THIS week, Perth Glory FC achieved a remarkable feat in attracting two English Premier League teams to play in Perth in the space of one week.
It's not the first time that an overseas team has graced the home turf of an Australian club- and it's not even the first time that an English top division side has visited Perth. But it is the first time that any club in the modern national competition has tracked down and locked in two top-class overseas clubs to play in the one period.
The money and business nous involved can't be underestimated, and this author tips his hat to Messrs. Sage and Giuliani who have somehow been able to pull it off. The last big-name international team to tour WA was the Italian side Sampdoria back in 1996.
Prior to that, WA representative teams had the pleasure of entertaining clubs like West Ham and Nottingham Forest now and then, but you wouldn't have dared imagine pulling two top sides within the one week. But as Perth gears up for a July 15 footballing smorgasbord featuring North Queensland v Wolverhampton and Perth v Fulham, it's just a pity that in the words of Glory owner Tony Sage, Glory's home ground of Members Equity Stadium is "embarrassing".
Politics and Sport
Back in 2004, the then state government promised the rugby and football communities of Western Australia an upgraded Members Equity Stadium, the ground born out of the old Perth Oval, home of Perth Glory during the National Soccer League.
Funnily enough, as all political parties are wont to do, this promise wasn't fulfilled - even in a time of great economic success for the state (where did all that boom money go, anyway? Beer and hookers?) Somewhere along the line, plans for the MES upgrade were shelved and the people of Perth were promised a new $1 billion "multi-purpose" stadium.
I use quotes here because it was an AFL ground first and foremost - oval in design, with an increased capacity of only 15,000 or so over the existing Subiaco Oval for the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers to get more money from memberships and walk-up sales.
Never mind the fact that the Western Force, WA's rugby union team, get less than 30,000 people to a 45,000-seater stadium already. Or that Perth Glory only got 15,000 on their best days in the NSL. Or that the Western Reds, WA's old rugby league team, struggled to get any decent crowds at all.
Indeed, forget that the chief concern of WA football and rugby fans is that you can't watch a code with a rectangular field at an oval stadium such as Subiaco or the proposed multi-purpose ground. When plans for the stadium were scrapped under WA's current state government, even some AFL fans expressed relief - they viewed upgrading Subiaco's capacity bit-by-bit as a cheaper, if not better, option than building a whole new stadium and waiting for its completion.
Fast forward to the past fortnight or so, and the ugly stench of politics has again descended on the WA sporting landscape. Fuelled by the frustrations of its dwindling membership base, the Western Force issued an ultimatum to the state government - upgrade MES to a standard acceptable to the Super 14 Rugby competition, or risk losing the Force to a mountain of debt.
Indeed, talk among the common man in Perth is that the Force would sooner relocate to Victoria and Melbourne's new world-class rectangular stadium than die a sorry financial death in the west. In a rare show of sporting solidarity, WA Rugby League and Perth Glory FC joined the call for an upgraded rectangular stadium.
As part of the argument, Tony Sage revealed Glory lost a whopping $20,000 for every home game they hosted at MES just in bringing the facilities up to A-League standard. What an insane situation - a team which pays more than any other club when travelling to away games also haemorrhages cash at home each week!
Then, in a move which smacks of modern day AFL paranoia - one of the very things which drove your author away from the national league - AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou told a press conference he believed that Subiaco Oval was in desperate need of an upgrade.
He called the facility one of the worst in Australia, and went on to make the incredible claim that the current format of "Subi" was stifling the growth of AFL in Australia. That's right - forget the misadventures and substance abuse of some of the game's leading stars, or the failed attempt at moving North Melbourne to the Gold Coast or Canberra, it's a 45,000-seat stadium in the most isolated city in the world which is damaging the AFL's brand name across the land!
Happily, at least the sudden tightening of belts in WA's state parliament has the pendulum swinging football's way. Perhaps they've been reading the Glory's fan forums- as one poster put it, "$75 million for an upgrade for three football codes... with the likelihood of international games and thus international exposure, compared to $1 billion for a single code with no international games... Hmm, I wonder which option looks better".
Frankly, I couldn't have put it better myself.
As a side note, one of the best examples of politics in sport occurred in New South Wales during the "soccer wars" of the late fifties and early sixties. This was a battle between the New South Wales Soccer Association - the incumbent body in charge of ruling football in NSW, and the Federation of New South Wales Soccer Clubs - a newer body formed by representatives of "ethnic" clubs who felt (quite rightly) that the Association was discriminating against "New Australians" and preventing migrant-backed clubs from progressing to the top division of NSW football - even when they won promotion fair and square.
During this time, Australia was actually thrown out of FIFA for its ramshackle politics and failure to adhere to international transfer laws. On this occasion, the migrant-friendly Federation eventually won out and Australian football was all the better for it.
Of course, in time the very ethnicity that was celebrated in the Federation's founding would become synonymous (rightly or wrongly) with corruption and politics within the sport, and the wheel would come first circle to the dissolution of Soccer Australia and the formation of the non-ethnic based A-League. That said, at least nowadays Australians with "foreign" names aren't barred from playing for NSW (and no, I'm not making that bit up).
Burns, baby, Burns...
Politics and embarrassing stadiums aside, there were other things in Monday's press conference to make Glory fans feel like the club was getting back on the right track. To begin with, there was a $500,000 sponsorship deal with "green" equity market Financial and Energy Exchange.
Then of course there was the 3-year deal handed to Socceroo midfielder Jacob Burns. The former Leeds United, Barnsley, and Wisla Krakow player had been playing for Romanian side Unirea Urzicieni before deciding his future was in Perth.
Burns, a 31-year old central midfielder, last played for the national side in the 4-0 win over Qatar in a World Cup qualifier in Brisbane last year. He is apparently thought of very highly by national coach Pim Verbeek, who had earlier praised his performance alongside Carl Valeri in midfield during the 1-0 away win in Uzbekistan.
Glory fans may also remember Burns from his days with Sydney United and Parramatta Power in the NSL. With Burns on board, Perth's midfield is starting to look quite strong- a midfield four of Pellegrino, Srhoj, Burns, and Sikora is essentially a starting lineup, with possible cover drawn from Downey, Jukic, Neville, Fondyke, and a host of youth team talent. When you combine that with the fact that David Mitchell is still looking for a marquee attacker, it's really only the defence that needs a lot of strengthening.
With the release of Nikolai Topor-Stanley, Hayden Foxe, and David Tarka, Glory's defensive depth will be tested - even if the defensive contributions of the above three players last year could be debated. Brent Griffiths seems a likely lad, having spent time at youth academies in England, but he's a long-term prospect and Glory need someone to partner Jamie Harnwell now.
Personally, this author would love to see local lad Chris Coyne playing in Glory colours, but in the end that all comes down to money and the attitude of his English club. Defending the right flank will be either Jamie Coyne or Scott Neville - and you'd imagine the talented Neville would push Coyne very hard for a place in the starting lineup each and every week.
You also have young Hayden Doyle and youth team player Dean Evans waiting in the wings should the need arise, as well as speedster Jimmy Downey - although yours truly believes he's far better suited to a right wing position or say, track and field sprints.
However, the left side of Perth's defence still looks weak. Even if striker-cum-winger-cum-defender Naum Sekulovski performs like a true left back should, an injury would expose a near-total lack of cover within the squad, bar perhaps Dean Evans in the youth team or another defender played out of position.
Now that Glory have a fairly solid midfield, the recruiting priorities (in my humble opinion) should look something like this:
1. Quality centre back
2. Quick, or quality, striker
3. Proper left back
4. Creative attacking midfielder
The above comes with the assumption that any marquee or guest player won't be a defender - although if you offered me Paolo Maldini I'd hardly turn him down.
All in all, this week has been a bit of a blast from the past for Glory fans - stadium politics, former NSL players returning, and club announcements unlike anything fans have seen since the club's heyday in the NSL.
With any luck, Colin Barnett might bow to pressure from some Liberal-voting corporate heavyweights behind the Force, WA will finally have a stadium to be proud of, and Glory will be able to run out onto its surface with the best team they've had in years...
Well, one can dream, anyway...
