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A League of Our Own.....Possible even Down Under

canadianfoot

By canadianfoot
in Canadian Teams & Leagues

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canadianfoot Newbie

canadianfoot

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Yesterday I was watching GolTV and they were showing highlights of the Australian "Hyundai A-League" Interestingly enough when you look at both countries there are quite a bit of similarities. Big Countries with a small population. Most of it along the south border or along the coast, etc. Anyhow if Australia was able to make a league with 8spots in it so can we.

http://www.a-league.com.au/

And here is a bit of History:

August 26, 2005 marked a significant day in Australian football history, when the first match of the inaugural Hyundai A-League season kicked off in Newcastle. After almost two years in the making, Australia’s latest national competition hit the sporting landscape as well as the hearts and minds of the Australian sporting public.

When new Football Federation Australia (or Australian Soccer Association as it was called then) Chairman Mr Frank Lowy announced in October 2003 that a task force would be formed, the seeds towards a new national competition were effectively sown.

The National Soccer League (NSL) may have been the first all-Australian football competition to grace these shores when it started in 1977, but it was plainly obvious that it needed a major overhaul.

Using the governments Crawford Report into the sport as its base, Mr Lowy, one of the pioneers of the NSL competition, called together the Task Force, headed by former Sydney City Chairman Andrew Kemeny, to consider a range of issues, including the structure, its name, criteria for participating clubs, competition season (summer/winter) and a timeframe for implementation.

In December 2003, the NSL Task Force Report was handed to the board and released publicly and so began the process if finalising the framework for the new national competition.

After four months of planning, the framework for the new national competition was finally revealed by Mr Lowy and the then newly appointed FFA CEO Mr John O’Neill and at the same time expressions of interest were called for. Eight teams would be part of this new national competition, with one team from the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Newcastle, plus a New Zealand team and one from the remaining expressions of interest. The competition start date was set at August 2005.

By June of 2004, 20 submissions had been received and a month later 12 consortiums sent in their final bids for the eight spots. Three bids were received from Melbourne, two each from Sydney and Brisbane, one from each of the remaining preferred cities, plus a bid from the Central Coast of NSW.

Over the next three months, each bid was carefully reviewed and on the 1st November 2004, the eight successful bidders and the major sponsor were revealed, for what would be known as the Hyundai A-League.

The eight successful franchises were: Adelaide United, Central Coast Mariners, Melbourne Victory, Newcastle Jets, New Zealand Knights, Perth Glory, Queensland Roar and Sydney FC.

With Fox Sport already signed on as the official broadcaster, the Hyundai A-League had already achieved many objectives it’s predecessor had failed to do in its dying years.

However the hard work was only just beginning for the clubs and the FFA, as they only had nine months to get everything together in preparation for the anticipated August start in 2005.

Honour of the first player signing went to former Wollongong Wolves striker Stuart Young, who signed with Perth Glory and from then on the player signings came at steady rate.

While some critics believed that the Hyundai A-League would fail to attract players and coaches from overseas because of the stringent criteria placed on clubs, this clearly did not materialise.

A host of big names were linked with the new competition and with a number of high profile Qantas Socceroos returning from overseas and some 18 overseas imports also calling Australia and New Zealand home, the credibility of the competition was ensured.

Topping the list of high profiles recruits was former Manchester United striker Dwight Yorke and his presence always ensured the Hyundai A-League was in the spotlight. On the coaching front, former German World Cup star Pierre Littbarski was hired as Sydney FC coach and former England international Steve McMahon was anointed at Perth Glory.

Australian players to give the new league a big vote of confidence were former and current Australian international players including Ned Zelic, Kevin Muscat, Archie Thompson, David Zdrilic, Steve Corica, Alex Brosque and Richard Johnson.

The inaugural season proved an outstanding success, capped off by a capacity crowd on hand to witness the Grand Final in Sydney, won by Sydney FC 1-0 over a gallant Central Coast Mariners.

Crowds exceeded expectations with over one million fans going through the turnstiles during the season at an average of 11,627 per game.

Such was the success of the inaugural season, broadcast partner Fox Sports was quick to negotiate a new revised 7-year-deal, which has gone a long way to providing financial stability for the competition and in particular the clubs.

Coupled with the success of the Qantas Socceroos at the 2006 World Cup finals, where they reached the second round, before bowing out to eventual champions Italy, the profile of the sport has never been higher, with the future looking extremely healthy for Hyundai A-League in the many years to come.

If we can Overhaul the CSA just like the Socceroos did that would be great. We could have 8 spots as well:

- Vancouver

- Calgary

- Toronto

- Ottawa

- Montreal

- Halifax

Maybe:

- Edmonton

- Regina

- Winnipeg

- Quebec City

- St. John's[?]

Just though maybe that can be my Christmas wish............[8)]

PS: WIKI has a great amount of info on the A-League we just need to mould it for us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-League

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SthMelbRed Veteran

SthMelbRed

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It may seem that Australia and Canada have a lot of the same geographical roadblocks to a national competition, but in reality it isn't true. Taking away Perth, the six other Australian clubs in the A-league have a maximum travelling distance less than that of Vancouver to Regina. That's pretty much the whole league in about the distance a Vancouver team would have to travel to get to its nearest competition. Also, Melbourne gets over 30,000 fans to its home games and over fifty when it's a really big game. No club in Canada could match those figures. Some of the other clubs do play in small, Swangardesque stadiums, though. The playing standard of the A-league is far below MLS. Fred was easily the best player in the A-league in 2006. He moved to DC United after that where he only managed seven goals in 26 games last season. The sporting culture is also very different in Australia. Aussies flock in numbers close to how many Canada draws for hockey for any sporting event going. Canada will never average 11,000 fans league wide for a national competition. While I support any initiative that's going to improve Canada's chances of qualifying for World Cups, I don't a national league is feasible. I have made my position clear in different threads, so I won't post it again. However, I would like to stress that comparing the Canadian situation directly with the Australian one is fraught with danger.

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ted Mentor

ted

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quote:Originally posted by TridentBut Australia isn't next to an amazing league with better quality in a country with a lot of media power.

Which also happens to have one existing and two potential teams in Canada already.

No offence meant orletafc but this topic has been done to death (including several years worth of analysis of the Australian league). If you really want to read all about it search "MLS" or "new CSL" and you can spend the next few days going over all the back and forth. :)

BTW, didn't we create an FAQ-style answer to this sort of topic?

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Macksam Mentor

Macksam

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quote:Originally posted by Trident

Not if it was against Quebec, Calgary, Hali of any small cities, maybe Montreal, maybe Vancouver.

Yes they would. It doesn't matter who they play, it will be a sellout. Nobobdy over here gets excited over who we play. We get excited because we play.

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SthMelbRed Veteran

SthMelbRed

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quote:Originally posted by Macksam

Toronto would draw better than Melbourne.

The fact that Toronto has supported TFC well for one year notwithstanding, there is no way Toronto would consistently draw better crowds than Melbourne. Melbourne draws crowds between 60,000-100,000 for Australia matches (even friendlies). How many did Toronto draw for the Costa Rica game? Even with a population well under half of that of the GTA, Melbourne's history shows it to be light years ahead of Toronto when it comes to supporting soccer.

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