Short odds to be the next ALM team

It's not a matter of  who I would prefer on the list. 

Im just taking the rose tinted glasses off, being realistic and simply asking questions. 

An 8 team league is all is see at the moment. 
If in fact it gets off the ground in 2024

I think 10-12 is achievable in the first few years with the rest in a champion league style 3rd division if they are interested in competing on the national stage.  
This will soon separate the fully committed clubs from the wishful thinkers

What does achievable exactly mean??

You think there are 10-12 clubs capable of turning pro to some degree next season?? 

GC Knights and Avondale were amatuer clubs 10 years ago and now all of a sudden they're second division candidates?? 
They're basically vessels built on the ego and $$ of one bloke. 

Sorry. 
I'm just not getting carried away. 
As much as I believe it's necessary for our game. 
I'll tread with caution

I'm hearing you and I'm basing it off nothing but a massive assumption that at least 10 of the clubs have crunched the numbers and believe that they have everything in place to take that next step. 
I too believe it is necessary for the game but I don't believe it will be the silver bullet that will sort out all the the games issues in this country as some seem to think. The biggest benefit for me will be the consolidation of the NPL playing pool, more quality matches at a higher intensity for the top 100 or so players outside the AL. The benefit to football will be far greater than the benefit to any of the individual clubs.  

Agreed. 💯
As well as a better competition for coaches to show what they can do. 

Which 8 do you think are the strongest?

@grazorblade
As discussed here. 

Add in SU58 and APIA making it 10 

Sorry 8

Laughable some of the comments in here. 

A genuine National Second Tier is in the offing and without so much as single factoid to hand, we see the "answer" to non-specific (or even extant?) problems is to somehow combine some of the NPL Vic with some of the NPL NSW and call it something that it absolutely isn't.  It wouldn't be a second division or even a second tier.  It would be a pathetic recasting of some of the NPL and completely invisible and irrelevant to the football nation.

So instead of a pyramid that any club in the country could aspire to reach its peak, it would be a self abusing, closed off rump of a molehill, that represents everything currently, and historically, with the game in this country.

It would be dead at birth.

Deservedly so.

What's the source for this? Can't find anything on Google or Twitter. Wikipedia features it but with no source.

https://twitter.com/AAFClubs/status/1631544042403282944?cxt=HHwWgIDSrbGqtKQtAAAA

This comp has 6 EOI's from Qld, 4 from SA, 2 from ACT and one from Tassie as well. Are you a fan or not? Do you have an alternative way to the current way?

If you are not right then there has been a lot of time, money and effort wasted since the AAFC was formed in six years ago. 

Yep. 

That recasting of the NPLs will result in the consolidation of the playing pool into a single league where the best of the local talent is playing higher quality games against each other. It's more or less what the HAL was at its inception strictly with regard to the playing pool. The only exception being, they're a tier below the established professional tier. That's a second division right there.

I don't really see how this is the most critical angle you can look at what is going on here. The NSW NPL is stacked with solid football clubs with an enduring contribution to our game at a national level. Would you want to see 5 teams from Adelaide just to make it less of a "pathetic" expanded NSW comp? I just don't get the negativity there. A city with 5 million people and the largest player base is probably a pretty good place to start.

Regarding the SA bids, I think Adelaide City is a natural single choice for the comp. The joint venture of other clubs doesn't make much of the criteria as has been put forward. Birkalla isn't even an NPL side anymore and has basically given us two NT players after drawing a very, very long bow - Tobin who played a bit of juniors before doing everything at City and James Troisi that played for a bunch of clubs in equal measure - including Adelaide City. NE Metrostars even less. Basically, Travis Dodd. Good on them for being aspirational, but I don't think they have that pedigree. Unless their bid is a strong financial one, the only strong thing I see here is the possibility of playing at Marden (which everyone can do if they pay the rent). I don't think going in with both City and the amalgamated bid for the sake of getting 2 SA clubs makes the comp more national.

As someone who grew up in Australia but left about 10 years ago, I still get where some thinking comes from but now have grown to regard it as pretty strange. The parochial state mentality is really bizarre. So what if the NSD were to end up being a defacto expanded NSW NPL? An egg ball league from one state added 2-3 clubs and changed its logo and none of its thinking and look where it is now. If that's where the strong clubs and players are, then that's where they are.

Strikers aren't NPL either anymore

Although I'd be intetested to know what Brisbane United do if they get relegated.

Playing against clubs that own them   hmm.

Lets say it ends up a 12 team competition. That gives us 22 rounds and with finals the expectation would be a late March kick off and ending late September. So Kick off is just over 12 months, and counting 

I'm guessing you didn't bother to read what I wrote, or the commentary I was referencing.

I want a genuine national 2nd tier.  I am well aware of the interest from outside of NSW/VIC.  It's massive.  I love it and I expected it.
What will kill football here for another half-century would be the sham construction of another bullshit pretend League based only upon the narrow interests of a few clubs that sit at either end of the Hume Highway. 

I both fully expect and fear, that a few "concerned old soccer" voices will demand a presence because, you know, history!  By controlling the narrative that the league must start small, be confined by geography and implemented with a start-up roster of "proven" clubs, they may hope to reinstitute the miserable failures of the past.  If that did happen, then the NSD is surely doomed and will take the game down with it for another 20 years at least.

I do hope and trust however, that the NST will be implemented upon merit from day one.  The initial roster must be built from aspiring clubs that can give birth to a league that has to learn to stand up, has to grow, become agile and athletic and then mature as an intelligent asset giving its all to the game nationally.
This league must be attainable by every club in the land that might strive to reach it both today and for decades to come.  The competition for places in this league must be national and it needs to be demonstrating from the first day that it is a meritocracy, that ambition and hard work will reward.

The FA will run the comp with the professionalism of todays standards, as opposed to the hook or by crook of yester-year.

If a club that is more financially viable than most, and with more of an understanding of the costs and risks involved than the others (based on its AL venture) won’t touch it with a 10 foot pole, I’d say the other clubs should “approach with caution”.

The NSD is a very different kettle of fish from the A-League, though. It will be more like an "NPL National" than anything else. I imagine most clubs will stay semi-pro (the talk of "professional contracts" was about distinguishing it from amateur contracts an ensuring the clubs are year-round operations). They'll play in their existing home grounds, and league-wide expenditure on things like marketing will be lean. Travel costs will be kept lower without any Perth or NZ teams. So the step up will be a lot more modest.

Lions may not have wanted to throw their hat into the ring, but 20+ other clubs have had a look at FA's financials and decided it was worth a shot. Not all of them will be viable, but enough to form a league and have a pool of aspirants below that when pro-rel with the NPL is introduced (which will hopefully be very quickly after the NSD is set up).

Sticking with the prediction of a 12-team league to start, with the following clubs:
South Melbourne
Preston
Melbourne Knights
Heidelberg
APIA
Marconi
Sydney Olympic
Sydney United (or Rockdale if their fan issues are a hurdle)
Wollongong
Pen Power (or Brisbane Utd)
Sunshine Coast
Adelaide City

So teams from four capital cities and two regional centres.

Canberra, Hobart and Gold Coast will be reserved for A-League expansion slots (alongside Auckland), while the NSD will expand quickly to 16 via promotion from NPL play-offs.

^ so the FA will ignore Canberra Croatia just in case the APL is thinking about a Canberra franchise?

Agreed. IMO the Brisbane United bid is the model a lot of these NPL clubs should have been looking at. That’s one way to be financially competitive. If Canberra gets the 13th AL licence, I reckon Brisbane United is now strong favourites to be team 14 (assuming they can get it all together).

I agree with you 100%  SW&P History and Geography be damned... This is our one and only chance to get this right..... 

If I may re-quote you below... THIS is the most important thing... all else is nonsense.

"This league must be attainable by every club in the land that might strive to reach it both today and for decades to come.  The competition for places in this league must be national and it needs to be demonstrating from the first day that it is a meritocracy, that ambition and hard work will reward."

I also think the joint SA bid is a strange one... I understand its Football SA driven, maybe so they can justify further development at their sports precinct?

Don't forget guys that the 25 club EOI response published by AAFC on Friday is ONLY the clubs (entities) that are affiliated with AAFC... There is a fairly distinct possibility (and I am hearing it may be 4-5 at the very least) of other bids submitted to the FA who are in control of the process now (not AAFC)  who FA has indicated they may reveal this week - according to Peter Filop on SM.... 

Brisbane Olympic are one of the non AAFC, also the FSA submission

That's 10 out of 14 members of the 1990-91 NSL. Talk about "back to the future"