Last season, Gold Coast United had the lowest average attendance in the A-League. On average 5,392 people turned up to United home games. That's almost 100 less than Newcaste Jets. Only three teams had a higher average than that of the league average. Melbourne Victory, Sydney FC and Adeleide United. Across the board, attendances were abysmal.
I am of the firm belief that the reason for the lack of crowds is down purely to culture; or the lack of football culture in Australia.
I'm a proud England boy. Football was, and still is, a vital part of my life. I was raised on the terraces. Everyday, when you picked up a newspaper in England, on the back page was something about football. The majority of the sport pages were taken up by match reports, transfer rumours, player interviews and pundit columns. In Australia, you're lucky to get a couple of articles a week about football.
Australia is a rugby and AFL country. Kids are raised on these sports, depending on what part of Australia they are from. I don't think that it is conceivable that football can get the attendances that the NRL and AFL can anytime soon. Not until the FFA encourage football in schools.
When children play football, it is normally at a young age. Once they reach an age where they are bigger and stronger, parents encourage them to take part in the more physical sports; like rugby and AFL. Football is often referred to as a soft sport. To be fair, it isn't a contact sport, but it takes more skill in football to round three defenders and put one past the keeper than it does to outrun a few boofheads and fall over a line.
Because of the majority of adults in Australia, who support the NRL and/or AFL, children don't want to play football when they get older. And this also in turn, means that people don't want to attend football matches, because they don't play it, and they haven't supported it since childhood.
So what needs to be done to solve the attendance issue not only on the Gold Coast, but throughout the league?
Football needs to be promoted in every way possible. Schools. TV. Radio. Newspapers. Anything and everything that can get publicise something needs to be used.
On Australia Day this year, I went to a fair type of thing with my family. At the fair, there was pig-racing, novelty games and stands from Gold Coast sporting franchises. The Titans had one, with two players signing posters, the GCFC had one, also with players signing posters, and the Blaze team had a stand with players giving kids oppurtunities to win balls and the such. There was not a single Gold Coast United stand or player at the fair. If the football doesn't go to the people, the people won't go to the football.
Players should be sent to schools to have training clinics with young children, at no cost to the schools. Imagine this; you're 9 years old. Jason Culina is at your school playing football with you. What do you want to do after he's gone? You want to see more of him, so you try and persuade your parents to take you to Gold Coast United games. One kid + two parents = three more people at the game. Imagine this across the whole of the Gold Coast, with more than just one child at a school.
Until this is done, attendances will continue to be low, and will start to decline even further.
The FFA, in my opinion, have made a fatal mistake in having the next two franchises in Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney FC and Victory had the highest average attendances in the league last season. Now some fans may have decided to jump ship, and join the Rovers and Heart bandwagons.
Come on FFA, one city-one team. Think of the cities that don't have a team; Canberra, Tasmania (yes, I realise this isn't a city, but could still be worthy of an A-League franchise), Sunshine Coast, perhaps another New Zealand side. Putting two teams in one city bears the risk of diminishing and diluting the fan base even more.
Now, ticket prices.
Prices were announced for tickets to home games for the upcoming season, and I was largely disappointed; not just from my point of view, but also from people who were considering venturing to Skilled Park to watch the boys in gold and blue.
For a ticket in the home bay, adults need to pay $25.00, with a concession price of $21.00. And for a ticket in the normal seating, an adult would pay $25.00, a child $14.00 and a concession of $21.00.
In my opinion, this is far too high. I know numerous people who were considering attending home matches this year, but when I told them the prices for tickets, they were put off instantly. Most of them said that children should be free with a paying adult, and an adult ticket should be $20.00 at the most.
I'm not saying that the FFA have made no attempt at all to promote football in Australia and Sydney's Festival of Football has been a good idea. Bringing three of some of the top names in Europe to play against Sydney FC is a good idea. Showcasing the best that football has to offer is an attraction to most football fans in Australia. But that's the problem; football fans. It's unlikely that an average punter will have heard of Rangers, Blackburn or AEK Athens.
Newcomers not only need a reason to attend a game, but a reason to keep attending matches. You need to be able to provide the public something for nothing.
In England, I would regularly attend Peterborough United home matches. Every home match, at half-time, the club would hold a draw where they would pick ticket numbers out of a barrel. If you had the ticket number that they called out, you'd win either a free ticket to the next match, or a sum of money.
Giving people the opportunity to win something with minimal effort is a brilliant way of getting people to attend games. Not only do they get entertained for 90 minutes, they also get a chance to get some money in their pocket, or come to the next game for free.
Another thing that happens in English football that this league is sorely missing; a match programme.
At every professional club in England, you can buy a small club programme. Inside you have interviews with players. Normally the club captain and manager write an article about the goings on at the club. This doesn't cost the club a thing really; they sell advertising in the programme, and they charge a small fee for the programme, which normally gets either put back into the club, or to a local charity. Either way, we all feel better people.
I leave you with this, until the right people make the right moves, football will always be a second-rate sport in Australia.
Clive Palmer, Gold Coast United, FFA; your move.
