I see it on my Facebook and Twitter feeds; I see it on football forums. The feeling of disappointment and emptiness; that despairing cry; the moan of the footballing masses – “The A-League season is finished! Whatever shall we do?"

Ladies and gentlemen, please. We have an abundance of footballing riches at our disposal over the next few short months; some of it abroad, some of it right on our doorstep. Allow me to demonstrate.

European Championships, 2012 Edition
Did you purchase your June edition of FourFourTwo? No? Shame on you. Not only did you miss out on Australia's #1 football magazine, but you also missed a free guide to Euro 2012. Which possibly means that you're not up to speed on exactly how awesome this tournament could be. For the entire month of June, Europe's top nations will be clashing at a ridiculous hour of the morning to decide who, if anyone, can knock Spain off their pedestal. Apart from the obvious young, skillful, and very hungry German side, teams such as Holland and France will fancy their chances at taking the fight to the reigning World Cup and European champions.

Then there are the many subplots that come with this major tournament - how will hosts Poland and Ukraine fare, both on and off the pitch? What about the pretenders to the throne - England (enough said), Portugal (who struggled through the qualifiers) and Italy (who might slip the ref a cheeky tenner). Then there's the dark horses; teams like Croatia, Denmark, or the ageing Russians who can all spring a major surprise on their day. It is a tournament that promises much - and I fully expect it to deliver. It’s a pity that SBS only have a few of the games on, but then again I’m sure there are plenty of social clubs and pubs across the country ready to accommodate people at stupid o’clock to watch some football.

Open Season in the A-League Marketplace
The games might be finished, but right now the fun is just beginning in the world of Australian football. Off-contract players are hunting for a new club, agents are wheeling and dealing wherever they can, and we have an entire new franchise that is in need of twenty-something players (and incidentally, what’s happened to that new team? It seems to be all quiet on the Western front…) Transfer season is always full of juicy rumours and entertaining speculation – out west, Perth seem to have done their business in a quick and orderly manner this year, with perhaps just one or two signings left to go. Of course that doesn’t stop the speculation as to who those signings may be – the Ivan Ergic rumour was doing the rounds last year, whilst right now there seems to be a lot of talk around Richard Garcia.

We’ll also be watching with interest the lists of other A-League sides – because clearly the Glory are now the second best team in the country, us West Aussies are eager to see just what other clubs will be doing to try and catch up with the new standards we’re setting. Admittedly, the thought has also crossed my mind that Gold Coast United have essentially become our feeder club (Smeltz, Thwaite, Bas, Harold, Pantelidis) so if anyone on the Gold Coast is reading this, thanks for the players – you can buy your new season Glory apparel from www.perthglory.com.au and flights to your new home ground are going from about $600 return.

Australian Premier Drama
But the rumour mill doesn’t stop with player signings – oh no. It seems every FIFA player and Football Manager data editor’s dream is coming true with talk of a second division for Australian football. Although I can never see promotion and relegation working in Australia, I like the idea of a reorganisation of the state leagues into an ‘Australian Premier League’ set of regional divisions. The ability to have consistent rules across the state leagues, limit the level of wages that players can be paid, and ensure the long-term viability of a lot of existing clubs are all strong arguments for this reorganisation. Getting rid of a lot of the politics that exists at a state administrative level would be fantastic, too.

Unfortunately, what I fear is that the people in charge of this attempt don’t quite have a clear idea of what they are doing – word from Queensland is that the FFA representatives at the various meetings didn’t really have much of an idea about how the proposed competition would work; and over in WA there seems to only be the news that ‘the FFA have contacted us about this, but we need to see what it means’. As a result, insecurities and fears have appeared among existing clubs about how they would fit into any new model – and what sort of constraints the FFA, in conjunction with state bodies, would put in place which might prevent clubs from joining the competition. I’ve said before that football needs to be careful about how it goes forward – and I would hate to see existing clubs being excluded from these new competitions without very good reasons (and no, ‘they have the word Italia in their name’ is not a good reason). It is early days of course, so there’s time to refine the model somewhat – and I hope that we choose to get it right first, rather than rush to fix problems with a half-baked solution.

Want Relegation and Promotion? Here it is.
In the meantime, those very state league teams considering the prospect of a competition rebrand are in the thick of their own domestic seasons. Every weekend football is being played across multiple divisions somewhere at a ground near you; and whilst it’s not being broadcast on Fox, or featured in the latest video game, it is accessible for a bargain price compared to the A-League – and while the A-League’s gates are shut, any football is good football.

What’s more, some of the things we dream about for the A-League – promotion and relegation, a cup competition that spans multiple divisions – are already present in these local competitions. Just this weekend in WA we saw the magic fixturing a cup draw can bring; an all-Premier quarter final clash between last year’s League winners Balcatta and overall champions (that is, finals series winners) Perth SC. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, traditional Premier League heavyweights Floreat Athena welcome a team not from the Premier League, not from Division One, not even from Division Two – but from the Sunday League in the form of ‘cupsetters’ Hamersley Rovers. Such a fixture is something that A-League fans would desperately love to see in future – but if they really wanted to, they could be watching it now.

This, I think, is something that Australian football fans don’t often appreciate. By having a league in winter and A-League in summer, we essentially have football all year round. How crazy is that? If we’re asked to think of somewhere that we can find football at any time of year, we might suggest Brazil or perhaps England – but what do you know, we pretty much have football 24/7 in our own backyard!

It’s the off-season you say? Well, I ask you – what off-season? In my eyes, the Australian football season never ends. There’s a veritable feast of the round ball game out there – you just have to want to be part of it.