Expansion of the A-League

[Farthing]

It is bound to happen eventually, The A-League is due to expand and they are going to bring in more teams and hopefully kick out KFC. The first team i can think of them bringing in is North Queensland team and possibly another Melbourne team.

Plus i think they need a reserve team or something to give the people like Leo Carle and Rusty a chance to stay fit instead of just getting 1 or 2 minutes in injury time each week if they are lucky

[Rowdy]

It's "sion" NOT "tion"

Try 2 button's to the right of "Post Reply"

[Farthing]

Yea as you can tell im not the best with my spelling i will fix it up now, thanks for the tip, i thought i spelt it wrong

[Jimmydinho]

theres probably another thread based on this subject.

[jollyroger]

I am sure expansion is something that will occur over time. Your right about New Zealand, i think that unless things improve, they will get punted. They also complicate the situation with New Zealand being in a different confederation to the Australian Teams. I dont know what would happen if they qualified for the asian champions league.

North Queensland and Canberra are large population centres that will need to be catered for in time.

On a general note, I think that the one team per city format is good and should be retained for the next few years. At least until the competition becomes firmly established.

The FFA are in a very unique and fortunate position in that they have been able to wipe the slate clean and strategically establish teams in population centres around the country.

Slow and steady is the way to go with these things. More teams can lead to a thinning of the talent pool which would impact on the quality of the league.

As for reserve teams, there is no secret that major costs would be involved running such teams at national level. However i do believe they are required.

I think the answer is for national league teams to run their reserve teams in the state premier league competitions. This would enable fringe players to play each week and would probably solve the current problems associated with the restriction of 20 players per team. It would also be alot cheaper as well.

[Rowdy]

Would be unfair to the State League teams. How could they compete against the dollars of the A-League Reserve teams, the competition would be a 2 tier system and the table would reflect that.

Soccer NSW split the table last season with the top 8 teams playing each other for spots in the final four and vice versa for the lower 7 teams who battled it out for the remaining 5th spot. A-League Reserves in amongst Prem teams would make this even worse especially for the struggling Prem. teams which we were one of (CCUFC).

[omni]

What would be nice to see would be an FFA cup having all the teams playing, bring in the A-League teams at say a round of 32 or 16 it'd be good too see CCMFC V CCUFC in the final, yes I am dreaming.

[Rowdy]

Yeah we discussed this after the Charity Match back at DJ's BBQ. Similar thing as SoccerNSW's "Continental Tyres CUP".

[DJ]

It would be good to see a cup competition like that for sure!

It terms of the A-League expanding it won't happen for a while I don't think! I would say Wollongong or Canberra would get the nod next if it happens.

[Rubbernose]

daman said:

It is bound to happen eventually, The A-League is due to expand and they are going to bring in more teams and hopefully kick out KFC. The first team i can think of them bringing in is North Queensland team and possibly another Melbourne team.

I reckon the Kiwi's will be gone at the end of next season.

The thing about expansion is, as far as I know, the league is tied to only using other regional areas, for now, because they have given each city based team a 5 year guaranteed tenure as being 'one team per city'.

So you cannot put another team in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane or Perth for 5 years.

Which generally leaves you with Tassie, Canberra/Southern Tablelands, Wollongong/Illawarra, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast or far north QLD. Is there any other viable option I've forgot?

Out of those, like DJ I'd say that Wollongong and Canberra would be front-runners, in that order, probably followed by the Gold Coast.

And regards NZ, the way they are shaping up, and the fact that we are no longer even in Oceania any more; we're probably better having a freaken Indonesian team in the comp. At least they widely play football and have a population of 48 billion, even if 90% probably can't afford to buy a football ticket.

Plus i think they need a reserve team or something to give the people like Leo Carle and Rusty a chance to stay fit instead of just getting 1 or 2 minutes in injury time each week if they are lucky

Without doubt. Surely forging links with State League clubs is the answer for now, although truth be told the NSW and Vic teams would have an advantage here because those state leagues are significantly stronger than QLD, SA and WA.

Wouldn't bother me...

PS - I'm reading today's Football Fever and I dunno where they get their info from sometimes, but they said;

"Football's move into the Australia mainstream is set to gather momentum, with a major TV network hiring a PR company to research the commercial opportunities of poaching the A-League from Foxtel.

The network, not known for it'd devotion to the round-ball game, wants to capitalise on the competition's impending links with Asia and the financial spin-offs that will bring. It is even pondering the possibility of buying a controlling interest in one of the existing 8 clubs, or a new franchise if the competition is expanded."

[Rowdy]

Talking to a guy who's in TV production last night in the CCLC while watching SYD V DSaprissa. He said it was channel 9 (big fat Kerry Packer sniffing out some more moola), can't see it happening though.

Going to free at air this early would have an effect on crowds I think whereas as lot of the populus still don't/refuse to have Foxtel and forces people to go out to games if their interested in the sport.

I think it should stay with Fox ( and I don't have it) but games could be delayed by half an hour (help with crowds)instead of being live and ALL GAMES! should be televised, hell! this is not a 22 team competition. 4 games a week shouldn't be too much too ask.

[dibo (pron. "DIB-OH")]

we need to crawl before we walk. a highlights package and magazine show would be good on FTA, but the games should stay on cable. they should also ensure that there is emphasis all the time on how good it is to be at the game.

expansion is a vexed issue, particularly the issue of single licence agreements for the major cities.

look at the swans - they've viciously opposed any second entrant to the sydney AFL market because they've done the hard work to create the footprint and the regular exposure, they've done the deveopment work and they've been the ones to carry the risk. for a second team to come in and ride on the coat-tails would be galling for the swans even if it were good for the code. then look at the towelling the kangaroos took when they were trying to make the switch - instead of making a new market for themselves they actually created a new hostility that made it more difficult than before to countenance a move. the whole saga has made it practically impossible for sydney to take a second team.

does this mean a second team shouldn't happen? no, because the league should expand (at some point) so as to draw in an absolute maximum potential market and expand the season while avoiding boredom (what's that? the knights are playing here again? groan...).

there will need to be a be a very careful strategy put in place, and existing licence holders will need to be on board with the expansion, more like the razorbacks coming in to the nbl.

regional cities should be first off the rank though - canberra (imagine the matchday call: "the senators are blocking supply", or "it's gone in with a deflection, you could say that bill was amended on the way through", terrible, i know...), cairns/townsville, hobart/launceston, geelong/ballarat/bendigo/morwell (a large regional town in victoria), gold coast...
another few regional teams and a couple of big-city expansions: eastern/western melbourne and western sydney would be my two picks.

as for the knights... the licence is an exclusive and guaranteed 5 year licence. however... does this mean the licence has to stay put? can the licence move to, say, canberra? anyone who knows better than me?

[brett]

dib - their license is guaranteed and i dont know what sort of clauses are in the contracts that would allow them to be retracted (bankruptcy maybe!) BUT with them there is a loophole, because of their location outside of our confederation, wher the FFA must get special permission to keep them in the comp from FIFA. if we dont ask for the permission, then they simply cant play in the a-league according to fifa laws.

this is all (probably bodgy) second hand info though. who knows what new dramas world football will bring us.

[Ursus]

Next team in will be North Qld. Then one from the "city" of Parramatta, Penrith or Cambletown. ;D

[Rubbernose]

ursus said:

Next team in will be North Qld. Then one from the "city" of Parramatta, Penrith or Cambletown. ;D

Ahh, a loophole.

[Rowdy]

NZ KFC probably liken it more to a "noose"

[shelleybeach]

i wonder if the Knights franchise can be moved? e.g Wollongong Knights.

i think Canberra and Wollongong would be favourites but hopefully they will let the current comp gain a firm footing 1st - i would love too see a cup competition with state league sides in it, even better would be teams even lower like the FA cup though it'd never happen

[dibo (pron. "DIB-OH")]

a cup would be awesome. another thing would be to establish an Australia A side (a bit like the cricket team, or the England A football team) to go on tours and give a) development for up and comers to give them international experience and training in the 'national system' (i really hope we start to develop a national system of play), and b) the tour can be something to keep people focussed on australian football in the lay-off period after the a-league season finishes.

consider - after the grand final the a-league teams' best players are selected in the 'a' team to go tour somewhere nearby, perhaps have some home and away fixtures and basically just get some big(-gish) match experience and so on under the belt while hopefully making a little money for the FFA.

oh, and the knights should move to canberra.

[Farthing]

Yea I agree, haveing an Australian A team will give the A-League players alot more experience on the big levels. Considering there are quite a few players that will have alot of trouble getting in the Socceroos side with the number of high profile players in the line up and the more they play on the higer levels the more chances they will have of being called up into the Socceroos.

If they do move the Knights 'Franchise' It will end up too much like American sports where they move teams all the time, if we want to give Canberra a team give them a new name, they wouldnt want to be called the Knights after the bad name New Zealand have given them. Plus the Wollongong team will most probally be The Wolves again becasue they were so sucessful back in the NSL and i saw give Townsville a team, they wouldnt do too bad and they will probally give melbourne a 2nd team that they dont need and nobody would support them.

[omni]

Someone on Sydney's forum speculated that Canberra will be puttitng in a bid in 2008.