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The Melbourne Heart coach said he accepted the extended off-season was part of the present A-League landscape, but doesn’t agree with it.

“It’s the way it is. You can say it’s good, it’s bad but the only thing that I can say is it’s not good for the league,” he told au.fourfourtwo.com after Thursday’s training session.  

“It’s not helping; it’s not helping at all. It’s not good if you want to be a serious competition.”

This particular off-season is longer than in the past due to the delayed kick-off to A-League season seven, which has been pushed back from the usual August launch to early October.

The FFA argued that this move would help give the league some clear air-space across the media coming just after the finals series in both the NRL and AFL.

For Melbourne Heart, this pre-season is made even longer by the fact that the red and whites missed last season’s finals and didn’t have an involvement in the 2011 Asian Champions League.

The Dutch coach added that even in a normal off-season next year when the league finishes in April, it’s still too long.

“Next season we will have five months off and that can never be good for the soccer [in Australia],” he said.

“If you want to make it clear to the outside world that we’re taking soccer serious in Australia, then they should make the league more extended with a league of nine months and a three month off-season.

“Which is already long but there has to be something in place to have meaningful games before we start the league, maybe Cup games?”

There has been talk of an FA Cup competition run by the FFA, with the possibility it could be played during the off-season.

Van’t Schip supports this idea as a positive development for next season. And many would also support it as a way to not only generate interest during the drawn-out off-season but generate money.

In fact, Heart were due to play in Victoria’s own “FA Cup” style knockout competition during this off-season.

However FFA canned the involvement of both Heart and Victory Victoria’s knockout Mirabella Cup, which is currently in its latter stages.

The former Dutch national assistant coach added: “The more games on a high level the more high intensity training sessions you have because the motivation is different.

“The importance of training is bigger when you know you have big games coming up.And in the games, you learn the most. That’s what they have to change, to get more important games.

“If you are talking about developing then you should make a league that plays for nine months. It’s better for everybody, the league, the players, the coaches and the interest of the game.

"You have to keep on staying in the attention of the TV and media and fans."

In the meantime, Heart will continue their impressive community program with games, training and promotions across country Victoria next month.

And an eye-catching Internet-based promotion involving Heart is set to launch in late August.

Heart kick-off their A-League season on October 8 against the Jets in Newcastle. Two weeks later they face Victory in the much-anticipated Melbourne derby.

CLICK HERE TO SEE HEART TRAIN