12 of the 13 players on our rich list are all approaching this stage (we have excluded the 27-year old Scott McDonald) - Lucas Neill, Harry Kewell, Tim Cahill, Vince Grella, Scott Chipperfield, Mark Schwarzer, Craig Moore, Zeljko Kalac, Brett Emerton, Mark Bresciano and Josip Skoko. Even a man with a questionable affection for the game, Mark Viduka, could be looking to invest, or part invest with former colleagues, in an A-League side.

Then you have the non-Australian investors. Perth Glory's Robbie Fowler was the fourth richest footballer, tied with England and Manchester United captain Rio Ferdinand, on last year's FourFourTwo UK rich list. His worth was estimated at just under $50m, mainly through some shrewd investments in properties in England's North. From here you also have all the non-football backers from other sports or show business.

The key is making the A-League seem an attractive proposition for these returning Australian stars looking for their next investment at home. With them comes fiscal backing, an increased media profile and someone for casual fans to feel attached to.

Hosting the World Cup
Out of Australian hands after presenting the 2022 bid book and showing round the FIFA suits at the end of July, but winning hosting right for the world's biggest sporting spectacle could dictate the future of the A-League.

The MLS was launched off the back of USA 94, as requested by FIFA ahead of awarding the finals stateside, with the league starting proper in 1996. The finals two years prior had stoked the fires of interest.

The USA also nailed their hosting rights in the most perfect manner. The tournament's average attendance was just shy of 69,000 - breaking records that had stood since the pre-all-seater stadia days of the 1950 World Cup. Even when the World Cup extended its format in 1998 from 24 to 32 teams (resulting in 64 rather than 52 games) the total attendance of 3.6m for USA 94 wasn't surpassed.

Despite a far more modest population in Australia, the insatiable thirst of our public to consume world-class sport in whatever form would surely rival such figures. Take the 110,000 spectators at the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic games as testimony to that.

"The 1994 World Cup created an enormous buzz and indeed convinced many investors that soccer could work in the USA," says Hopkins. "However the MLS didn't launch until two years later and much of the impetus was lost.

"However, in 2022 the league will have 24 teams, 24 soccer-specific stadiums and a 26 year of 'history' ready to truly capitalise as soon as the final whistle blows. So it is huge for the USA.

"It would equally stimulate further interest in US Soccer over the next 12 years in the build up to the World Cup, building increased confidence that soccer is both here to stay and importantly a profitable sport to be involved in," says Hopkins.

It seems Hopkins and his fellow Americans are thinking exactly the same as us about the vital 2022 World Cup bid. Considering 2018 will almost certainly go back to Europe, USA and Australia are the frontrunners for 2022, with Qatar probably the third most likely option at this stage. Is the MLS or A-League set to benefit from the FIFA nod for hosting rights of a tournament some 12 years away still? The hosting decision date - December 2, 2010 - is quite possibly the most important date in the history of Australian football.

Socceroo success
Like landing the bid, it is difficult to rely on the results of the national team for success, but that doesn't lessen its importance, as the MLS has shown.

The biggest resurgence in MLS history was sparked by the national team's performances at the 2002 World Cup in Japan/Korea. The USA beat the likes of Portugal and rivals Mexico en route to making the quarters. Four months after the 2002 World Cup finals, the MLS Cup (the US soccer Grand Final) set an attendance record as a sellout crowd of 61,316 saw Los Angeles Galaxy win their first title.

Will a valiant effort by the Socceroos during the group stages of South Africa be enough to give A-League crowds a shot in the arm?
"The USA's performances at 2002 were important but more in instilling confidence in investors than flooding the MLS gates," says Hopkins.

"2006 was a poor World Cup for the USA but MLS was not impacted. South Africa 2010 was the highest rated and most watched World Cup in US history and the team's performance has earned it respect around the world and at home."

Hopkins says that MLS gates are now up in the wake the USA reaching the knock-out stages in South Africa, but he offers a warning that domestic success must stem from something more solid and predictable than intermittent international success.

"There is a buzz around the sport at the moment, but ultimately for the core fans the 'club' must stand on its own two feet and engender loyalty and support in its own right," says Hopkins. "So the answer is yes, of course the success of the USA national team helps, but ultimately for the other 47 months, when there is not a World Cup, the 'club' must resonate."

Sign major marquee players
"For TV ratings, excitement and quality of play, you do need stars. And maybe more than two per team," says Grant Wahl, author of The Beckham Experiment: How the World's Most Famous Athlete Tried to Conquer America. Despite Wahl's star endorsement and the fact that Beckham's arrival had a positive financial impact on LA Galaxy, drawing sold-out crowds, additional owners and sponsors plus an increase in merchandise sales, his book largely chastised Beckham's arrival and labeled the experiment a failure.

A-League clubs have two marquee slots - an Australian and other marquee.

That's 22 spots open to the 11 clubs. Only eight of them are filled, with only two non-Australian marquees - Robbie Fowler at Perth Glory and Paul Ifill at Wellington Phoenix.

In this country, more than 80,000 came to watch Beckham's LA Galaxy in 2007, while over 40,000 watched Tim Cahill's Everton in Sydney this year. Where are these fair-weather fans the rest of the year? While the average A-League attendance was a paltry 9,796 last season, it was 10,482 when Fowler's North Queensland Fury was in town.

While not a overly-colossal spike (it would have been higher had Fury not have played away at Gold Coast in the first game after Clive Palmer closed three of their stands, resulting in a protesting season-low crowd of 2,616 turning up for Fowler), it showed the interest is there if the stars are too.

If every A-League side had a marquee of Fowler's status, we could assume such an uplift in all 172 A-League games and that's nearly 180,000 extra ticket sales (at $20 a ticket that's nearly $2.4m in additional ticket revenue). Over 16,000 packed into Perth's nib Stadium for the opening game of this season, some 6,814 higher than Glory's average last season.

Not only are A-League clubs failing to use the marquee system fully, when they are it is a case of aiming too low - Jade North, Mile Sterjovski and Josip Skoko as marquees? Virtually pointless.

Engage the ex-pats
Lining up alongside former Arsenal and France forward Thierry Henry at the New York Red Bulls next season is another new signing that is arguably just as important to the success of the MLS - Mexican Rafael Márquez. The former Barcelona defender is approaching 100 caps for the national team, a team heavily supported by Mexican MLS fans.

Elsewhere, Polish Americans make up 6.7 per cent of Chicago's population, that's 182,064 people. When Chicago Fire formed in 1997, it instantly tapped into the city's diverse ethnic make-up by signing Polish players Piotr Nowak, Jerzy Podbrozny and Roman Kosecki, alongside Mexican Jorge Campos and Czech Lubos Kubik. They won the MLS Cup in their first season.

Chicago added Polish stars Tomasz Frankowski and Lider Marmol in 2008. Their crowds surpass 21,000 in the play-offs and have a season average that would only be matched by Melbourne Victory in the A-League.

"The MLS uses players from everywhere and appeals to a fan base that are not necessarily USA fans," says Hopkins. "For example, the Hispanic influence in American soccer is huge with Mexico and Central American soccer fans big followers."

Few countries in the world have such cultural diversity as Australia. While overzealous Balkan rivalries defined much of the former NSL, has the shiny new A-League gone too far in the other direction, pushing many passionate fans away from the game? We need a middle-ground to maintain the A-League stable and regenerate interest from ex-pats who have felt alienated by the A-League.

The majority of Australia's key ex-pat communities are from football-mad countries - European nations like Greece, England, Ireland, Croatia, Turkey, with a healthy spread of Asian residents.

Again, Fowler in English-laden Perth is a smart move which is working, but why don't Melbourne Victory or Heart have any Greek players in their roster? Why do Sydney FC have no Croatian or Turkish players and only low profile Asian players - Hiro Moriyasu has never represented Japan, while Byun Sung-Hwan has just two caps for South Korea?

While it would be foolhardy to swallow these MLS lessons whole, it would be churlish to ignore them. Why disregard a successful model in a comparative nation?

Let's hope the FFA agree with us...

This article appeared in the October 2010 issue of FourFourTwo magazine. To buy back copies of this issue call 03-8317-8121 with a credit card to hand.