What's the secret plan, Lyall?

I have to apologise to fans of both Heart and Melbourne for the circumstances surrounding the Melbourne Derby being postponed by a week.

During the week, a forum thread had gone up criticising the lack of media coverage the derby was receiving in favour of the AFL Grand Final. Jokingly on Tuesday I remarked "Imagine what will happen if Collingwood & St Kilda draw on Saturday". The rest, as they say, is history.

In the coverage as to why the derby was moved, new A-League big cheese Lyall Gorman stated "This is one of our marquee games and it is important that we give our fans every opportunity to get to the game and be part of history".

I call booshwa (I'm told that this is a fancy way of saying ‘bullshit') on your assertions, Mr Gorman, and it's another example of the FFA and A-League pathetically allowing the movements of other codes motivate their actions without bothering to think about inconveniencing the leagues own blindly loyal supporters.

By all reports, ticket sales (inclusive of Heart members) were nearing the 20,000 mark more than a week before the match. After the colossal SNAFU of the games actual ticketing - this was looking like it was easily going to sell out, regardless of an AFL rematch.

By moving the game to the following weekend, you have ensured that a few of the paying patrons I was taking to the game are now unable to attend. By moving the game to a Friday night instead of a Saturday, you have ensured that my considerable block of attendees has now shrunk by half. How is moving the game giving more fans an opportunity to attend when they have already re-arranged their schedules to accommodate the game in the first place?

Adding insult to injury, AAMI Park will now be used as a "live site" for unlucky AFL fans to watch the game. Thank goodness the State Government stood in and saved these poor souls from the nightmare of having to watch a game in a pub - or even worse, the confines of their own living rooms.

A well respected football journalist that writes for The Age, Michael Lynch, has echoed Gorman's sentiments in his editorial entitled "A-League had little to gain from clash with AFL finale". The one thing that Lynchy fails to mention is that the ‘clash' that existed was only for Richmond precinct pub space with the AFL likely to be over more than an hour and a half before the derby was to kick off - not TV space, not newspaper columns and not advertising space. I say these things don't clash, because they're never prominently visible for the A-League anyway.

I'm not sure about you, but I'm pretty fed up with being told that there is going to be a huge media & marketing blitz at the conclusion of AFL & NRL seasons only to be completely underwhelmed by the half-arsedness that goes into the process of preaching to the already converted. Perhaps there's a secret plan that we don't know about yet.

Will I be eating my words in a few weeks and raving about the FFA's wonderful fresh approach to marketing their much neglected league? I hope so, but I doubt it.