You talk like it’s already been a successful season. I reckon the jury is still out.

The guy that 1st suggested the world was round was definitely correct though... nobody on here seems too sure that OFC would be better option than AFC

This is just as dumb as when Mike Cockerill suggested it.

We spent decades trying to escape OFC because it was a fucking basket case, I am not going back to watch pointless games against NZ or Fiji.

Also giving up the millions we get in grants per AFC WCQ game for a super league with New Caledonia which has half the population of Tasmania as well as more worthless teams from New Zealand sounds like a great idea.

This.

This might be true but is it not worth at least having a independent evaluation ? ? ? 

Instead im being slagged off by everyone but when you think about it what good has the AFC done for Australian football? 

How many youth world cups have we gone too? 

How did we do in the last couple world cups? 

Financially we cant compete with these nations it isnt giving up it is being realistic? 

Put it this way you're not going to win a race with a Toyota Camry against a Ferrari - no matter how hard you try ....

Opposed to the amazing competition that is the current A-L? 

I mean we are really selling out Socceroos vs Thailand and Kuwait games these days.....I mean it isnt like it is expensive to send a squad to Iran compared to NZ which is a few hours away....

How can we not go back to the OFC when our competition is at the level it is at? 

It isnt like players are preferring to play in India/UAE/CSL over the A-L,  and our clubs don't get slapped in the ACL a competition bcuz the arent financially on the same ball park as the other sides....

I mean the ACL brings in so much money to the league!? it isnt like we are running at a huge loss competing every year....

It isn't like competing in the club world cup would of made clubs here in Australia money? would it? i mean having players in Youth World cups doing well wouldnt mean our AL clubs could sell them like the NSL did for a giant profit? 

..oh wait.. 

Essentially this right here is the issue with being in the AFC and anyone who doesnt think so, please tell me why?  

Which federation is Antarctica in? May be we should just join that one to play against the penguins and everyone’s happy.

Geez mate. Maybe we could start our own World Cup and just invite crap teams so we could win a trophy? Basically you are wanting to go to the World Cup and play a weaker team because that somehow makes us better?

You’d like those social teams that stack their side with decent players then nominate to play Div 7 just so they can smash sides 10-0.

There is already a non fifa world cup. Maybe he wants us to  play in conIfia against teams like the country of nice or the powerhouse United Koreans in Japan 

Joining the AFC closely coincided with the introduction of the A League. It is well discussed that our youth development has gone backwards during this period.
This is largely due to a move to the A League, and in a parallel thread it has also  been discussed how abolishing transfer fees has also had a negative impact on development.
Players in the A League play less games than they used to - is this the AFC's fault? If anything the AFC has pushed for us to have a NSD and force a minimum number of rounds played each season. The OFC couldn't care less.
Joining the AFC is the one lasting positive that 'new football' brought to us - I do not see how reverting to playing the likes of Fiji and New Zealand, and begging for friendlies against B sides from Europe and South America is going to help us.
If anything we should be thankful the AFC has not kicked us out for the stupidity we have shown at times.

The large majority of seasons in the NSL had 26 rounds.

No that makes us no better as a football nation like joining the AFC

Why is it a positive? 

the OFC should be joining the FFA not the other way round
- their national teams to become A-League franchises
- their league competitions to become NPLs and the NPL Finals to become a champions league

Better football makes us better.

See originally i agreed with this when we joined the AFC but when you look at it. Are we better then when we were part of the OFC, bcuz imo we are a hell of a lot worse.

Plenty of reasons why we're worse. Joining AFC isn't one of them, in my view.

I think your logic is a little all ove the place. Sure the OFC had a couple of perks but the AFC is currently better and has a lot more upside. 

Going to the world cup is 'costing us' money due to the expensive qualifying process we face in the AFC 

Less players going to Asia makes ur domestic league better bcuz the quality it higher - thus the keeping out 'youth argument' has never made sense if they are good enough they are old enough

3/7 isnt a pass anywhere in the world we made almost every tournament before....

the ACL will never be a big league until the prize money is multiplied by 5 - in which i'd argue making the Club world cup would of made the AL team that participates in it a hell of a lot more money then the ACL could have (bar the year WSW won the comp). (over all the ACL participating teams are also running as a loss)   

When you look at the facts how can you say the AFC has been good?

It’s costing us money to going to the World Cup via Asia but it won’t cost us to fail qualifying through OFC?  I don’t quite understand? It will still cost us to play the games in OFC and then miss out against whichever nation we fail to beat in the intercontinental playoff. 

A common argument brought up by GG is that we are no longer regularly playing at international youth tournaments (final tournament).

We no longer have a situation/shopfront where our youth are exposed to an international audience. So not as many players are being scouted at an early age.

NZ has taken our spot but doesn’t have the player quality to do anything.

The one possible saving grace in your theory Dav is that Oceania will have a guaranteed qualifying spot for future World cups which would keep the "at least we make every world cup now" brigade happy.  Apart from that though, I agree with most that being in a more hotly contested confederation and more difficult qualifation process means that squads that do make it (at all levels) are more likely to be there on merit and at least be competitive. Fix  the broken system here, don't worry about what confederation where in I say.
As for ACL or Oceania CL, despite being the current Oceania team of the century, my club won't be able to compete in either competition because of the racist pigs in charge of soccer now.

I don’t expect a home based squad to all be picked up after a FIFA final  tournament. After leaving OFC we no longer have this platform where perhaps 1,2 or 3 players could get a European contract after each tournament (depending on age etc.)

Aleague average age last season before COVID: 32 years per starting 11.

With the lack of teams and influx of foreign spots in key positions in the field, it’s meant less opportunities for young players to learn their craft as pro footballers unlike the NSL era where it had more teams and less foreign spots.

Clubs are just too lazy to develop young players as they feel it’s not a big enough incentive to do so which is why we see the recycling aspect to the league too.

Here is a question how many in the NSL era would have developed in the same rate in the aleague era? 

a lot less becuz our development is shit and opportunities for young players to show there stuff is limited due to inability to quality for youth competitions. 

Why dont we qualify now? becuz we rarely have 11 good young players and we are up against countries pouring billions into youth development and at age 16-19 that extra $$$ goes a long way - ie you dont need to worry about studying/working etc.  In every generation we have 3-4 potentially really good players in the old system at least 2 of them were getting picked up every every big youth tournament we went though back in the day and being developed by good clubs in good leagues. 

Now these players aren't getting picked up till they are older >22 years old, too old for a lot of clubs to try mold into a top player. They end up in spuds leagues like China, Scotland etc and go no where. The AL is terrible at developing players bcuz there isnt any $$ in it for the clubs due to the salary cap. Thus Australia is shit at football probably the worst we have ever been (in my life time) regardless of qualifying for world cups we are absolute trash  

And sometimes that was even the same number as they planned to have at the start of the season! :hehe: