Isn't alliteration fun? Or perhaps that should be illiteracy, after my journey through the hordes of comments on the FFA's recent closure of North Queensland Fury on websites around Australia. For a club, or rather franchise - more on that later - that was supposedly dropped for not being popular enough with financial backers and the everyday punter, its eventual fate certainly generated enough popular comment!

Amidst comments worthy of a place on the finest of Today Tonight and A Current Affair segments, two schools of argument formed amongst those people coherent enough to not be arguing Wogball v GAY.F.L on PerthNow comments pages. They are, in no particular order of importance:

  • That the FFA is responsible for the failure of North Queensland Fury FC and as such, heads should roll in the national HQ, or
  • That the fans are responsible for the failure of North Queensland Fury FC, and as such heads should be hung in lounge rooms across Townsville and the whole of Australia. You didn't support your sport - you bad, bad people.

No Winners
In this blogger's eyes, there are no winners in this situation. Fury fans - those dedicated, beer-swilling, seemingly-constantly-wet-through-monsoon-or-sweat denizens of the north - have been slurred through the suggestion that they simply haven't been good enough supporters or promoters of the sport. The FFA has been battered from pillar to post and its image, or specifically that of Ben Buckley and Frank Lowy, has taken a battering amongst commentators and the general public. Even everyday neutral fans such as myself have been dragged into the fight, as people claim we don't do enough for our sport and that its failure sits squarely on our backs.

The thing is though, as I see it, the promoting and maintaining the health of football is a two-way street. Yes, we fans certainly have a part to play and those of us who consider ourselves hardcore - through constant attendance rather than tough guy bravado on matchday - would be remiss to not promote the game, whether it be through blogging, tifo, or bringing along mates to the matchday experience.

But there's another element here, too. For the convert to bring a new member to the church of football, the church has to offer something in the first place. Now that could be the group of likeminded people from a similar background; the basis for many churches or mosques in migrant-populated areas, or the presence of rehabilitated drug addicts who choose to share their experiences in your own fight against addiction. It could be the sheer impressiveness of the church itself - people are more likely to be awestruck by Gaudi's Sagrada Família or the Notre Dame than they are the decaying community centre down the road. Or it could even be the simple feeling of humble welcome and friendliness that makes returning the next week a desirable option.

There are many possible roads to travel in this respect. Unfortunately, the FFA is seemingly uncertain as to which path it wishes to tread. Promotion, marketing and PR have never been the governing body's strong suit - and this is something that needs to be urgently addressed and a uniform approach decided upon. A quick look at youtube packages put together in 30 minutes by 16 year olds in their bedrooms shows that, if you wished to take that path (and I'm not for a second suggesting it's the best one) you could make the A-League seem equivalent to the EPL in terms of excitement and action simply by splicing highlights of Rojas, Flores, Pellegrino, Terra, and Kruse goals together. It really isn't that difficult.

Likewise, we saw this season that a Fan Made advertising concept can be successful at producing clever and funny adverts; a kooky but effective way of attracting attention to the league. Unfortunately, the problem with both these approaches - the latter was exposed in damning style this year - is that they don't necessarily reflect reality, and false advertising is a big no-no when it comes to winning back customers. When the inevitable backlash arises, it requires a hell of a lot of PR to get things right again - and I'd say those in the FFA offices in New South Wales are currently acutely aware that sometimes even that isn't enough.

Football Clubs, Not Franchises
If that heading sounds familiar, it's because back in September 2009 I was saying that the franchise model simply didn't look like being a long-term winner. Like the 'plastic' term used by so-called bitters of the old clubs, the new entities created for the A-League have a synthetic feel, a sense of temporary presence, of being a fleeting moment rather than a long-term project. Why shouldn't they? They were, after all, in the majority of cases rushed into history to plug a gap left by several previous clubs, and now we also have two ex-teams in the league's short history, along with others that are hardly in rude financial health.

Back then, I spoke of the fact that these franchises had no identity of their own - they were restricted in what image they could build and market, perhaps due to a fear of 'effnikisation', perhaps due to the fear of mismanagement and runaway costs. The fears may very well have been valid, but the side-effect was that there has been minimal movement away from 'cyan team from Sydney', 'Melbourne Blue', 'Melbourne Red', etc.

Many would argue that there has been some differentiation between franchises as of late, and to an extent they would be right. But the identities being built are hardly always wanted or positive - while it is easy to form images of 'Boring, Boring, Glory', 'Ernie's Violent Victory', and 'Bling GCU' they are not something that will attract the local populace. In the Gold Coast's case, the "1 Rich Owner, 0 Fans" stereotype has simply served to hide the fact that they have the most successful youth team in Australia! Of all teams this year, only 'Roarcelona' (part myth, part truth) and 'The Little Team That Could' over at Central Coast could be associated as positive images to have and build.

Indeed, one used to be able to hold up Perth Glory as an example of how to build, market, and maintain a football club - the idea that everything was about entertainment for the average punter, even if the action on the pitch didn't always provide. A heaving mass of people in the old shed, Santa jumping out of a plane trailing coloured smoke through the sky, fireworks and dancers, and a giant purple gorilla chasing people on hovercrafts across the pitch at half-time. Nowadays though, we have to pay $500,000 for a couple of blokes to tell us what fans have been screaming about since Nick Tana left five years ago.

Hell, you could probably collate my past two years of blogs and it would pretty much make up over 50% of the Hatt and Charlesworth report, at zero cost. The only difference is the letters on the end of my degree - I guess 'BCompSci, Hons.' isn't as compelling as 'Sports Management' or 'Business Smarts'? That's no offence to either reporter, they've just done their job - but for at least half the findings Perth have paid through the nose to be told the bleeding obvious.

While the impending switch to individual suppliers for team kits will go some way towards establishing an identity in the eyes of fans, some things remain unchanged. Picking up a home-grown fanzine is still your best bet of local news, trivia, and comment - rather than paying for a mass-produced magazine of dubious local value (especially out west, where what's happening 'down the road' in Newcastle isn't really of much interest unless we're playing them). Club websites and online communication also continue along in the same centrally-controlled, templated manner that we've always had. Change the colours, a few headings, and bam - you've got a ready-made site for the next new sprout of the FFA Franchise tree.

Now frankly, you could cite the Indian Premier League or the NBA as saying that franchise system can work - and hell, you'd be right, it can! Why else would names like Chicago Bulls, LA Lakers, and Chennai Super Kings be etched into history's pages of fame and success? The thing is though, if you want to take the glitzy and glamorous path of franchising - where 'clubs' can be rebranded, moved, and all sorts - you actually need to back that up with some serious glitz and glamour. Celebrities, marquee players, circus clowns - you need to throw money at that baby in an effort to bridge the gap that exists because the Charlotte-cum-New Orleans-cum-Oklahoma City-cum-New Orleans again Hornets didn't always have a religious-like local following passed from father to son since 1887 like say, Blackpool FC in England. But we know it can work. The question is, is the FFA in a position to throw that money, to create that glitz and glamour, in an environment where we have a pessimistic media and several bigger sports to contend with?

Gathering the Flock
If the answer is no, then perhaps we need to look again at the church metaphor I mentioned earlier. We know there is a huge potential for football in this country - participation rates are massive, we have all sorts of age groups involved, and there are players of both sexes who represent their clubs, states, and country with pride. But we also know that a lot of these people who play soccer don't necessarily come to watch it. If they did, our stadiums would collapse under their sheer weight. So, if you like, there are a lot of religious people out there - they just don't necessarily come to the Second Coming Church Of The A-League.

There's a variety of reasons why this is, even amongst my own circle of friends. Some have never been interested in it in their life, and haven't given it a shot outside a game of FIFA. Others have been along for a game or two but haven't really got value for money for their $30 (more when you bring food and drink into account). Others still used to be fervent converts, but gradually lost the passion when their chosen church became less and less entertaining, less and less engaged with its parishioners.

To get them back, we've got to make the church the place to go once more. And I'm not talking about in that horrible, tacky, let's-add-a-band-now-we're-really-hip afterthought sort of way. I mean we need to build this game to be something that people genuinely want to come and be a part of. For small communities around the country, this is and always has been the case - I'd say there are football clubs in this country that have existed for decades without too much trouble simply on the backs of volunteers, friends, and family. Now we want to be a bit more ambitious - we want to build something on a larger scale, something that was for a fleeting moment achieved in the west of the country at the turn of the millennium.

This isn't a stab at the FFA. It's not a call to reform the NSL. It is just a simple statement of the facts as I see them; the fact that between all the financial troubles and worries about crowd numbers, this league isn't really a glitzy and glam franchise system, nor is it a competition with a rich history and community following to call upon. It is somewhere in the middle, in a nowhere land with a confused future, if only because it has precious few assets and many, many costs. It is not something that is going to be attractive to anyone apart from us - those already converted and flocking faithfully through the gates each week. (Virtually, in some cases...)

But this doesn't have to be the case; we can build something here in the A-League that can make a big mark on the Australian sporting landscape. We just need to acknowledge that we can't force a person to come to something that doesn't interest them - we just need to work on making it more interesting. Part of that can come down to you and me, the people who already go to these games - but the big work needs to be done by the people who can make the big changes; and that's the Archbishop Lowy and Cardinal Buckley, and the clubs themselves once some of the tighter FFA shackles have been lifted.

Start youth academies to bring kids and families into the fold of A-League clubs. Stop this subconscious playing off of 'the bad past vs the awesome now' and embrace our footballing history. Build constructive relationships with state league (and perhaps more importantly, junior) clubs. Recognise that criticism doesn't always mean you're doing a bad job - just that you could be doing it better. Form links with schools and universities and their associated sporting arms. Work out a price point that suits the product that you're putting out off and on the pitch. Recognise that a quiet (or not so quiet) beer at a bar in the company of your fellow supporters makes your day that much better; and that many football clubs around the world (and country) gain benefit from owning one. If you're expecting everyone to be a football aficionado who only wants to see great passing, don't - remember that things are just as much about entertainment and experience as they are about the game itself.

There are so many more ideas to contribute; and I'm sure readers of this blog will be able to contribute their own. In the end, it doesn't matter. The point is that if you make a place welcoming, friendly, and entertaining enough - all in all a good time out hopefully with a real sense of community- you don't need to worry about fundamentalist evangelism to drag them there in the first place (and scare them off forever after).

Only once the faithful - and more importantly, the high priests themselves - of this sport recognise this will we be able to gather the flock that leads us into a brighter future.