A-League Draft

[Thomas477]

One of the suggestions brought forward by last night's twitter Q & A with the head of the A-League was the concept of a Draft.

Personally I think theres no need for one. Between the state and federal Institutes of of Sports, Emerging Jets/Academy sides, state leagues, NYL sides etc, theres already plenty of opportunities for young players.

Another point would be who would run and pick the draftees, plus where would the money come from? Surely all the top identifiers of young talent are already contracted to any of the listed organisations above and they would have already picked their choices for the relevant teams. Plus, to have people full time to run the process, you're looking at least $200k, where would the money come from? Would the kid's parent pay for the chance? And would that mean it becomes a "pay your way in" scheme?

And we can't compare ourselves to the MLS because they don't have any National Youth League type competition. They are required to have academies, but there is no national league.

Would love to hear other people's thoughts.

[belchardo]

stupid idea. this isn't the AFL, or the NFL, or any other american sport with a draft. why would you hang around and participate in the vagaries of a draft, when you can head off overseas and try your own luck.

[GazFish35]

The idea came from a tweet about quality players missing out through the current 'system' of talent ID and development.

The draft idea was linked to the need of setting up some kind of "Nike chance" set up that discovered Tom rogic at 18....... Not a youth development/emerging players system.

Plenty of quality miss out because they can't afford "elite" programs or are can't even afford to play organised sport, or don't develop till its 'too late'

Something needs to be done to ensure the best young kids are playing our game and not the other codes... Showing some, that missing out on the rep side at 12 doesn't mean they'll never make it, or if they are sick of being the scrawny 15yr old winger in their league team and it's not to late to try the ball at their feet, is valid.

Open trials (cheap to attend) run by the FFA for 17-22yr olds followed by a series of call back trials in major cities and a week long "draft camp" for clubs to look over all those that have slipped thought the net (a net with massive holes in it).

Paid for by Foxsports who film and televise it.

Run it for younger kids too.
Kids who come out of it at the top could be offered a spot in youth development programs.... Or better still, kids who previously thought that football wasn't for them might actually realise they have potential to play the game and grassroots numbers grow.... Giving a a bigger selection pool to begin with.

[Thomas477]

Well maybe the federations need to decrease their cost of registration? For example when I played for Lambton Jaffas A/A, it cost ~$220 plus uniforms, equipment and game fees each week, so average of $5 per game, 14 games, looking at close to $300. I played for a HCCF team last year it cost me $160 plus equipment for the whole season. Surely there cannot be a $140 difference in cost to run each competition between the two.

As for holes in the system, maybe we should try to fix the current system rather then making yet another system and complicating the process? Also, I thought it was the role of club scouts to find these young players?

I speak as someone outside the system without any indepth knowledge of how clubs and the elite stuff is run.

[Newieutd]

Love the idea of a draft - get the f*ck in

[GazFish35]

Well maybe the federations need to decrease their cost of registration? For example when I played for Lambton Jaffas A/A, it cost ~$220 plus uniforms, equipment and game fees each week, so average of $5 per game, 14 games, looking at close to $300. I played for a HCCF team last year it cost me $160 plus equipment for the whole season. Surely there cannot be a $140 difference in cost to run each competition between the two.

As for holes in the system, maybe we should try to fix the current system rather then making yet another system and complicating the process? Also, I thought it was the role of club scouts to find these young players?

I speak as someone outside the system without any indepth knowledge of how clubs and the elite stuff is run.

Some kids wanting to play in state league in west Sydney have Rego fees in excess of $1800. Not a typo. More than one thousand, eight hundred dollars.

And you can bet most are told, they'll never make it if they aren't playing rep football.

Thousands of kids don't play our game because it costs too much.
100's of potential quality players are missed out on.

Catching the players who can't afford or arent picked up by the elite programs is vital. Without Nike Chance it could be said that Tom Rogic could not have been found.... Good for us jets fans, not so good for socceroos fans.

[Blackmac79]

Gav's idea of a camp is worth looking at.

a traditional draft is not.

last things we need is more Jesic's, average players on extreme salaries.

[GazFish35]

I imagine a draft would also require centralized contracts?

[boz-monaut]

terrible idea

football economics are already ruined in this nation by the salary cap (though I will argue it's a necessary evil to maintain financial stability and competitiveness)

I don't think that as a sport, football lends itself to the drafting of players - and to be honest I'm not entirely sure how to express this argument, though it's to do with football being about more than athleticism, players fitting in with a team's style and vice versa, along with youth development issues that mean players are with clubs already and the overall crumminess of Poochie

[380]

The idea came from a tweet about quality players missing out through the current 'system' of talent ID and development.

The draft idea was linked to the need of setting up some kind of "Nike chance" set up that discovered Tom rogic at 18....... Not a youth development/emerging players system.

Plenty of quality miss out because they can't afford "elite" programs or are can't even afford to play organised sport, or don't develop till its 'too late'

Something needs to be done to ensure the best young kids are playing our game and not the other codes... Showing some, that missing out on the rep side at 12 doesn't mean they'll never make it, or if they are sick of being the scrawny 15yr old winger in their league team and it's not to late to try the ball at their feet, is valid.

Open trials (cheap to attend) run by the FFA for 17-22yr olds followed by a series of call back trials in major cities and a week long "draft camp" for clubs to look over all those that have slipped thought the net (a net with massive holes in it).

Paid for by Foxsports who film and televise it.

Run it for younger kids too.
Kids who come out of it at the top could be offered a spot in youth development programs.... Or better still, kids who previously thought that football wasn't for them might actually realise they have potential to play the game and grassroots numbers grow.... Giving a a bigger selection pool to begin with.

I reckon you make numerous valid points there GF.

Over the years i have seen dozens of juniors in lower divisions really shine on the park, i am talking anything from Division D and downward. These kids are only there for the simple reason of geographics and at time of club and team grading law of averages place these particular individuals down there.

Some of these kids parents and care givers are simply not aware of other opportunities or simply don't have the time or finances to chase a start at other clubs with teams playing in higher graded divisions.

There are always some diamonds in the rough and if this draft for want a of better term at the comlpletion of some sort of camps can go some way to identifying these above average kids i am all for it.

[Thomas477]

Some kids wanting to play in state league in west Sydney have Rego fees in excess of $1800. Not a typo. More than one thousand, eight hundred dollars.

And you can bet most are told, they'll never make it if they aren't playing rep football.

Thousands of kids don't play our game because it costs too much.
100's of potential quality players are missed out on.

Catching the players who can't afford or arent picked up by the elite programs is vital. Without Nike Chance it could be said that Tom Rogic could not have been found.... Good for us jets fans, not so good for socceroos fans.

Thats stupid, surely the FFA can do something about over the top registration fees. As for 100s missing out on rep teams, that will just mean 100s more will miss out. The fact is the majority of them won't make it. You can have 1,000s of kids in rep teams, but atm we can only have a maximum of 230 professional footballers in this country at the moment, plus NYL teams. That means only about 0.00001% of Australia can make it in the A-League atm. and only 0.000001% will be in a National Team at any one time.

I'm all for improving the quality of players produced in Australia, but it seems to me that the driving factor stopping kids playing the sport at all and at higher levels are registration fees, rather than lack of spots. How about instead of looking at more pathways, we just look at reducing fees, or look at getting sport fees tax reducible or some form of government hand out? That way we don't need to spend the money to introduce a new system, and we can work at improving the current system while opening the intake to those who cannot afford to play with prices at current levels.


A training camp sounds interesting, but how would you select the kids partaking? Those trials sound like a possibility, but having a price to attend will reduce the intake already. Plus for kids who don't already play, they will still need boots and shinpads etc, which places a barrier of entry into the trials to begin with.

Good debate though.

[GazFish35]

A training camp sounds interesting, but how would you select the kids partaking? Those trials sound like a possibility, but having a price to attend will reduce the intake already. Plus for kids who don't already play, they will still need boots and shinpads etc, which places a barrier of entry into the trials to begin with.

Good debate though.

Fee would be nominal. $5 to cover cost of ground hire. Blah blah.
Open trials. Cull the crap.
No boots, play in sneakers. If they're good enough to make the cut, throw them some boots.
Open doors open minds.

Agree with all your points Tom. Fees are astronomically high. Kids I teach don't play soccer because it's $300 to play in the local comp. league is less than half, afl... Is almost free.

Football needs to get into schools in a big way and use that as a way to discover unidentified talent independent of costs of elite programs.

[Thomas477]

Fee would be nominal. $5 to cover cost of ground hire. Blah blah.
Open trials. Cull the crap.
No boots, play in sneakers. If they're good enough to make the cut, throw them some boots.
Open doors open minds.
Agree with all your points Tom. Fees are astronomically high. Kids I teach don't play soccer because it's $300 to play in the local comp. league is less than half, afl... Is almost free.
Football needs to get into schools in a big way and use that as a way to discover unidentified talent independent of costs of elite programs.

First part, fair enough. Could get a clause into the national team kit to supply cheap or free boots to successful trialees.
League I think they also throw in a free pass to all NRL home games for the local team for the kid. The AFL, I'm pretty sure, basically subsidises registration costs.

What the FFA need to is also subsidise fees, on the bases that more kids playing, the more likely to go to games, meaning more merchandise and tickets sold, meaning more money back into the game so we can subsidise costs and so on.

As for schools, I will agree with you that the more football gets into schools, the more kids are likely to play especially if their mates play. Next time there is a Q&A on twitter or fan forum, someone needs to ask the governments, FFA or NNSW what they are doing to help increase participants at the younger ages, outside of spending money on advertising.

[Pico]

Football needs to get into schools in a big way and use that as a way to discover unidentified talent independent of costs of elite programs.

This for me is the key, AFL has recognised that and regularly visits schools they have entire programs planned and costed and just roll it out everywhere with full time staff dedicated to it's implementation.

As I understand it one of the main pillars of the JFA's 100 year plan, gee a plan for more then 1 season that would be nice hey FFA, includes school football programs. I remember reading about the combined school football championships over in Japan and how the J-League clubs always have a heavy scouting presence.

Personally I'd like to see the HAL teams running junior academies, but none of this Emerging jets crap where its user pays, it should be scouted and the best kids given scholarships to attend. If NNSW wants to run their own private academy then fine, but leveraging the Jets name when the club does not run the program or select the coaching staff is wrong, if the jets name is attached it should be run by the club, they should be taking the teams to sydney to compete against the best the state has to offer and it should be year round incorporating the regular season and off season futsal, not another jobs for the boys NNSW cash grab.

[militiamon]

Thats stupid, surely the FFA can do something about over the top registration fees.

Not sure if you are implying this or not, so apoligies if you're already aware of this, but the proportion of registration fees that the FFA takes is very small, something like $10. The contribution to the state federations was a bit more but still not that much, the vast majority of the fee (~90%) went to the local clubs.

The fact is that football is a very popular sport for kids and adults, what's the incentive for clubs to cut the registration fees when they can seemingly get away with it without any concerns? I agree with the comments about it being a bad thing in the long run that only a subset of the total population can participate, but it would be difficult to fix that with the way things are run at the moment.


As for the draft, stupid idea. I don't think this idea of an open trial would work anyway, how do you screen people to get into this trial in the first place? What's to stop me from rocking up and wasting people's time? Who is paying for all the costs associated with it?

[GazFish35]

What's to stop me from rocking up and wasting people's time? Who is paying for all the costs associated with it?

The beep test!

[q-money]

if I recall correctly, I believe the jets had an open goalkeeper trial once, my flatmate rocked up, his diet at the time was (and still is) five bongs at breakfast, a sausage roll and a chocolate milk and he believed that vegetables give you cancer. he had played youth for villa back home, somehow got in there

I think got to the second round

[My2BobsWorth]

if I recall correctly, I believe the jets had an open goalkeeper trial once, my flatmate rocked up, his diet at the time was (and still is) five bongs at breakfast, a sausage roll and a chocolate milk and he believed that vegetables give you cancer. he had played youth for villa back home, somehow got in there

I think got to the second round

Who the **** has a sausage roll for breakfast?

[boz-monaut]

Who the **** has a sausage roll for breakfast?

this mate of q's

used to wash it down with a chocolate milk and a few bongs - bloke thought vegetables gave you cancer

he had played youth for villa back home

[GazFish35]

Went well in an open trial with the jets too. If I remember correctly.