FFA’s new Head of Communications and Corporate Affairs Kyle Patterson spoke exclusively with au.fourfourtwo.com about next season.

He said after six seasons the league should be proud of what it’s achieved but said the FFA would “reboot” the competition.

“A strategic review has been done and without giving away the details I can say we’ll play more games in clear air which means overlap with NRL, AFL and Super Rugby won’t be a factor because we’ll readjust the calendar,” Patterson said.

“And midweek games for a long time even going back to the NSL have been a hard sell for fans. We’ve got a response where we think we can cluster midweek games into the holiday period. So you sort of change the dynamics of that with kids and adults being on holiday.

“And in terms of the league itself we need to do a little reboot. After six years we need to freshen up the brand. There will be more resources put into that so I’m pretty bullish about it [the league].”

Coincidentally the word “reboot” was used to describe the start of the new A-League in 2005 following the demise of the old NSL some 16 months earlier.

Resources and marketing have been a thorny issue in the last couple of years with the perception – rightly or wrongly – that the World Cup bid took away funds and focus.

And while Patterson didn’t specify amounts of resources for next season, the FFA clearly see the A-League 7 as a fork in the road in rebuilding the game’s profile ahead of the next broadcast deal in 2013. 

“We need to fundamentally reposition the game as being the best you’ll see,” added Patterson, a life-long football supporter and former broadcaster with SBS-TV.

“Brisbane Roar is the greatest example from last year. If we can have that kind of football being played, the league won’t have too many problems selling itself,” he added.

“The A-League is a wonderful product and I don’t want to disparage those who invested money and followed the NSL and spent their lives working on it, but it never quite had the structure right,” Patterson added.

“I believe the A-League has the right structure – it’s got a professional structure with over 200 players on professional contracts.

“I think last year the aggregate salary pool was $26m. In 2003/4 I’d guess that number would be much less so we’ve increased the pool and given more Australian kids the chance to play football here.

“So the fundamentals are there but again, going back to the 1.7m people [counted as football community people] ... it’s not about saying to those people you must support the A-League, it’s about saying to the entire football community you all have something to gain from the A-League being strong.

“If the A-League is strong, the game is strong.”

Patterson added that while the Socceroos are a potent marketing tool for the game their marketing peaks for four weeks every four years at a World Cup – if we qualify.

"The shop front in this market is the A-League," he stressed.

"We need to re-engage with those 1.7m football community people in a way that makes them go, ‘Yep, I’d like to watch live A-League football’”.