAS and NZ) conferences. The main impediment to a second division is the travel costs, and this format would minimise them.

On the name - the problem is not with the A-League it is with the W-League. If A signifies the best league - then W is a lesser league. The alternative would be something like them both being the Australian Premier League - mens and womens comps.

Another stoopid idea cooked up by consultants, amongst the countless complaints on this forum, who has ever identified the name of any of the competitions as holding them back. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LQiOA7euaYA

My takeaway was that they're thinking about having the A/W/Y-Leagues renamed to have 'football' in there somewhere. I like the current league names but it might be part of the controlling the narrative aspect they talk about.

I could live with changing the league names to A-League (Men's) and A-League (Women's). Anything more than that is pointless. FFA should definitely stay the way it is.

I agree a "football pyramid with pro relegation/promotion channels as the end goal. Make it as seamless as possible, merit based  with minimum blockages. The rest will look after themselves.

I don't mind Football Australia 

I don't really see how a semi-pro conference split across WA and NZ helps minimise costs, does the very opposite I would have thought,
Here's a novel idea, how about teams from the NPL try and win promotion to a national 2nd division, and we stop worrying about where they come from.
If they're all from Sydney, so be it.

There is one "extremely painful and continuing festering sore" of an issue that James Johnson can qiuickly address ASAP.

Johnson MUST move decisively to put an immediate END to the absolutely "infuriating and galling habit" of rival parochial Australian sporting codes with absolutely "ZERO connection" to Football, using the Australian media to make outrageous and TOTALLY BOGUS "public claims"  that THEY are the Australian "versions of" and by some kind of mysterious connection, the "local representatives of", internationally renowned Football clubs/brands, as a way of "imprinting and embedding" their fabricated lies, into the unsuspecting and unquestioning minds of BOTH Australia's sporting and non-sporting public.

The recent admission that the NRL's Sydney Roosters, enjoyed - until the actual announcement last week, that is - a low profile jaunt to Spain and a "tour of Barcelona FC's" world famous training facilities, followed by a "pronouncement" from their coach that they NOW consider themselves the "Barcelona of Australian sport", is an "blatantly intentional kick in the teeth" to the ALeague in particular and Football in Australia in general and "CANNOT go unchallenged!"

Melbourne AFL club Essendon, have made similar grandiose claims in the past too - "claiming to be the Australian Manchester United!"

James Johnson, please move quickly and decisively to put an end, once and for all, to these these parasitic sports making these TOTALLY OUTRAGEOUS and BOGUS CLAIMS by threatening immediate legal action if they do NOT desist immediately and make public retractions!

Oh yes, I’m sure JJ can click his fingers and put a hold on free speech to suit our own narrative :)

Clubs can make whatever claims they like, and in some ways it’s a credit to our sport that they feel so compelled to try and compare themselves those in our sport. They are touring facilities of those clubs as those are the leading sporting clubs in the world, and know they have a long way to catch up to being like them.

We are a small country in reality, so let’s just focus on our own code and make us a leading voice of sport in thIs country by actions and smart decision making. We have been far too engaged in internal battles for so long it just left us exposed on every front. 

Let’s be confident  and call ourselves Australian Football !! 

Do you work for the Daily Mail?

It’s not a bad name but whatever the name, the process of rebranding will be a useless waste of time and money if they don’t solve the underlying issues. 

My only issue is that there's already an FA.

What happens to the FFA Cup?

NO I don't actually, I just find these small local parochial sports an absolute "nuisance" and together with their shadowy and creepy media supporters, they have proven to be THE MAJOR "hindrance" to Football's progression in this country for almost 170 years!!! 

And by BOTH "pretending and promoting" themselves as being associated in some way with some of Football's most famous clubs, to "gullible" Australians, on top of their already blatant adoption and usage of Football's vernacular, from adopting and using the word “Football” many, many years ago, to the more recent adoption of terms such as “midfielder”,“playmaker”, “sweeper” and “derbies” and phrases like “between the lines” to the OPEN copying and adapting of Football's "playing systems" and even the game's "junior academies and sports science systems", truly angers me, especially when there has never been any attempt to STOP them, by the FFA from doing it!

Changing the name ... FFS. That’ll have about the same effect as changing the FFA’s PO Box No.
EPL, LaLiga, JLeague, KLeague ... ALeague says we are an international game.
Principle 12. needs to be “We will not engage any more consultants to devise wall posters”.

I think you may have addressed your comment to the wrong person

I just hope we don't end up doing a re-branding exercise every 15 years.

TBH I'd pay money to sit in court when the FFA's Denis Denuto tries to run this up the flagpole.

Judge:  On what basis do you make this claim?

Denis Denuto. Umm... It's just the vibe of the thing.  It's all part of it.

I'm trying to work out what the legal suit would be for?
Inappropriate use of the English language?
Twisting the Australian vernacular?
Cultural appropriation?

Football hasn't been here for 170 years in fact it hasn't existed for that long.  Are you aware that both Rugby Union and AFL existed in this country before football arrived here?  They have every right to exist and to compete for support from the population.  I accept that the bias of the press and media has been a problem to football but having other codes of football in the market is just a reality that we have to accept.

Probably. 

This doesn't preclude having entry to the 2nd division based on football merit, although I think a few newly formed teams would be necessary to ensure geographical representation (e.g. Canberra, Hobart, Townsville, Geelong, Auckland, where there are currently no existing clubs that represent the entire city and could make the step up to a national league).

Two conferences would cut travel costs because you would be able to have a sizeable number of derbies in Sydney and Melbourne (which would each provide probably around half of the teams in each conference). Yes, if you have Auckland in there it would end up having to travel to Perth, but that's only a couple of times a season. Most of the other games are either local derbies or bus/short flight trips. My back of the envelope calculations concluded that travel costs would be about 70% per club of what they would be for a nationwide division. I would have a centralised travel payment system to ensure that far-flung clubs would not be disadvantaged.

The issue at the moment is that there aren't many clubs that could make the step up to a fully-pro, nationwide second division, but there are a lot (probably around 30-40) that could be viable in a semi-pro conference-based second division. Then further down the track you could have a national 2nd division formed from the best of these clubs. The end goal would be:

A-League 1: 12 teams (single division)
A-League 2: 12 teams (single division)
A-League 3: 2 x 12 teams (north and south conferences)
NPL: 8 x state-based leagues

Automatic pro-rel between A1 and A2. Top teams from north and south conferences in A3 play-off for promotion to A2. NPL leagues play-off for promotion to the respective conferences of A3.

😂