It’s that time of year again; where A-League teams Australia-wide start to talk about the possibility of making the finals, or even hosting one in their own backyard. Even the teams lingering at the bottom of the table start telling their supporters they can “still make the finals” – and why wouldn’t they? After all, a six-from-ten finals series means that even teams that struggle to put two wins together can entertain the thought of post-season action.

Of course, there is reasoning behind the current finals format; on one hand, it keeps more fans interested in the league due to the fact their side is still in it; even if they were mid-table strugglers during the normal season. The second part to it is the fact that the FFA makes money on finals matches – and mo’ games in mo’ cities means mo’ money for the governing body. But surely there is a better way of doing this than keeping a laughable system that rewards even the most mediocre of football teams?

Option One: No Finals Are Good Finals

This option is of course one for the so-called ‘football purist’ (read: a fan of the European big four). The logic behind it is that ‘real’ football leagues don’t have a post-season playoffs system – they instead have a proper schedule of games that forms one continuous season. So perhaps instead of having these extra finals games, we should have A-League teams play each other four times – or, like Scotland and Northern Ireland, have the league split in half at the end of the ‘regular’ season so that only the top five can hope to make the ACL in some capacity – the slots being awarded to first, second, and third.

The problem with this approach from the FFA’s perspective is that they’re not making money from hyped-up finals games. In addition, it goes against pretty much every other Australian sporting code in the sense that there is no post-season action. Then there’s the fact that this sort of thing was trialled in the NSL to little success. Finally, I want to pour water on the idea that ‘real’ football leagues don’t do post-seasons; the npower Football League has playoffs across all divisions, they just do it for promotion – something which is obviously not relevant to us in Australia. In South America, the winners of the Apertura and Closura often fight it out at the end of the season in a Grand Final of sorts to decide the season’s champion. Finally you have the crazy playoffs of a league like Belgium’s top tier – a top six who play each other for the right to be champion and/or qualify for European football, another playoff for the teams at the bottom against the best teams from the division below, and yet another set of teams who fight it out for a single European place against the loser of the top six playoff! Post-season comps are therefore nothing new for football fans, and not having one simply so we can fit in with the EPL and La Liga seems a bit odd.

Option Two: The A-League Cup

So if we go back to the idea of the FFA desiring post-season games, and Australia generally expecting them, why not open it up to every team? After all, it makes little sense to say that the team in 6th can take part in the finals, but someone three places below them cannot. To do this, we can introduce the concept of the A-League Cup; a post-season competition with a separate trophy, bridging the gap whilst we all wait for the FFA to decide what is going to happen with an Australia-wide cup competition. The winner would earn a spot in the ACL, or the losing finalist would do so if the winner has already earned entry through the league.

It would work like so; teams finishing 7th through 10th would enter at the first round, with the winners progressing to the second round. Here, essentially the quarterfinal stage, the competition proceeds as per any other knockout cup. You could treat it as an entirely separate competition, in which case home/away teams are decided by a draw, or you could make final league position count for something by ensuring that first plays the lowest ranked team – or that higher ranked teams always play at home. Whatever format the competition runs with, it ensures that fans still have something to look forward to at season’s end. One of the problems with the A-League at present is that if your team is adrift in ninth place and pretty much out of finals contention with five weeks to go, there’s really nothing to play for except pride (and in many case, that doesn’t seem to be enough). There isn’t any threat of relegation, so teams just go through the motions and fans become jaded. Such a scenario would not exist with the A-League Cup.

There are losers to this arrangement, though. It would be a very greedy move for the FFA to ask all A-League Cup takings to go to its coffers – it is no longer a case of just a few finals matches, but an entire competition. Then we must consider the teams who finish in third and fourth; apart from a free pass into the quarterfinals, what have these teams earned? First and second have won the league and/or a spot in the ACL, but third is simply first of the losers. Is this a bad thing, or should we accept the fact that third isn’t good enough to receive any particular prize?

Option Three: A Five-Game Finals Series

So let’s say that we do want to reward third and fourth somehow, but we still don’t wish to provide any joy to fifth and sixth – after all, there’s a good likelihood that those teams have lost just as many as they’ve won. The solution here is to keep the A-League finals series, but reduce it to four teams, and play each semi-final over two legs to keep the FFA’s coffers nice and full. So first play fourth, second play third, and the winners on aggregate then take part in the cut-throat Grand Final for an ACL spot. The winner would go on to take the third ACL place, assuming they hadn’t already finished first or second in the league.

The key advantage here is we stop rewarding mediocrity without sacrificing much in the way of gate takings for the league. Additionally, we introduce a measure of fairness for all teams participating, putting the ties across two legs to give both teams a chance to use their home advantage. In turn, this also increases the importance of these matches – they are a bigger occasion, something to really be proud of making instead of saying, “Yes! We finished sixth and got knocked out of the finals very comprehensively!” The losers are of course fifth and sixth place (but then again, isn’t that what we’re after?) and we essentially increase the number of teams who have a meaningless end to the season. Still, isn’t this the best time for these clubs to be blooding youth and having a look at their next generation of players?

It seems every year we discuss possible improvements to the finals series, but then sit back and enjoy a good spell of post-season games – culminating last year in the epic showdown between Brisbane Roar and Central Coast Mariners. It’s clear that Australians like the intrigue and thrill of a finals system; be it cricket, basketball, AFL, the old NSL or the new A-League. But the same criticisms that were levelled at the AFL’s finals system in the mid-90s onwards (8 from 15, 8 from 16) can be aimed at the A-League finals today. The AFL eventually responded to this in their own way, by increasing the number of teams; the A-League may not have the same luxury just yet. Perhaps then it’s time to change the format; maybe bring in a post-season cup competition instead to help align us with other Asian countries.

More than anything else, I want the league to make it clear to teams that ‘making the finals’ should not be an acceptable aim if this means midtable mediocrity. A team like Perth Glory or Melbourne Victory should not be able to claim they’ve had a good year if they make the finals after losing more than they’ve won in a supposedly even salary-capped league. No matter what finals format we choose, we should be encouraging teams to aim high; not rewarding their mediocre returns.