I wanna hear about these mysterious backers that own the Canberra A-league men's side

Wellington and the new Auckland team can't enter the AFC. I'd be looking at petitioning for a playoff against the top Oceania team.

Fair point - but weirder things have happened in football.

Looks like the APL is scaling back this year due to financial constraints. Cutting the Dolan-Warren awards ceremony and announcing winners at halftime shows they're tightening their budget.

Beep boop beep beep boop

Time for another tara update 

think that denny white is very late to the party, as Muz mentions in another thread possibly a Decentric set bot.

Thats AMAZING ..... and terrifying at the same time.... we are gonna get left behind in Asia poretty quickly if this eventautes, maybe we should get back to Oceania  before it is too late?

haha no chance getting back to Oceania - I'd expect the politicking would be massive and besides the banter from Asia would be aimed right back at us as whimps, I couldn't bare that.
Mono you know we'll be right though, the next wonderfully developed Joeys and U23's are going to set the path to glory we'll be right :)

The prize for winning the ACL Elite has ballooned from roughly $6m to $18m, enough to fund most A-League clubs for an entire season. But the real prize comes further down the line. Fifa has made an expanded Club World Cup – to be played every four years and featuring 32 of the best club teams from around the world – one of its signature developments, much to the chagrin of the leagues and players in Europe, who are taking Fifa to court over their plans.That aside, the new competition offers Asian clubs four places, which are awarded to the winners of the AFC Champions League Elite from the four years prior.Playing in the Club World Cup, which will be hosted by the US next year and is on the radar of Football Australia for 2029 , will reportedly come with an appearance fee of an eye-watering $81m.Such cash rewards are unheard of, not just for Australian football, but Australian sport. It is a transformative amount of money, but this is the opportunity that exists from playing in a global playground such as football, an opportunity not afforded to most other sports in Australia.The only question is, as Australian football contracts and narrows its focus, can it dare to dream of such a scenario?

Good, then the Nix and Auckland can fuck off and start their own comp with their new cash.

I'm probably going back to the well here:

Perfect world to me would be to split Asia into East and West, East Asia absorbs Oceania, and then NZ's club pyramid can be absorbed into Australia's (essentially the NZ league becomes an NPL level league). They can stay here, but earn their keep.

Wellington is playing the Oceania Club of the Century next month :)

Yeah mate BUT only 10 Australian clubs are allowed the chance to qualify for AFC Champions League Elite ...and theya re all  franchises!!! hahahahahaah

yer thats great odds for us as well lol.......
Pathetic.

I always wanted to see this - we should be competing in our own area.The AFC is too big 

We could have a West Asia and a Pacifica

AFC Rank	Country	FIFA Pts	FIFA Rank	Pacifica / West Asia
1	Japan (JPN)	1,628.81	17	P
2	IR Iran (IRN)	1,611.16	20	WA
3	Korea Republic (KOR)	1,572.87	22	P
4	Australia (AUS)	1,571.29	23	P
5	Qatar (QAT)	1,504.06	35	WA
6	Iraq (IRQ)	1,433.07	55	WA
7	Saudi Arabia (KSA)	1,431.30	56	WA
8	Uzbekistan (UZB)	1,397.41	62	WA
9	Jordan (JOR)	1,374.13	68	WA
10	United Arab Emirates (UAE)	1,368.84	69	WA
11	Oman (OMA)	1,326.18	76	WA
12	Bahrain (BHR)	1,302.86	81	WA
13	China PR (CHN)	1,267.51	88	P
14	Syria (SYR)	1,246.68	93	WA
15	Palestine (PLE)	1,231.25	95	WA
16	Thailand (THA)	1,218.56	100	P
17	Kyrgyz Republic (KGZ)	1,213.58	101	WA
18	Tajikistan (TJK)	1,212.41	102	WA
19	Korea DPR (PRK)	1,183.96	110	P
20	Vietnam (VIE)	1,168.02	116	P
21	Lebanon (LBN)	1,167.64	117	WA
22	India (IND)	1,139.39	124	P
23	Indonesia (IDN)	1,108.73	134	P
24	Malaysia (MAS)	1,107.58	135	P
25	Kuwait (KUW)	1,098.42	137	WA
26	Turkmenistan (TKM)	1,065.42	144	WA
27	Philippines (PHI)	1,053.03	147	P
28	Afghanistan (AFG)	1,034.37	151	WA
29	Yemen (YEM)	1,021.24	155	WA
30	Hong Kong, China (HKG)	1,011.91	157	P
31	Singapore (SGP)	1,008.26	159	P
32	Maldives (MDV)	1,003.48	160	P
33	Chinese Taipei (TPE)	991.34	163	P
34	Myanmar (MYA)	988.98	164	P
35	Nepal (NEP)	935.93	175	WA
36	Cambodia (CAM)	924.52	180	P
37	Bhutan (BHU)	904.10	183	WA
38	Bangladesh (BAN)	896.67	185	P
39	Macau (MAC)	896.62	186	P
40	Laos (LAO)	889.62	189	P
41	Mongolia (MNG)	884.92	190	WA
42	Brunei Darussalam (BRU)	881.73	191	WA
43	Timor-Leste (TLS)	843.40	196	P
44	Pakistan (PAK)	842.59	197	WA
45	Guam (GUM)	821.91	204	P
46	Sri Lanka (SRI)	820.32	205	P

Good thing is - AFC already have their little sub-regions set up, so good easy way to split is to have "West AFC" featuring the South, Central and West regions (which I'm pretty sure you've done there)

back on Topic

Very interesting that a growing number of the A-League Club representatives have stepped down from APL board seats. All from 'bigger' clubs too.

Stepped Down:

• Anthony Di Pietro - Melbourne Victory
• Paul Lederer - Western Sydney Wanderers
• Scott Barlow - Sydney FC

Current:

• Chris Fong - Brisbane Roar
• Gino Marra - Macarthur FC
• Rob Morrison - Wellington Phoenix
• Simon Pearce - CFG
• << Scott Barlow replacement yet to be confirmed >>

Chris Fong still there ?  Really ?

LOL, he left Roar in July 2023

I remember Townsend had no idea what was going on, but surely they've fixed it since

According to the APL website he is. 

The APL has only ever been run by the ‘big four’ so any other name on the list is just window dressing.

https://www.aapnews.com.au/news/crunch-meeting-to-decide-a-league-central-distribution/JQNERiqN

Ummm how can the league operate when clubs only get 800K.. thats not even enough for the NSD clubs???

$800k, $800k. we have $800k from AAP

anyone care to bid lower, anyone, anyone ?

You sir, thank you. I have $500k from the guy at SMH

This is where they would need to drop the salary floor. If the grant doesn't at least cover the value of the floor, clubs should not be obligated to meet it. The CPA ensures players are entitled to minimum wage, so no risk of underpaying players.

Absolutely hated the concept of a salary floor if there's minimum wage level entitlements in the CPA and contracts. 

Some clubs have a budget approaching $30m - some around $7m. The tv deal should only be a small portion for the big clubs and the small clubs know how to run lean. 

BREAKING NEWS !!!!

Conroy talked to at least 1 Football Journalist today

It's unclear if any questions were allowed, but we shall see