A-League - On the Up

[hauss]

Firstly, thank God the forum is back up. I never have to visit those idiots on the 442 forum again.

I'm writing this because I actually feel very optimistic about the upcoming season. I'm hoping that this season we will finally be able to say that the A-League has "made it".

IMO the product is finally there. With the addition of the Wanderers we will have an incredibly good dynamic between the four NSW teams and between the teams from Sydney and Melbourne. The second Sydney team really was a necessary piece to the puzzle. The season draw is once again a pretty good one.

The Jets, we would hope now, are settled in for the long term. It's now the second season of the HSG management team and they seem to be learning and maturing. Obviously, with every year that passes they will grow in experience at running a football club and will be more confident about what they are doing. Particularly Robbie Middleby seems to be maturing into his role from what I read.

It has been the best pre-season in a long time. The clearout has been done and players recruited (except for a couple of key attacking players) right at the start of the pre-season.

There are persistent rumours that a new television deal will be done before the start of this season and it will mean that the salary cap will be covered by the FFA grant. The funding shortfall in the A-League model has really been the only substantial source of conflict between the clubs and the FFA. With this sorted we should no longer see the kinds of power struggles we have had recently between owners and the FFA.

Maybe I'm crazy or just being influenced by the imminent return of the Griff.

[traffic light]

[parksey]

a-league, a competition on the...


GROW

[hauss]

Bump.

With the signing of Del Piero for more than one season, I'm even more confident of a good tv rights deal for the A-League. Apparently Ben Buckley will have it sorted in the next few weeks.

This will set us up in the medium term. It will stop the clubs with stronger support bitching about money and they can focus on doing great things for the game.'

I think Gallop was a good signing and should be able to help the code break into the Sydney media market, which seems to be a real tough nut to crack.

Can't wait for the season to begin.