Can't even beat farmers though ;)

There won't be much to building squads at this level because it's not a full time professional league. Just consolidate the best of the rest talent in your local area and you're done.

Will be curipus what squads they build.

I remember when mitch thurtle was scoring a goal a game and couldnt get a look in for the a league. You want the nst to be a standard where dominating it means automatic signing for the a league, yet dominating the npl guarantees signing for the nst, so talented players can move up the ladder when ready and not get lost in nowhere land like the last decade

There are around 90 clubs in the npl. Take the best 90 players and some loanies from the a league and you already have a squad good enough.

The first australian cup with nst teams will be super interesting

The NST will be 100% full time professional. 2025 is going to be very interesting. There will be plenty of young players that could be choosing between an ALeague contract or a NST contract. They'll be weighing up a slightly higher salary at an AL club but more bench time or a lower salary at a NST club and a spot in the starting 11.

Yer Bohemia where did your read that or misunderstood.
NST will be a pro hence why all the due diligence proving as such otherwise stand back wait till your ready to commit properly and the stds set by the FA and AAFC if I recall correct.
Grazor I think as someguy mentions some will chose NST for way more playing time than sitting on the AL pines and rightly so.

The interview with galatas left me completely confused about whether it will be pro or not and they ignored my follow up question. There is conflicting info on this

That so, interesting.
My reading earlier Pro was the main directive but for a few exceptions depending how many meet the standards.
I suppose all comes down the numbers for the current 8 accepted I expect full pro hence already committed and confirmed.
Again I think the driver will be the numbers how big a comp it starts off as…..
Majority Pro and a few possible semi pro with targets to meet.

It's possible details have changed, plenty of unknowns about the league. However, the FA did state from the beginning that their intention was for a fully pro league. All clubs that threw their hat in the ring had the expectation it was to be a fully pro league. FA originally stated the following:

National Second Tier Clubs will enter into a Club Participation Agreement setting out the terms of participation, including but not limited to the following requirements:

• professional playing contracts for all players, with salaries paid 52 weeks of the year;
• ‘off field’ operations run by employed staff throughout 12 months of the year;
• investment in and operation of a full talent development pathway within their club structure; and
• access to a suitable high-quality match day facility 12 months of the year.

Question is whether those are full time or part time contracts. I havent been able to get clarity on that

Exactly. All they're saying by being contracted and paid 52 weeks in the year is that the employees will be permanent employees. It doesn't mean they will be full time. You can be a permanent part time employee on limited hours.

Nobody but the players union has ever said full time professional league. And it's not the union that decides.

I'm pretty sure Galatas said part-time professional on the Ben and Stef podcast. But I was cooking breakfast at the time, so might have misheard over the sizzling fat.

Fair question.
The term professional would usually indicate a full-time contract. If it wasn't the case you'd assume they'd use the term semi-pro or indicate a mix of both. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. 
My opinion is it wouldn't really be worth doing if they didn't go professional full-time. May as well just stay with the NPL otherwise. 

I think it's still worth doing

Condenses the talent so it is more meaningful if a player dominates, gives more minutes at a higher level than npl to the best young players and develops clubs to become fully pro, makes p and r less club suicide for a league clubs one day, makes the a league stronger by finding players who can dominate a level in between the a league and the npl. If you replaces the worst 2 players in every a league starting xi with 2 players who dominated the nst it's a completely different league. We no longer have those glaring weaknesses that get exposed in asian champions league football

Condensing the talent absolutely makes sense.

It was what the HAL was in season 1. The consolidation of the local NSL playing pool into 8 teams with a few foreign additions and returning players, balanced off by some losees of the local talent pool which didn't stick around during the 18 month hiatus.

Giving players at the not-quite-AL quality level the opportunity to play exclusively with other players of their level is something that benefits all in that division. More consistent higher quality games. you don't just raise the level by getting better best players, you also weed out the worst.

BTW, if the NST were fully pro, then the artificial turf would need to come out of Edensor. And also the artificial turf being laid right now at Lambert Park.

Lambert is syn for years now and yes incl SU’s.

Forgive my ignorance but is this a players union thing?  Havent  fully pro Aleague players played on synthetic pitches in the FA Cup before?

yep SU have played all their games against AL competitors at Edensor syn pitch the last numbers of years incl the epics getting to the final season before.
APIA mind you have used Leichardt Oval for their Oz cup games due to the expectation of larger crowd compared to Lambert capacity.
Rockdale
Sutho
BCity
StGeorge City
Manly
All above syn pitches - may miss one or 2 I can't recall And obviously above not going into NST, BCity and Rockdale likely ?

Looks like what FA envisaged may not be viable or even possible immediately

There have been several reports from the applicants about FA being all over the shop during this process

Looks like they want the 12 best applicants and the final set-up will be whatever those 12 can reach, with compromises to be made to just get it going.

To me that looks like a combination of full-time professional contracts as well as part-time professional contracts. i.e. If the player still has an existing job he can keep that but the club will supplement them with a professional contract that pays them pro-rata at a full-time rate. It looks like a decent compromise to maintain the better NPL players that have established careers.

Exactly right...  Cant expect existing semi-pro players to give up an a career, especially the older ones, in the hope that their footballing one takes off... As this thing matures I fully expect more and more players would opt in for full time football careers. Thats the WHOLE point of the NST, to create (from scratch) these positions.

I thought so... Synthetic isnt common at all down here, at least in the first 2 divs of NPL... Only Bulleen Lions from memory.

Grass must be easier to grow in Melbourne huh mate :P

Hey you’re closer to Griffith hahaha not surprised.

in all seriousness we are growing a lot with syn for sometime.
Says a lot about the local clubs and councils.
Clubs fund raise and keep badgering councils to tip in.
Even below NPL syn pitches are more common in Prem 1 league than grass actually.
Games keep being played rain hail shine and trainings.

If you've had a knee reconstruction, you need to stay away from synthetic pitches. Hybrids are fine. Synthetics have been banned from the EFL for roughly 30 years now due to risk of injury. A fully pro league won't attract pros to those pitches, whether expressly banned or not.

Lower divs is fine where the pitches rack up intensive use.

Sutton United are a case in point from the financial side of this

When promoted from the National League into the EFL they had to replace their Synthetic, which was a large money spinner and Community asset

As it stands they're heading back to the 5th Tier after 3 seasons and are going to have to decide whether to replace again.

Only ever played on them a couple of times and, while it was ages ago and the tech has probably changed, I hated them... Probably my imagination but I felt the heat rising up through my studs into the soles of my boots, the rubber stunk and the ball bounced like a Jubilani on steroids.....  

I think they are pushing for them in state leagues and community clubs down here too mate, just at the NPL 1 level mainly that they prefer to play on grass....  Or sand spray painted green like Bentleigh did one year lol

WHO HATH DOTH SUMMONED ME

Hahahah LFC wants to cultivate some mary jane and reckons Griffith may be the place to do it..... LOL hahahahahahaahah

Bit late to be an entrepreneur there I reckon