A-League News and Talk (leave the jokes and puns out)

[Premy]

So this place is getting pretty shit if you are looking for a place to discuss Football and the Jets.
I enjoy the laughs as much as the next bloke but it's getting ridiculous. Thought I would create this thread so we can have a place to leave the shitty puns and lame attempts at humor out.
Peace.

[stopper2]

Brave man Premy but I agree, many want to just talk football but the discussion often gets hijacked or side-tracked with irrelevant crap because some want to show off how smart and witty they are.
Anyway to kick it off I think the A-League must go to 12 teams next year, making it 33 rounds - 6 extra games meaning the season will have to start earlier ie in late August or start as is in October and go into early June. Another option could be to play a few midweek games.
I prefer to start late August, yeah it clashes with NRL and AFL but so what, the off-season is way too long.

[Roundball Enthusiast]

Anyway to kick it off I think the A-League must go to 12 teams next year, making it 33 rounds - 6 extra games meaning the season will have to start earlier ie in late August or start as is in October and go into early June. Another option could be to play a few midweek games.


And which two severely underfunded clubs are to join the A-league?

[lquiquer]

I'd rather stay with 10 teams and play 36 games .... 2 at home and 2 away

[lquiquer]

Also to make it interesting so every teams are fighting for something for 36 games and because we haven't got and we are not ready for promotion relegation I propose that bottom four starts the following season on minus points. Wooden spoon starts on minus 12, 9th minus 9, 8th minus 6 and 7th minus 3....... Starting on minus 12 the following season is still better than being relegated (If we had relegation).........

[sneaky]

Watching the (magic of) the FFA cup games there is definitely room to think the quality is there to compete with A-League team.
Its just a matter of strategically placing two more teams with the appropriate finance and backing.
Id love to see another team next year even if it means a bye we could go with Thursday night games and then it wouldn't be so long between matches when you have a bye
Teams likely iMO are from Gold Coast, Canberra or Wollongong

[&1gest]

Perth?

http://www.espnfc.com.au/australian-a-league/story/2927717/western-australia-push-to-launch-a-second-perth-a-league-team

[stopper2]

And which two severely underfunded clubs are to join the A-league?

Why assume that any club from Wollongong, Geelong, Sutherland/South Sydney or Canberra for example would be severley underfunded?

[Roundball Enthusiast]

Why assume that any club from Wollongong, Geelong, Sutherland/South Sydney or Canberra for example would be severley underfunded?

Wollongong, failed to raise, 100k? What makes you think they can raise enough to run an A-League club, all of which post losses almost in the millions every year, except WSW and Melb V.

Geelong, yeah another Melbourne team is wat we need.
Sydney, same as above.
Gold Coast, failed to get over 5k crowds for ages, don't go there again.

WA/Canberra would be the best bets. But you'd need to have a team almost A-league level now, and use the funds from FFA and owners with enough $$ to support it.

Where we are now, we have Brisbane and CCM who's owners are struggling to fund them, another two teams on top of that isn't what the FFA needs right now.

What we need is more rounds, more exposure and more crowds.

[sammydog]

Paul Okon to Coach the Mariners.

Good post Premy........football without the same jokes that have been done to death a million times over.

[stopper2]

I'd rather stay with 10 teams and play 36 games .... 2 at home and 2 away

Fair enough mate, though I just think the 10 team format is getting a bit stale. Adding two new teams would freshen it up and give it another dimension spreading it to new areas, say for example Wollongong and Geelong.

[q-money]

Paul Okon to Coach the Mariners.

Good post Premy........football without the same jokes that have been done to death a million times over.

hey we provide you with the same damn stale entertainment week in week out, for free :rof:

i've heard mixed reports on the quality of okon as a coach, supposedly he wasn't particularly well liked when he was at APIA

club coaching at this level is a completely different kettle of fish than state leagues and kids, will be interesting to see how it pans out

[Roundball Enthusiast]

hey we provide you with the same damn stale entertainment week in week out, for free :rof:

i've heard mixed reports on the quality of okon as a coach, supposedly he wasn't particularly well liked when he was at APIA

club coaching at this level is a completely different kettle of fish than state leagues and kids, will be interesting to see how it pans out

In all honesty, he's probably one of the cheapest options with 'any' experience within Australia. Looking at what the CCM are doing, they have almost everyone on min wage.

[Wilso8948]

One club will be in the Brisbane/Ipswich area. The other will be South Sydney.

[sammydog]

i've heard mixed reports on the quality of okon as a coach, supposedly he wasn't particularly well liked when he was at APIA

club coaching at this level is a completely different kettle of fish than state leagues and kids, will be interesting to see how it pans out

I've also heard wildly conflicting reports on his coaching ability/style, however most of them seem to be in the negative opinion. You never really know where the rumours start though, probably from someone he dumped for not being good enough so I take it with a grain of salt.

Will be interesting to see how he goes down there........hopefully not well.

[pv4]

i've heard mixed reports on the quality of okon as a coach, supposedly he wasn't particularly well liked when he was at APIA

I've heard the football his APIA team put on was so dire and boring. If he's going to bring that style of game to the AL he'd better hope he backs it up with results.

On expansion - can we just bring in Wollongong Wolves & South Melbourne already ffs. Wollongong have proved they're ready for it as a community (no idea about $$) and South just need the racists in the FFA to drop their hypocritcal NCIP & view on all ethnic clubs (except Jewish ones) and finally let a good club come in and do their thing.

[Hunter403]

No expansion yet. I'm with lquiquer on this one.

The mid week match is not a bad idea either.

I'd also like to see the end of the ridiculous scheduling that sees us having played some teams 3 times before we have even encountered some teams. Stupid.

[The Camel]

I would like some sort of second division come in at the expense of the NYL (keep them playing in the NPL). The FFA could look at existing NPL clubs with appropriate competitive record and facilities and liaise with the State Federations (ie the Football West bid in the article above) It would be a great way to bring some of the ostracized clubs back from the fold. Does not need Pro/Rel yet but could come in time. Invite clubs which fit a criteria to make an application then sort it out.

I would think you could invite, Bris Strikers, FNQ, Palm Beach in qld. Wollongong, Blacktown, Syd Utd, Sutherland, Olympic, Maybe Macarthur or someone Sth West in NSW, Canberra United have the womens and Youth. Sth Melb, Melb Knights, Bentleigh in Vic with maybe Geelong, Adelaide City and or West Adelaide. Invite a Federation backed team from Football West and Tassie to make a submission.

Out of that lot and possibly a few more I have not thought of you could easily get a second division running. Could broadcast online like BarTV or something and a weekly highlights package on Fox

[plague]

I would like some sort of second division come in at the expense of the NYL (keep them playing in the NPL). The FFA could look at existing NPL clubs with appropriate competitive record and facilities and liaise with the State Federations (ie the Football West bid in the article above) It would be a great way to bring some of the ostracized clubs back from the fold. Does not need Pro/Rel yet but could come in time. Invite clubs which fit a criteria to make an application then sort it out.

I would think you could invite, Bris Strikers, FNQ, Palm Beach in qld. Wollongong, Blacktown, Syd Utd, Sutherland, Olympic, Maybe Macarthur or someone Sth West in NSW, Canberra United have the womens and Youth. Sth Melb, Melb Knights, Bentleigh in Vic with maybe Geelong, Adelaide City and or West Adelaide. Invite a Federation backed team from Football West and Tassie to make a submission.

Out of that lot and possibly a few more I have not thought of you could easily get a second division running. Could broadcast online like BarTV or something and a weekly highlights package on Fox

I think the big problem here would be travel expenses yeah? If you have a 'national' 2nd tier comp you still have a huge chunk of overhead yet with no real increase in revenue.

Australia is just so darn big, it's impossible to follow anyone else's blueprint on how to expand the comp.

Would love to see owners given longer leases (25-50 years) in exchange for them having to invest in infastructure (team/league owned stadiums). One league owned stadium in each capital city and 2 teams playing out of each. Then big centres like Western Syd etc get their own.

[Roundball Enthusiast]

I think the big problem here would be travel expenses yeah? If you have a 'national' 2nd tier comp you still have a huge chunk of overhead yet with no real increase in revenue.

Not to mention 90% or more of NPL teams are made up of Semi-Pros, who have mid week jobs they need to live off. Do you then stipulate that they have to be "Pro" therefor 55k+ each player for wages? Where does all this money come from?

Need to find that balance of growing grass root + growing the A-league to generate more interest in investors.

[Grimario]

Australia is just so darn big, it's impossible to follow anyone else's blueprint on how to expand the comp.


Russia? Saint Petersburg to Tomsk is further than Sydney to Perth... and that's just in the Russian Premier League. In the Russian National Division, one of the trips is 10k each way between Kaliningrad and Vladivostok.

[plague]

Russia? Saint Petersburg to Tomsk is further than Sydney to Perth... and that's just in the Russian Premier League. In the Russian National Division, one of the trips is 10k each way between Kaliningrad and Vladivostok.

Distance is one metric, but then Russia has far superior infastructure, corporate support (yes, crazy oligarchs), and I'd say football is higher on the pecking order than it is in Australia.

I'm happy to cherry pick the best bits of every countries setups. But that requires a bit of lateral thinking from the people in charge at FFA.

Same way I think the organisational setup in the USA is a great example to follow. But that would mean the FFA giving up power and football in this country generally doesn't work that way.

[lquiquer]

Distance is one metric, but then Russia has far superior infastructure, corporate support (yes, crazy oligarchs), and I'd say football is higher on the pecking order than it is in Australia.

I'm happy to cherry pick the best bits of every countries setups. But that requires a bit of lateral thinking from the people in charge at FFA.

Same way I think the organisational setup in the USA is a great example to follow. But that would mean the FFA giving up power and football in this country generally doesn't work that way.

But you also have to take population into consideration: 145M in Russia and 320M in the US compare to 23M in Oz

[The Camel]

Not to mention 90% or more of NPL teams are made up of Semi-Pros, who have mid week jobs they need to live off. Do you then stipulate that they have to be "Pro" therefor 55k+ each player for wages? Where does all this money come from?

Need to find that balance of growing grass root + growing the A-league to generate more interest in investors.

I would be happy with it remaining semi pro but leave it to the clubs. Best efforts to keep the PFA away from ****ing things up with minimum contracts etc would be a start.

The FFA pump a bit into the NYL, I would scrap that and put it towards the 2nd div. 12 clubs say 250k each is 3 million. Not massive coin. Vic and NSW NPL clubs are spending 250k in a fair few cases a year on the player payments as is. You could get a decent 2nd tier squad for half a million. Obv you would need some guarentees in place for the clubs to have enough financial backing for flights etc and it may be that Tassie, FNQ and Perth 2 don't cut the mustard but if 8 teams were from Vic, NSW, ACT then travel costs for those clubs aren't going to be too onerous and if the requirement is they play in their own facilities they don't have massive stadium overheads.

[GazFish35]

The second division could also be a shorter season - if only to reduce costs.

It's tough situation to decide how best to bring in pro/rel

if the 2nd division it too weak the gap is too wide and clubs that come up will never compete, and clubs that go down potentially fall apart through revenue loss.

they need a 2nd nationwide league that runs for a few a seasons and is given time to develop its own higher standard, clubs in div2 should be able to demand transfer fees for players sold to A-league so the lower division can start to be funded in part by the finances that exist at the higher level, and by their own ability to produce players.


Im sure its needed, im not sure we're ready, im not sure we'll ever be ready

[the_butcher]

If we have pro/rel, what would happen to the club that got relegated? They would instantly go broke.

[Premy]

2nd Division eventually leading to Pro/Rel is the biggest issue the FFA needs to face and that for a reason no one on here has mentioned yet.

The cashed up West Asian nations are already pissed that Australia is constantly taking a spot in the major tournaments at the expense of one of them. It won't be long until the politics of AFC start putting pressure on Australia to go back to OFC. FFA need to be proactive and become AFC compliant with Pro/Rel and 3+1 foreigners to get rid of the rope that could be use to hang them.

[furns]

You ppl do realise we have an aleague expansion thread right?

[Grimario]

You ppl do realise we have an aleague expansion thread right?

This is the "serious talk and don't make jokes" thread, furns. Get with the times.

[hawk]

yeah get with the times. having a 2nd division is real and we want it man.

There's almost no chance until a VFTrain joins all national cities but it can happen, right?