A-League football has never seen anything quite like it. Season 2010/2011 has turned up the style and quality for the neutral observer, with Brisbane Roar running rampant in a style akin to the Strikers of 1996 and looking to take the title outside of NSW and Victoria for the first time in Australian football’s new era. Elsewhere, Adelaide United have played some very good football and will be looking to crash Brisbane’s party in the finals series - while Central Coast Mariners and Gold Coast United loom as dark horses who shouldn’t be underestimated on their day.
Australian players such as Robbie Kruse, Scott Neville, Matthew Leckie, Archie Thompson and Jason Culina have shown that the league has much to showcase in the way of local talent; and imports like Carlos Hernandez, Juan Carlos Solorzano, Thomas Broich, and Marcos Flores prove that A-League foreign players have come a very long way from the days of Brian Deane and Lei Lei Gao. Fans have even seen less of players like Jeremy Christie, James Robinson, and Steven McMahon Jr, a sign of the improving recruitment strategies of the A-League franchises.
The increase in the quality of play isn’t just down to the players, either. A new breed of coach, those with significant experience outside of Australia or at a higher level than the national league, are bringing with them better tactics and a more technical approach to training. The likes of Rini Coolen, Vitezslav Lavicka, and even former Young Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou have all enjoyed great success. The league has certainly come a long way since the likes of Steve McMahon, Terry Butcher, Richard Money, and John Adshead were heading up squads - though a few relics still remain here and there.
Overall, you’d think things are looking pretty rosy for football in this country - but if you picked up a newspaper, flicked on the TV, or jumped on an internet forum, you’d be shocked to discover you were terribly wrong. Clubs are bleeding money, dodgy stadium deals are ensuring terrible pitches are served up in exchange for high fees, and administrators of the game are tightening their belts to the extent that they care not if franchises they pushed to have installed die off. It has lead to infighting amongst the national body and the football media, with even Simon Hill moved to defend the right of football journalists to probe the game’s problems - and what they view as poor decisions.
So, what’s really going on? It certainly doesn’t really make sense to say on one hand that we’ve never had it so good if on the other we’ve got franchises losing $6 million a year.
Fancy Football and Failing Finance
Most clubs in the A-League are playing much better football than what they were when the league began. It’s quite easy to put this down to the fact that we’ve now got players like Robbie Fowler rather than Henry Fa’arodo, but of course it is not quite that simple. There have always been quality individuals - think Dwight Yorke, Bobby Despotovski, and Steve Corica - it’s more that they’re now part of much better units.
Personally, I believe you can put this down to two factors - one is the growth of the salary cap and the tripling of the marquee position; the other is the quality of manager that are now getting attracted to the A-League. Certainly it would be difficult to imagine the Perth Glory of 2005-06 being able to fit Mile Sterjovski, Jacob Burns, Chris Coyne, Victor Sikora, and the other big names under the salary cap of season one - even without Robbie Fowler taking up the marquee wages. But opposing this argument is that this very squad sits second last on the table with the most goals conceded of any A-League team; not to mention some of the worst footballing ‘highlights’ of 2009/10.
How can this be? Well, one of Perth’s closest rivals for the wooden spoon, North Queensland Fury, holds part of the answer. Fury have a squad full of green youngsters, state league players, and rejects from other A-League clubs - yet they’ve formed a cohesive unit and battled valiantly all year; they’re only two points behind Perth whilst being on a comparatively shoestring budget. Much of this can be attributed to their coach Franz Straka, a man with European experience and a jacketful of charisma. Despite their precarious situation, and the fact that they’re owned by the FFA, Straka has been on the attack against his employers - stating quite clearly how he feels about their job with the season fixtures, and how difficult they are making his job by threatening to close the franchise down and not allowing any players to re-sign. It’s an attitude that has galvanised not just his players, but the local community (they continue to pull bigger crowds than Clive Palmer’s Gold Coast) and the wider football family.
Answers too can be found at Central Coast, Brisbane, and Adelaide - all three clubs are flying high this season, and all three have coaches that have well and truly enough experience and quality for the A-League. Graham Arnold for example might have been attacked for his work with the Socceroos and Olyroos, but you’d be hard pressed to argue that he doesn’t have the credentials to work the A-League. Perth, by contrast, have a manager who is still learning to ply his trade at A-League level. Ferguson does not have any accredited licences, and his early results with the Glory suggest he is adopting a sporadic trial-and-error approach to strategy rather than having a set idea of how his team should be playing the game. Contrast this with Ange Postecoglou at Brisbane, whose team have been redesigned around a singular football philosophy, and you can see just how far Perth have to go before they can walk among the A-League’s best sides.
Unlike the quality of coaching, extra marquees and the increased salary cap have also had negative effects on the A-League; placing extra strain on already debt-ridden club budgets. Sydney, so long a haven for ‘star’ signings, will lose $6 million this year. That they are not being examined in greater depth is likely in no small part due to the fact that they are seen as a integral part of the league by FFA head and Sydney FC supporter Frank Lowy. Perth Glory will lose three to four million this year, with another three million projected loss for next season; but owner Tony Sage seems unfazed as it is no doubt possible for him to use it as a tax offset on his mining interests. In retrospect, the decision to increase the salary cap when clubs were already struggling with finances seems a bit non-sensical. Make no mistake - yours truly was one of many fans very happy when the extra marquee slots opened up and clubs had a bit more money to spread around - but we’ve seen this year that money is not the deciding factor in league success. If it was, Central Coast and Perth would find their ladder positions quickly reversed.
It’s all well and good to ask for higher quality players in the A-League; the like of Fowler and Flores. But it does seem counter-productive if you’re bringing these players out to play in empty stadiums like the Gold Coast. Sugardaddy owner or not, that’s just not a maintainable scenario.The wages spent on some of these players could surely be better used elsewhere; or not used at all - thus contributing back to the club’s bottom line. This, my dear readers, is where the true madness of the current situation sinks in.
Waste for Want
Let’s say you have a high-profile player like Mile Sterjovski on the books at your club, and he’s being paid $400,000 a year. Now that’s a decent amount of money, and you’d want to see a return on it. Let’s also say that he’s scored a few goals, assisted in some others, but generally not hit the heights expected of a former Socceroo. In fact, by his own standards his season could be considered disappointing. Now he’s still going to be paid $400,000 - so how are we going to get our money’s worth? By having him constantly engaging in the community off-field, of course. A high profile signing interacting with juniors, entertaining at shopping centres, and visiting schools - a perfect way to bring people to the game. Unfortunately though, this isn’t happening. So what is this $400,000 now? A waste. A true waste considering a man on $100,000 a year could do the exact same job.
What’s more - imagine how many weeks that spare $300,000 could buy you at shopping centres. You could practically have a presence across the Perth metro area all year if you wanted to. Just imagine - every couple of weeks on the weekend (and not when the kids are playing their junior games), you hire a temp site in the centre of a community shopping complex, set up a goal, a small amount of synthetic turf, and bring down team joker Naum Sekulovski and family man Chris Coyne to interact with kids and parents. Hold a ‘keepie-up’ competition and give the two winners - one boy, one girl - free passes to the next game. Everyone who competes gets a prize - a 2 for 1 admission voucher, a Glory sticker set, a mini football. Chris has a chat with parents about junior football, his own experiences as a junior, his time in the state league, and of course going overseas. Naum acts like a clown and keeps the kids amused. Hold a spot kick competition as well, with a similar set of prizes. Stay there for a few hours in the morning, a few hours in the afternoon, and pack up and go home by 3pm. How easy is that?
Other activities cost nothing but time. How about sending the likes of Mile Sterjovski, Andy Todd, and Robbie Fowler down to a few under 16s games to act as a guest referee? How great would it be, as a 15 year old Perth kid, to have Robbie Fowler call you offside then tap you on the shoulder and whisper a couple of tips about positioning? Frankly, I think it would be sensational. Some players already have close links to the state league as well - Chris Coyne was present to see Perth SC beat the Western Knights at the state league grand final a couple of years back; and Jamie Harnwell had his testimonial match at old club Sorrento’s home ground. It wouldn’t be hard to get these guys involved in building links between state and national league clubs.
There are a lot of good things happening on-field in the A-League at the moment; unfortunately, franchises don’t seem to know how to capitalise on this. There’s too much talk of profit and loss at the moment, and too little of hearts and minds. It’s high time A-League administrators realised that sometimes you don’t need to buy attendances; you just need to do a bit of work in your own backyard. Often, as demonstrated above, it doesn’t even cost you money. Instead of bleating about multi-million dollar losses, consider if the money you’re paying Stu Musalik, Mile Sterjovski, Ricardinho, or anyone else could be better spent telling people about the rest of the team?
If football is to be the game of the Australian people - you’ve got to take it out to them. Social media. Shopping centres. Training camps. School visits. Discounts for juniors or state league club members. The more work you do in your community, the more your community will give back to you. If there’s any point at all that I could hammer home to A-League franchises, it is exactly that.
If you want to build a future, to build a club, you need a community to help you grow. And the community won’t come to you - you’ve got to go to it. That’s where the real profits are to be made.
