I think FFA should be bold and outline a 25 year plan for a fully functional league pyramid from top to bottom.

I know this might not be feasible right away, but I think it can definitely be feasible in the next 10-25 years if we set the correct targets.

• 16 Team A-League

— 30 rounds H/A

— Top 6 Finals series

— 1 Automatic Relegation spot

— 1 Relegation Playoff spot with Second Division

— No Salary Cap, But Setting Minimum wage multiplied led by total squad d size as a salary floor. Could even have a Salary cap where teams can only spend max 2-3x the TV deal similar to the concept being floated around for premier league in England.


________________________


• 16 Team Second Division.

— 30 rounds H/A

— 1st Automatic Promotion

— 2nd - 5th Promotion Playoff with 15th in A-League

— 15th & 16th in Relegation Playoff with NPL champions league Finalists

— Minimum wage is salary floor multiplied by squad numbers.


________________________


• NPL Champions League

— 1st Place from each NPL Conference + the winners of 2nd - 5th Finals series in each individual state Conference

— Two Finalists qualify for Promotion Playoff with 15th & 16th in Second Division


________________________


• NPL

— 14-16 teams in each NPL Conference

— Winners Qualify for NPL champions League at end of season

— 2nd - 5th in each conference play off for the final NPL champions league spot for each Conference

— Relegation/Promotion with existing state leagues



We could start Pro-Rel from the second division and NPL within the first 5 seasons imo, but to have Pro-Rel between the A-League and Second Division needs to be a 10-25 year goal at the very minimum.

I know a lot of people will say “well what if Perth or Adelaide get relegated? Well tough luck. Those markets can play in second division and work on building teams and clubs strong enough to stay in the top flight.

Regarding TV deals and markets being affected if Perth or Adelaide go down. Those viewers would just be watching the second division with their team participating in that league and hoping they get promoted again.

Clubs should not just be gifted first tier immunity just because of where they are located, the first division should be for the best teams and best run clubs doesn’t matter where they are located. In order for our league to be the best possible league in our country, we need the league to have elite status where every game, every season means something. It will instill a mindset in Australian players who have constant promotion / relegation pressure with every game this will lift the intensity and standard of our game, preparing our youth for big matches, and it gives every single club in the country from the top down something to aspire and aim for. You’ll see state based clubs investing in facilities, academies, infrastructure in order to aim for the top flight, which will in turn help our game grow as a whole. Right now hundred of clubs around the country are not incentivised to grow or invest in the game because no matter how much they invest or how bold they dare to dream, they will never be able to move up the pyramid to the top.

The closed shop system does nothing but hinder growth, hinder investment from the bottom up, and hinder aspirations of the majority of clubs and players across the country.

Example for arguments sake. I’m not sure what the current TV deal income for each club is, but let’s say is $2m per club per season.

This allows the bigger clubs to be able to be big and spend between $4-6m and allows the clubs who can’t afford it to spend the salary floor of $1.5-2m

Let it go dude.... Next years distribution is now $1 mill with the year after that more than likely halved... Aleague franchsies aren't even allowed to change the font on their websites let alone get relegated lol

With the way money is drying up the APL cant even implement a 1 year plan at the moment.

The FA is working on a national transfer system and club licensing agreements which will, hopefully, help build "the pyramid" below the APL but the Aleague is NOT part of the plan. 

I mean... If you ignore the question of where on earth the $$$ for this comes from and how sustainable it is - I like it.
(I'm being 100% serious here - not sarcastic)


That said;

>I know a lot of people will say “well what if Perth or Adelaide get relegated? Well tough luck. Those markets can play in second division and work on building teams and clubs strong enough to stay in the top flight.

What if every team from Victoria or NSW gets relegated? It's easy to discard Perth or Adelaide, but what if we lost all the teams in in our largest states?
What if after 10 years of promotion and relegation we had 4  teams from Perth (highly unlikely based on the standard of the WA NPL I admit), 4 from Adelaide, 2 from Tasmania, 1 from Canberra and 7 from Queensland.
This isn't the UK where the worst case scenario for an away game on the other side of the country is just hiring a bus for an 8 hour trip.

>Regarding TV deals and markets being affected if Perth or Adelaide go down. Those viewers would just be watching the second division with their team participating in that league and hoping they get promoted again.
I applaud your optimism, but even in the absolutely healthiest 2nd divisions in Europe the average crowds are about 1/2 that of the top division.
I know everyone on this forum is a hard-core, <teamname>-til-I-die supporter, but realistically these teams would at best lose 50% of their following as soon as they're not in the top division. 


As I said - I do like this suggestion in a theoretical way, and I honestly do want to see a 2nd division with pro/rel.
I just can't see it working in reality - but I would love to be proven wrong.

Meanwhile, feel free to visit this page if you want to see the A-League with promotion and relegation from the first season... :)

https://aleaguestats.com/A-League%20(Men)_37Virtual2ndDivision.html

Oh I really want this too - Sorry RBB Wanderer, your suggestion is a top notch one, I wasnt ridiculing the idea, just that I think it will never happen as the APL doesnt want it to.

No issue with your structure but think we need at least 2 up, 2 down in a 16 team competition. NPL NSW is probably the only competition in the world with 16 teams and only 1.5 spots up/down. I find it ridiculous. 

yep 2 up 2 down makes it way more viable and great for the game.
Kudos RBBW, wonder why it takes a supporter to consider throwing out there a discussion for a 25yr plan.
Has there ever been a governer or admin guy/gal in the game ever bring this up ?
Nah just 1 closed league nob and show me the money forget the roots.

20 years wasted already 😏

I personally worry that 9 npls into 1 nst is too much of a bottle neck to drive ambition and investment down the pyramid. Its hard to find any other examples of 9 into 1 and we will miss out on a lot of the investment that comes with p and r as a result. Also it will hurt investment at the top of the pyramid since it is too big a cliff

I would hope the fa eventually funds a 3rd conference division with no financial requirements on clubs. Have the fa find the travel costs for around 4 million a season. Then make it so that if u win any npl league u get promoted.

I agree with u that 16 teams is optimal for a division to bring a season length of at least 30. I wonder how long the nst takes to get to 16

My plan:
A-League 20 teams
____mls style stealing from NSL______

NSL : Consolidation of QLD/NNSW/NSW/ACT/VIC NPLs
20 teams

____________closed off_______________
Regional Leagues 

What if NPL consists of 5 divisions 

NPL
- NSW, NNSW, ACT
- VIC/TAS
- QLD
- WA
- SA/NT

and in NPL2, you have 3 state leagues under NSW feeding the greater NSW conferance, and 2 state leagues under VIC/TAS feeding the VIC conference

NPL2 
- NSW
- NNSW
- VIC
- ACT
- TAS
- SA
- NT
- QLD
- WA 

so you’d have 
- A-League (1 Division 16 teams)
- NSD (1 Division 16 teams)
- NPL (5 Divisions with top 2 entering NPL champs league)
- NPL2 (9 Divisions) 

5 into 1 is much more reasonable if those 5 npls had 3 to 4 spots to fight for. I believe there are some euro leagues that do 5 into 1 so clearly it can work. Id support the 5 divisions to have only 12 teams to make the odds better and make that bottle neck as open as possible

Whatever structure that has chance to work and OPEN up our game and finally work as ONE/together I'm in like mad and seriously who wouldn't be if your passionate about our game here.......
Whilst others have their tiny barrows to belittle ol socka re 8/10k crowds is no badge of honour but cheap shots for as we know this is struggling in the modern times.

Closest off the top of my head is Italy does 9 into 3 from Serie D to Serie C

Yeah id like to see us go 9 into 3 with a 3rd division conference league with travel money subsidized by the fa and no financial requirements on clubs

That link division would be even more crucial than a nst for the fa to fund since the old nsl clubs can fund themselves

The 5 league NPL setup would be better travel wise and easier for clubs financially to travel. 

yeah so for conferences I guess you just have to subsidize a western conference due to the vast distances. Would need fa to subsidize it but their budget is 260million. The travel budget for a conference system is probably around 2-3 million dollars a year given the aafc modelling. So I think the subsidizing of the western conference is doable Your second option would work well

A small tweek though,I would go
west with WA/NT/SA fully subsidized by the fa
South with act/vic/tas
north with nsw/nnsw/qld or something like tht

if this is part of the pyramid, a conference system gaurantees more opportunities for teams outside of nsw/vic which is a key worry about p and r (that it would be too sydney/melbourne focused)

Your both so keenly carving up the country into conferences, have you stopped to consider the clubs involved in these state based comps? At a third tier level any club wanting to show a little ambition would want to be able to attract a local following to increase revenue both from matchday advertising and gate takings food drink... This would lend itself better to inter city/state rivalries rather than the Darwin Aces flying into Adelaide every second week...  This fascination with geographical representation doesnt lend itself to meritocratic sporting ambition... Let each state NPL decide it's Champion every year and run a knockout tournament post season to decide who goes UP to the championship, its not hard... if VIC and NSW clubs win it every year there is probably a reason this is happening..... Everywhere else in the whole wide world the purpose is to have the best run clubs rise to the top and we will gain NOTHING by restricting this to protect geographic representation.... NOTHING.

Better off including ACT in NSW. It is closer to Sydney than Melbourne.

IF you have to go conference model, would still have to make sure VIC and NSW are separate (as arguably the two strongest federations). The most even way I can think of in my head (that also accounts for travel distance) is to go by 4.

1. VIC + TAS
2. NSW + ACT + NNSW
3. QLD + NT
4. WA + SA

Alternatively, conference 4 could theoretically pick up NT, and in that instance, conference 3 picks up NNSW (as below). In that instance, NT could theoretically be anywhere in conference 3 or 4.
1. VIC + TAS
2. NSW + ACT
3. QLD + NNSW
4. WA + SA + NT

I'd expect conferences 3 and 4 to have travel mostly subsidised by the league/FA.

For consistency purposes, I'm going to use the second model going forward in this post.
Therefore, using that model, the pyramid would be (Assuming the A-League lives)
1. A-League
2. Championship
3. 4x Conferences
4. Current State NPL setup (which as far as I'm aware all of them have some mode of P+R down to the "state" leagues)

Again, looking at the Italian model (and I'm assuming most European leagues when they filter up from multiple leagues), the league/conference winners all automatically get promoted, with playoffs between the X amount of clubs below. Serie C > Serie B has a 28 team playoff system (2nd-10th in all 3 Serie C conferences + Serie C Cup Winner) to determine the fourth team promoted to Serie B.
Serie D > Serie C uses a playoff system (using 2nd-5th across the 9 conferences - so 36 teams) to rank them in order to fill any possible vacancies in Serie C (because Italian club football is so precarious and clubs go bust and start again all the time).

The benefit they have, is their conferences (at least the Serie C ones) aren't tied by borders - They're determined post season, essentially having the 20 most northern clubs in Conference A, 20 most southern in Conference C, and the rest in Conference B. Would we be able/willing to do that in Tier 3 of the above model with 40-50 clubs? That would make determining promotion/relegations a lot easier (as we could theoretically have a 5 up/down to the Championship). If keeping these conferences tied to borders, then well.. the only realistic method is a playoff group involving... let's just say the top 2 of each of the 4 conferences to determine the 1/2 clubs to be promoted to the Championship.

How do u solve the 9 into 1 issue? Such a bottle neck will kill investment. Without a conference it isnt a pyramid its a ladder on a pancakr

Yeah a non state defined conference system is a good idea didnt realize italy did that. Indeed 4 conferences is probably ok since you probably could have 4 p and r spots

These conferences… we’re starting to look at a number of flights adding up in lower tiers…

Thinking outside the box of something radical. What about a massive second tier, 25 clubs, but only play a single round robin, 12 home and away. Could even expand it to 31 clubs, might be overkill.

Finishing 21 to 25 gets auto relegated. Premiers from VIC, NSW, SA, QLD, WA get auto promoted.

17-20 playoff against premiers from NNSW, TAS, ACT, NT.

I’ve spent about 5 minutes dreaming that up haha, but I don’t mind it. How does it work for merit and costs? I’ll think about that later but I have to head out now. I’m thinking if there has to be flights, they might as well be in the second tier where there's actually a chance it could be affordable.

Relatively easily... the 9 GF winners of each NPL plus 7 of the highest placed (on the table during regular season) "runners up" compete in a round of 16 cup/cl type format and the two finalists go up to the championship (the GF winner automatically and the runner up goes into playoff with the second last team on the championship table)...  

The goal would be to grow this end of year (qualification tourney) into a fully fleshed out Australian championship second division of 16 x clubs over 3-5 years how that is done is the real challenge... My suggestion would be to do work with the clubs that show consistency in making it to this (playoffs)  over the time frame (whatever that is decided to be) to meet the necessary club licensing criteria (I believe FA is already implementing this) and then offer this as a full time home and away league feeding into the championship .. then rinse and repeat for the third tier...  It gives NPL clubs an achievable  path and a realistic time frame of perhaps a decade to get all three levels to a simialr degree of prfitablity and readiness to compete at the highest national level. I dont think we need massive upwards (or downards) movent of clubs bewteen the tieres, just a fair and honest mechanism for which they can achieve this.

My dream 25 year goal is 

Australian Championship - 16 x clubs (maybe more)

Australian Championship 2 - 16 x clubs (1.5 clubs up for promotion)

Australian Championship 3 - 16 x clubs (1.5 clubs up for promotion)

Australian National Premier Leagues promotion relegation tournament) 1.5 clubs up for promotion - 16 x clubs (with proviso that they meet club licensing criteria - some years less, some years none... whatever it is each season)

National Premier leagues - 9 x federations of 16  clubs each ( GF winner gets the option to apply for end of year Qualification tournament)

each NPL then should have NPL 2, NPL 3 and then Sate 1, Sate 2 , State 3 etc etc depending on size and number fo clubs in state.

ALL feeding into each other.... at the very least 48 x clubs, all aligning to FA club licensing criteria (must have TD, womens teams, ALL age group teams of boys and girls, Access to a stadium with 1000K minimum capacity and mens and womens changing facilities and lights adequate to host night games)  Its not that hard to do....  The main issue will be to monetise it so that travel can be  underwirtten at AUS Chamionship levels 2 and 3 and the end of year qualifiactions, everything else can start tomorrow. 

The one main issue I see with our pyramid is the "fitting in" of underage teams to a national framework... This would have to remain as is at state level for all clubs I think, we cant have U13s flying around the country. 

hahahah sounds like a royal rumble in wrestling...lol

Yeah i dont mind more national divisions - the more the better, but that still puts a bottle neck at some place down the ladder. Your 9 into 1 is no longer npl into nst but npl into the national 4th teir and i think at some stage to get the full benefits of p and r we need a conference system.

As an aside Id be surprised if we can manage more than 2 national divisions in the short to medium term without fa funding teams. We of couse should have as many as there are teams that can do it unfunded, but once we reach that limit i think the npl finals system should be expanded into a conference division with travel funds from the fa

The travel funds for an entire conference system would cost less than a single a league club so i think its worth it

Can be done. As I said, similar models to Italy.

I'd probably rule out the massive second tier, but, having auto promotions for some states and not others, to me at least, is a no-go (merit wise). I think that's where the conference system works well. Expanding out my concept a bit more (Again, assuming the A-League stays alive, Championship kicks off as the NST, etc). But below is my dream structure:

1. A-League - 14 clubs (Definitely 1 relegated. Possibly 2, depending on how you do things. I have a radical idea, but it involves the seasons being realigned)
2. Championship - 14 clubs (Premiers auto promoted. Possibly a second promoted, see radical idea. As for relegation.... well.. one format could see 5 relegated each season. Another would see 2. I'll outline that in the radical idea).
3. 4 Conferences split up geographically. To follow the Italian route, let's call them the West, East, North and South conferences for now. These would be re-assessed every season. I'm gonna go with 10 teams each conference. Last of each conference gets relegated back to their state NPL.
4. The current NPL/State league systems.

RADICAL IDEA
I'm just going to put all the P/R stuff between each tier under this, because to the APL... I guess P/R is a radical idea in itself.

• A-League > Championship
• Last place of A-League replaced with First place of Championship.
• 4 team finals system for playoffs to be promoted to the A-League. But here's the actual radical idea: Since the finals are usually a 1-4, and 1 is already promoted, second last place of the A-League is inserted into the Promotion Playoffs. To keep their place in the league, they effectively need to win the Championship Finals.
• End result is 1.25 down, 1.25 up.
• Championship > Conferences
• This is dependent obviously on the format of promotion from the Conferences. I'll outline that under their headings, but for this stage:
  
• FORMAT ONE : 5 teams relegated. (I guess there is a Format 1.5 that would see 4 teams relegated)
• FORMAT TWO : 2 teams relegated.
• Conferences > Championship
• As mentioned earlier, 4 Conferences set up (West, East, North, South). Two different formats available here:
• FORMAT ONE : Winner of each Conference is promoted to the Championship, alongside a singular play off winner, which can be held between the runner ups of each league (randomly drawn against eachother). Format 1.5 would be no playoffs, and just the 4 go up, with the 4 going down from the Championship
• FORMAT TWO: Playoff system to whittle down to 2 clubs promoted (Can either be just the league winners, or expanded to also include the runners up, but in that instance, the winners should get some sort of advantage - currently undefined format for that instance).
• Conferences > NPL
• Again, this has two options that correlate with eachother.
• FORMAT ONE : Bottom of each Conference league relegated, and from here on in, they get relegated into their state borders. This means though that, essentially that each states league structure will fluctuate time to time.
  FORMAT TWO : Bottom two of each Conference league relegated, same as above. The 4x third last placed teams would then playoff for a singular extra relegated club, making 9 total relegations (I'm assuming we are counting NT now? If not - the extra playoff can be scrapped for a total of 8 relegations.)
• NPL > Conferences
• These options correlate with above:
• FORMAT ONE : Playoff system with the winners of each NPL, to bring the 9 NPL winners (again, assuming we count NT as it's own entity and it's not folded into WA, SA or QLD), to 4. These 4 are promoted.
• FORMAT TWO: All NPL league winners are promoted. No playoffs.

Don't give APL any ideas.... hahaha

Good layout. Agreed with the youth teams though. Maybe just each state has their own youth premier league setup (promotion relegations based off a club championship) and at the end of each season, FA holds a national championship for each premier (similar to the NPL Finals / Current state based NYC).
That way, don't have to realign and readjust which clubs have to play up an age bracket due to being in the A-League, etc