The Australian Championship Thread

[Andonis1997]

I have to say, if this is accurate, seeing some of these proud historical clubs put their hand up for contention is making me pretty excited!!

FA neeeeed to get this decision right

 

[acm21]

 

[Munga]

Apparently the confirmed list to date:

Queensland
Peninsula Power
Olympic FC
Sunshine Coast Fire
Gold Coast Knights
Wynnum Wolves
Brisbane United (new entity rumoured to be Wynnum and Strikers merger)
NSW
APIA
Marconi
Sydney Olympic
Sydney United
Wollongong Wolves
Victoria
Heidelberg United
Melbourne Knights
South Melbourne
Hume City
Preston Lions
Brunswick Juventus
Caroline Springs George Cross
Tasmania
South Hobart
South Australia
Adelaide City

19 or 20 entities at the moment.

 

[Munga]

Put a line through them. They'll be lucky to be in the NPL if FA actually enforce the sanctions they put forward last time!

 

[Munga]

 

[Andonis1997]

Out of those clubs, I'd say only one gets in, and that's Preston... I hope.

 

[whiskeytown]

Love the idea of a 2nd division… it will help lift the standard and professionalism of Australian football

but no way will it result in promotion to the A league

A League licence and operations will be much more expensive… and 2nd division clubs won’t have viable stadiums

We really going to have Melbourne Victory play Melbourne Knights at Somner st??

The alternative is even more teams sharing aami park

A key in the viability of a 2nd division success is scheduling games at different times to A league games so a person can feasibly be both a Melbourne Victory fan and a South Melbourne fan on the same weekend

 

[giggler99]

Love the idea of a 2nd division… it will help lift the standard and professionalism of Australian football

but no way will it result in promotion to the A league

A League licence and operations will be much more expensive… and 2nd division clubs won’t have viable stadiums

We really going to have Melbourne Victory play Melbourne Knights at Somner st??

The alternative is even more teams sharing aami park

A key in the viability of a 2nd division success is scheduling games at different times to A league games so a person can feasibly be both a Melbourne Victory fan and a South Melbourne fan on the same weekend

Promotion and relegation will eventually happen its the whole point of this league getting up. It will need to go through a few teething problems and be viable and financially stable as a league before it can happen. You can't just look at it as automatic promotion like in Europe at first. The promoted team will need to meet a set of criteria for it to be accepted into the A-League. lets say for example Melbourne Knights get promoted and meet all the criteria of financial, stadium, sponsors, memberships etc.. they could easily play out of Knights Stadium but big games against Victory, City or even WSW would probably be played at AAMI to maximize attendance that could easily be an arrangement. Not sure if it is possible to schedule matches to be at different times to A-League matches you'll just have to plan your way around both leagues.

 

[whiskeytown]

Promotion and relegation will eventually happen its the whole point of this league getting up. It will need to go through a few teething problems and be viable and financially stable as a league before it can happen. You can't just look at it as automatic promotion like in Europe at first. The promoted team will need to meet a set of criteria for it to be accepted into the A-League. lets say for example Melbourne Knights get promoted and meet all the criteria of financial, stadium, sponsors, memberships etc.. they could easily play out of Knights Stadium but big games against Victory, City or even WSW would probably be played at AAMI to maximize attendance that could easily be an arrangement. Not sure if it is possible to schedule matches to be at different times to A-League matches you'll just have to plan your way around both leagues.

It might be the goal… but the money won’t be there for promotion

And no A league team will pay A league fees knowing that they could be demoted to playing in a comp

Melbourne knights have 3,000 seats… 15,000 capacity

3,000 seats should be the minimum standard for a national 2nd division side…

South Melbourne is 6,000 seats but still too small for A league requirements

Any team that can afford to have a 10,000-15,000 seated stadium will be considered for an A league promotion - sure

But feasibly there’s only a few teams that could muster that … IF they get a big injection of cash

I’m in favour of a national 2nd division… it’s well over due and will lift the standard of the game in Australia

But promotion and relegation will financially be an unrealised goal for mine… given that some teams in the A league financially struggle already

 

[GC2015]

Love the idea of a 2nd division… it will help lift the standard and professionalism of Australian football

but no way will it result in promotion to the A league

A League licence and operations will be much more expensive… and 2nd division clubs won’t have viable stadiums

We really going to have Melbourne Victory play Melbourne Knights at Somner st??

The alternative is even more teams sharing aami park

A key in the viability of a 2nd division success is scheduling games at different times to A league games so a person can feasibly be both a Melbourne Victory fan and a South Melbourne fan on the same weekend

I would have thought the stadium situation would be fairly simple. Melbourne will have a second rectangular stadium suitable for A-League tenants in a few years from now when the Wyndham City Stadium is completed so four Melbourne-based A-League teams won't have any issues sharing the two rectangular stadiums. Then you've also got Marvel and even Kardinia Park if you really need it. If it becomes obvious that even more Melbourne teams are going to get promoted into the A-League then the state government/local councils will step in a put together a proposal for another Wyndham City like project but the point is that there will be enough suitable stadia for four Melbourne-based A-League teams when promotion-relegation is on the cards in a few years from now. Sydney and Brisbane have plenty of rectangular grounds so that won't be an issue and Adelaide/Perth are able to share existing A-League grounds with the United and Glory. Wollongong, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast also have suitable rectangular stadiums. Tasmania are probably the only real concern in my mind but perhaps this new stadium in Hobart could be the answer if it's built in a convertible way.

I think Football Australia will run this NSD for a few years and will figure out which teams can financially handle the situation if they were to be promoted into the A-League and they'll weed out the ones that can't do it. Then once they are confident with all NSD teams, they'll introduce promotion-relegation. Correct me if I'm wrong here but aren't they planning to play the NSD season over the winter months? Meaning there won't be any schedule clashing issues with the A-League?

 

[acm21]

In reality the crowd capacity of most venues would be perfectly fine to hold games. 5-10k is a good capacity and with consistent national league games the funding, both private and public, would become available for these clubs to increase capacity and create a better environment.

Alot of the finances aren't there yet, but that's why they are doing this league. Give it 5 years, the aleagues value would have grown (with more commercial funding that has been lacking from the ffa years) and thus second tier will be in a spot that commercially and standard of play will allow for these teams to step up.

 

[Munga]

Not official, just an estimate:

 

[Zidane98]

Wonder what the criteria will be for a license? I'd go for 3 year licenses to start with.


Requirements:


Fully professional
Stadium requirements Min 5000 seats covered / 10k total min capacity
Broadcast facilities
Media facilities
Womens / Youf a must

At the end of the first 3 years all clubs that hit criteria have the option of a second 3 year term. This is the point where relegation / promotion is brought in. 1 team promoted / relegated for the first 5 years. Then switch to 2 teams up/down permanently.

 

[Munga]

 

[Munga]

 

[Munga]

Big day, submissions end 5pm EST today.

 

[giggler99]

still no Vic teams?

 

[Munga]

still no Vic teams?

Just Preston and Heidelberg officially

 

[giggler99]

Just Preston and Heidelberg officially

ahh ok I didn't see their EOI confirmed, glade Heidelberg are interested.

 

[Zidane98]

Just Preston and Heidelberg officially

South are surely gonna put in an application although they may believe (stupidly) that they should go straight into the A League.

 

[Zidane98]

Disappointed there's no Gippsland application. Already have a stadium with 4k covered seats ready to go from the Falcons NSL days.

 

[Munga]

South are surely gonna put in an application although they may believe (stupidly) that they should go straight into the A League.

Wouldn't surprise me if there's a publicity angle to all this, drip feeding announcements, saving the big ones until last. Maybe even waiting until after the A-League is completed this weekend. Just a thought, and taking a leaf from the AFL PR machine haha

 

[Munga]

Canberra stepping up

 

[Andonis1997]

Canberra stepping up

Black and white stripes? Perfect replacement for Macarthur

 

[Munga]

Haven't has time to read it all, but looks like three clubs coming together, Wynnum, Strikers and Virginia!